2004 Leicester South by-election
United Kingdom Parliament by-election
A by-election for the United Kingdom parliamentary constituency of Leicester South was held on 15 July 2004, triggered by the death of incumbent Labour Party Member of Parliament (MP) Jim Marshall. It was won by Parmjit Singh Gill of the Liberal Democrats, overturning a Labour majority of 13,243 votes at the 2001 general election.
The by-election was widely considered to effectively be a referendum on the Labour government's policies—most notably its involvement in the ongoing Iraq War. It was the held on the same day as the 2004 Birmingham Hodge Hill by-election, where Labour narrowly fended off a challenge from the Liberal Democrats.
Background
The incumbent Labour Party MP Jim Marshall died on 27 May 2004, shortly before the local and European elections in June, initiating a by-election to fill the seat. Marshall first won the seat in October 1974; he lost the seat to the Conservative Party candidate, Derek Spencer, in the 1983 general election by a mere 7 votes, but won it back at the 1987 election and continually served thereafter. Marshall won the constituency with a majority of 13,243 (31.4%) at the 2001 election.
The constituency is diverse, covering leafy suburbs such as Stoneygate and Knighton along with inner city areas with a strong South Asian community, one of the largest such populations in the UK. The by-election was considered a referendum on Blair's policies, especially the Iraq War, for which Labour had received heavy backlash from Asian and Muslim voters. The war had also been blamed for the party's major losses in the local elections of both 2003 and 2004. Jim Marshall had opposed the war prior to his death.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “2004 Leicester South by-election” is united Kingdom Parliament by-election. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Leicester, South and by-election, not as a finished interpretation.
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