Labour dealt a double by-election blow to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak by overturning huge Tory majorities in Tamworth and Mid Bedfordshire with swings of 20 and 23 percent.
Sir Keir Starmer said Labour had “made history” with the results, which were caused by the resignations of Conservative MPs Nadine Dorries and Chris Pincher.
Sir Keir said, “We know that voters here have voted for us and they’ve put their trust and their confidence in a changed Labour Party, and we will repay them for that trust and confidence.”
‘Redrawing the Political Map’
He said Labour was “redrawing the political map” by taking seats which had been Conservative for years.Mr. Sunak, who is in Saudi Arabia speaking to Arab leaders about the situation in Israel and Gaza, has yet to comment on the by-election results.
But Conservative Party chairman Greg Hands said “legacy issues” predating Mr. Sunak’s premiership were to blame for the results and he said people, “were happy with the job Rishi Sunak is doing as prime minister.”
“I don’t see any enthusiasm for Labour, but clearly there’s been a lot of, if you like, background circumstances in those two by-elections that have also made the job difficult for us,” Mr. Hands told Times Radio.
Ms. Dorries’ old seat in Mid Bedfordshire was won by Labour’s Alistair Strathern, a Bank of England official, who overturned her 2019 majority of 24,664 to win the seat by 1,192 votes.
Rishi Sunak Urged to Call General Election
“My message to the prime minister is get in your government car, drive to Buckingham Palace, do the decent thing, and call a general election,” said Mr. Strathern, who ironically would almost certainly lose the seat at a general election.Mr. Strathern won 13,872 votes, beating the Tory candidate Festus Akinbusoye—the county’s police and crime commissioner—who got 12,680 votes.
That was a 20.52 percent swing from the Conservatives to Labour, but tellingly the Reform Party candidate Dave Holland got 1,487 votes, many of whom are believed to be disaffected Tories.
The Reform Party did even better in Tamworth, where their candidate won more than 5 percent of the vote.
Labour’s Sarah Edwards won the seat with 11,719 votes to the Conservative candidate Andy Cooper’s 10,403, representing a swing of 23.89 percent.
Sir John Curtice said the results were “very bad news” for Mr. Sunak, who almost certainly faces defeat in the coming general election.
Sir John told the BBC, “No government has hitherto lost to the principal opposition party in a by-election a seat as safe as Tamworth.”
Very Low Turnout
Turnout was very low in both by-elections.In Tamworth, it was 35.87 percent, down 28 percent from the general election in 2019, and in Mid Bedfordshire, it was 43.98 percent, down almost 30 percent on 2019.
Both contests were caused by the departures of the sitting MPs in controversial circumstances.
Mr. Pincher, who had represented Tamworth since 2010, resigned in September after losing his appeal against an eight-week suspension from Parliament for groping two men at a private member’s club while drunk.
Mr. Johnson was forced to quit as prime minister in July 2022 over the so-called Pincher affair.
Mr. Johnson had originally planned to soldier on after admitting it was a “mistake” to keep Mr. Pincher on as a government whip despite sexual misconduct allegations against him, but he eventually quit after Mr. Sunak and a string of other cabinet ministers resigned, saying they had lost confidence in him.
