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A worrying trend is emerging for the Tories in by-elections – and it’s not one they should brush off
It’s no surprise that Labour have held onto the West Lancashire parliamentary seat in this by-election. But historic vote shares point to another terrible night for Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives and one for Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour to celebrate.
The outgoing MP Rosie Cooper achieved 52% of the vote in 2019 and her Conservative rival got just 36%, in a seat that’s been Labour since the last substantial boundary changes in 1997.
This time, Labour are up 10 points to a record 62.3%, and the Tory vote fell to just 25.4% of ballots – a decline of almost 11 points and another record.
In many ways, the result is unremarkable.
We expected Labour to increase their already sizeable majority in the seat, and we anticipated the Tories might keep 60% of their share, which they both did healthily. By-election turnout is also in the expected region. So, what makes this result interesting?
Ashley Dalton takes over from a representative that didn’t resign in disgrace – a rare occurrence in this parliament – as Rosie Cooper stepped down to become Chair of Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust.
Yet Labour-strong North West by-elections are seemingly not rare, this being the third in as many months for the region.
About 30 miles away from this seat, the City of Chester saw Labour up 11 points in December, and the Tories down 16 points.
A few weeks later in Stretford and Urmston, just 20 miles down the road, the result was nine points in Labour’s favour – a loss of 11 points for the Conservatives.
In all three contests, vote share records were set. The highest-ever proportions for Labour, the lowest ever for the Conservatives.
It’s hard to extrapolate from one by-election, but three starts to become a trend. And it’s not one the Tories should brush off.
In particular, these results can tell us about what we might expect in the local elections this May.
These three by-elections were all seats where Labour were doing well, meaning there’s fewer available votes for them to pick up. At the same time, the Conservatives weren’t doing so well, so there’s less far to fall.
Similarly in 2019, when the most council seats up for election in 2023 were last contested, the blue corner lost 1,335, the red corner only down 85.
Labour didn’t do as badly as the Conservatives in those local elections, but both lost out to smaller parties and independents.
To do well this May and become the largest party of local government in England for the first time in 20 years, Labour need to pick up 500 local council seats.
To dodge a crushing defeat, the Conservatives must lose hundreds and not thousands.
And sprinkles of by-election results indicate Labour might hit that target, while the Tories miss theirs.
It’s worth remembering that in the 2019 local elections, Boris Johnson wasn’t even PM yet, so we’ll be comparing Mr Sunak’s result to Theresa May’s.
While there’s been two prime ministers since then, the Tories are polling just as badly now as local election time under Mrs May.
The difference is Labour are doing much better now. Smaller parties are losing their deposits in by-elections. The Conservatives are setting records for the lowest vote share in seats they’re already doing badly in.
That’s a reality that’s difficult to put a spin on.
In all by-elections this parliament, turnout is down 29% on average – another new record.
This means that West Lancashire’s turnout of 31.4% is not surprising, even though it’s 40 points lower than the 2019 general election, and in the top 20 biggest turnout drops since 1945.
Yet just as expected, turnout was higher than in Stretford and Urmston, now that the weather is improving. It’s also likely to be because of the higher-than-average age of the population in West Lancs.
Still, the Conservatives are usually the biggest benefactors if this lower turnout continues at a general election.
And if this is the final by-election before May, it’ll have been the last contest in Britain where voters can cast a ballot without ID. This new voter ID law may depress turnout even further.
To get your free voter ID, head to https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/i-am-a/voter/voter-id.
Senior Tories had prepared for the worst
A couple of hours before the result of the West Lancashire by-election was declared shortly before 2am, senior Tories at the count were prepared for the worst.
Privately, they were predicting a 60% share of the vote for Labour and 25% for the Conservatives.
They weren’t far wrong. The Tory vote has indeed slumped from over 36% at the 2019 general election to about 25%. But Labour’s share was higher than the Tories feared, above 62%.