Official Monster Raving Loony Party - History - Electoral Performance

Electoral Performance

In 1987, the OMRLP won its first seat on Ashburton Town Council in Devon, as Alan "Howling Laud" Hope was elected unopposed. He subsequently became Deputy Mayor and later Mayor of Ashburton in 1998 (mainly opposed by the local Conservatives; they never forgave him for becoming a member of the OMRLP) until he moved to Hampshire after Sutch's death. For over a decade, his hotel "The Golden Lion" in Ashburton (referred to by some in the party as "The Mucky Mog" for reasons apparent to anyone visiting it for the first time) was the party's headquarters and conference centre.

The first Raving Loony to win as a result of a straight vote rather than an uncontested election was Stuart Hughes, taking the "safe" Conservative seat of Sidmouth Woolbrook on East Devon District Council in May 1991. He then took a seat on Sidmouth Town Council from the Conservatives the following day. His success was met with hostility from the local Tories. Hughes' reaction was to attempt to make their lives a misery for the next three years by refusing to pay his Community Charge (also known as the Poll Tax), then dumping scrap metal in the middle of the council chambers to the value of his unpaid tax when threatened with legal action. He also formed an alliance known as "The Coastals" (because of the seats they held) of Independents and the sole Green Party councillor, giving East Devon's ruling Conservatives the first true opposition they had faced for decades (the local Liberal Democrat and Labour Parties being negligible).

Hughes retained his seats with increased majorities in subsequent elections, and the final humiliation for the Conservatives came when he took the Devon County Council seat from the local party's Chief Whip in the council. Hughes remains a member of all three councils to this day although he now does his politicising— ironically—as a Conservative.

The better organisation of the Raving Loony Green Giant Party (RLGGP), and its success at the polls, proved a wake up call to the OMRLP. At one stage in England during the early 1990s, there were sixteen councillors elected despite having the phrase "Raving Loony" accredited to them. In Scotland, Mark Boyle won a seat on Johnstone Community Council as a joint Official Monster Raving Loony Party and Raving Loony Green Giant Party candidate because he disagreed with the split. (Hughes and Sutch thought having a joint councillor for two warring factions hilarious, Hope less so.) To date, two councillors have subsequently become mayors: Alan Hope in Ashburton, Devon and Chris "Screwy" Driver on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent.

At the Bootle by-election in May 1990, the Loony candidate (Sutch) received more votes than the candidate for the continuing Social Democrats. The OMRLP newsletter for June 1990 released by Alan Hope said "What is going on?" and Sutch himself appeared utterly shocked when interviewed by the BBC after the result was announced.

The story was a major headline in many UK newspapers; ironically, the by-election itself had attracted little coverage. The little media attention there was focused on a bizarre row between Labour and the Raving Loonies. Relations between Labour members and Raving Loonies had never been good, but they reached a new low when the Labour agent tried to have Sutch arrested for breaking an old electoral law forbidding the use of a public house as an election campaign headquarters. This law had been repealed in 1987. The tabloid newspapers then referred to "Kinnock's Killjoys" for the remainder of the campaign's duration.

The result was the last straw for the continuing Social Democrats (centred around former Labour Foreign Secretary and Social Democratic leader David Owen) who had refused to accept the merger of the SDP with the Liberals to form the Liberal Democrats. Rubbing salt in their wounds, Sutch offered in jest to form a coalition with them, but they instead disbanded, though in a repeat of the events of 1988 once again a week later some members voted to carry on. Almost a year after Bootle, the supposedly dead SDP finished fourth at Neath, beating the OMRLP to 5th place in the process, and survive to this day (for the history of the post-Owen SDP, see the continuing Social Democratic Party).

Although there have been far more prestigious Loony results before and after (particularly Monmouth), Bootle is still regarded by Raving Loonies as their finest hour, the watershed moment when they had to be treated as a serious political party, albeit one largely lampooning the political world.

Sutch also defeated a joint Plaid Cymru/Green Party candidate at the bitter Monmouth 1991 by-election and almost beat the ruling Conservative Party's candidate at the Islwyn 1995 by-election later on—but by this time the OMRLP were organised enough to make coming in fourth the norm in by-elections in England and Wales.

The credit for this must lie with John Tempest, a former Liberal/Liberal Democrat press officer and election agent (and co-founder of the award winning Bradford Soup Run charity for the homeless). Together with friend and OMRLP activist Willi Beckett (one of the founders of the anarchist One-In-Twelve Club in Bradford), they transformed the way the party fought elections. From the outset they were determined to make the OMRLP reap the rewards of being the unofficial "protest vote party" of the UK: now posters, car stickers, and a never-ending series of headline-grabbing stunts not only made it easier for the party to gain publicity, but also ensured they were treated fairly by the media (three by-election TV shows were cancelled when the OMRLP used the law to stop them having candidate debates that barred the Loony candidate). The party even managed to attract some corporate sponsorship from the makers of "Monster Munch" crisps & "Spillers" dogfood, albeit to lampoon the manner in which Labour under Blair in particular had become big business puppets.

Tempest and Beckett suffered the same problems from the "Fun-da-Mental-ist" faction, but by then new people had entered the party such as future Chairman Peter 'T.C.' Owen, to whom beating the other parties was what it was all about and who saw nothing funny about coming last with a handful of votes. Also Tempest was known – ironically – as one not to suffer fools gladly (there were a number of clashes between him and Hope). It was no coincidence that during the era of Tempest and Beckett, other well known "alternative" parties such as the Greens, National Front, British National Party, and the UK Independence Party often withdrew their candidates from seats after an OMRLP member had announced their candidature because of the damage to party morale from finishing with fewer votes than a "Raving Loony".

Beckett was forced to drop out of Loony activities due to ill health, prompting Tempest to end his association with the OMRLP, thanks to work & Soup Run commitments—along with being fed up with the lack of gratitude and backbiting from the "Fun-da-Mental-ist" faction that were happy enough to ask for his help to get them out of a number of scrapes—including a nasty election feud in Holmfirth between Melodie Staniforth and Mike Madden of the rival RLGGP faction during the mid 1990s (Madden eventually quit standing in elections).