JUST WILLIAM: Red, Blue and Yellow

By-elections. Like London buses, you wait ages for one and then three arrive at once. Each of the big three parties took a contest, with the Lib Dems gaining Somerton and Frome, Labour winning Selby and Ainsty, and the Tories holding onto Uxbridge and South Ruislip against the odds.

What did we learn from all that? Here are some takeaways…

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Don’t Overreact To Uxbridge

The Tories relatively unexpected hold of Boris Johnson’s former seat has become the big talking point of the by-elections, but it could pay to be more careful in your analysis of the political landscape than Rishi Sunak was today:

"No one expected us to win here"

PM Rishi Sunak says Conservative Uxbridge by-election victory shows next general election is not a "done deal"https://t.co/b6JQffdEUA pic.twitter.com/4Rzv7ZKvCP

— BBC Breaking News (@BBCBreaking) July 21, 2023

Whilst it is a real bonus for the Tories to have kept Uxbridge in their hands, they held onto labour’s 91st target seat with a majority of just 490 after a by-election where the expansion of ULEZ was effectively weaponised in an area where many commuters are more reliant on cars than other areas of the capital.

In addition, for those wanting to make comparisons to the Blair years, this seat wasn’t won by Labour even in the first two Blair landslides – indeed it’s never gone red, and it would be unwise to read too much into this result with the national picture in mind. As a good general rule, by-elections can which tell you about the general direction of travel, but have significant differences to a national campaign.

Only a few constituencies resemble Uxbridge electorally or demographically – and there are plenty of London seats where ULEZ would be less of an issue, or more popular than in the key area of Hillingdon. Redfield and Wilton’s polling found 58% of respondents supporting ULEZ’s expansion compared to just 17% opposing; during a general election campaign, that’s a much harder issue to weaponize

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Think Yellow in South West

With all of the discourse around Uxbridge, two other hugely significant results have been overlooked. Somerton and Frome went so empathically to the Lib Dems that they declared victory there before 1am, long before any official results.

Sarah Dyke overturned a majority of over 19,000 to take victory in a seat which had admittedly been Lib Dem beforehand – David Warburton had only taken it from them in 2015 – and that spells trouble for the Tories.

They had traditionally always fought hard with the Lib Dems for that seat – the Lib Dem majorities from ’97 onwards were 130, 668, 882, and 1,817 – but the blowout they suffered here, which is comparable with the Tiverton by-election victory of 2022, suggests that any number of South Western Blue Wall seats may be impossible for the Tories to defend when the next election is called, even if the Lib Dem’s resources are more thinly spread.

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The Swing’s In

Much has been discussed about the enormity of Labour’s task to win a majority at the next general election. Many predictions have Labour failing to win a majority without a 13% swing in their favour (bar Britain Elects, which puts the number at 7% or so, assuming that tactical voting remains as efficient as it has during by-elections, which one cannot guarantee).

Selby and Ainsty was a great test of how far along Labour are in that journey. It required an 18% swing, was 225th on Labour’s target list, and ranked 224th out of 650 constituencies for “Leave”, 171st for “Economic Right Position”, 168th for “National Position” and “182nd for Social Conservative Position”, according to electoral calculus. In other words, a very solid, safe Tory seat.

Keir Mather – now the youngest MP in the Commons at the tender age of 25 – overturned a Conservative majority of 20,137 – the largest majority reversed at a by-election, putting the seat in opposition hands for the first time since 2010. The swing on the night was 23.7% in Labour’s favour – repeated at a general election, that would give them more seats than 1997.

Now of course, we shouldn’t apply such a swing without caveats – this was a stand-alone by-election and there’s any amount of things that could change between now and the next GE – but at the moment, Labour are clearly headed for Government, and with a majority based on the direction of travel; and the Tories face a real battle to avoid wipeout.

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Don’t Forget The Celts

A reminder that wasn’t heeded by some in the aftermath of the Local Elections – these contests didn’t take place in Wales or Scotland, two areas of the country that will play a big part in forming the next Government. In 2019 Labour lost six seats in Wales and Scotland, where SNP domination made what was a hopeless task in hindsight even more difficult.

Now the SNP’s implosion since the departure of Nicola Sturgeon has seen a 19% lead drop to just 3%, with Labour as the main beneficiaries, whilst A YouGov poll for WalesOnline, released ahead of St David’s Day, shows the Conservatives’ share of the vote has slipped to just 19%, while Labour’s share has surged from 41% in 2019 to 53% now.

Such changes mean less exacting targets are needed in England, and in the battle to reach Downing Street the other nations in the UK must not be ignored.

WILLIAM KEDJANYI

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Views of authors do not necessarily represent views of Star Sports Bookmakers.

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