This week’s two by-elections had something for everyone – except Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives.
Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party has now broken into the record books with six by-election gains from the Conservatives, beating New Labour’s performance in the run-up to the 1997 Election.
Reform UK got more than 10% of the votes in both constituencies.
The Liberal Democratslost two deposits, with less than 5% of votes cast each time. But even they have something to celebrate, according to one polling analyst.
Peter Kellner argues that their four by-election victories over the Tories since 2019 show that they are much better at concentrating their vote than they used to be – when they regularly clocked up 10% plus support across the country with nothing to show for it.
Reform could be falling into a similar trap with significant minority support spread nationwide, enough to damage the Conservatives without a sniff of winning a seat.
Image: Damien Egan won the Kingswood by-election for Labour.
Pic: Reuters
Image: Labour’s Gen Kitchen celebrates after being declared winner in the Wellingborough by-election. Pic: PA
No wonder Nigel Farage is talking about “uniting the centre-right vote” of Conservatives and Reform, without committing himself personally to fight in the approaching general election.
Jacob Rees-Mogg has taken up the call for the two right-wing groupings to come together.
Conservative MP Dame Andrea Jenkyns has leapt on the by-election defeats in Kingswood and Wellingborough to renew her call for Sunak to be replaced.
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The prime minister must be wondering why his MPs keep inflicting damage on their party through their own behaviour.
All six of Labour’s by-election gains were precipitated by voluntary or forced resignations by Conservative MPs.
Image: Prime Minister Rishi Sunak reacts to last week’s by-election results
The tables will be turned in the next by-election in just 10 days’ time, when Labour is defending the constituency of Rochdale in Lancashire and the party is certain to be the victim of a technical knock-out because it no longer has a candidate.
Starmer’s discomfort in Rochdale and the continued agony of political death by many by-election cuts explain why there is growing speculation that the prime minister may call the general election sooner rather than later in the year, as he has suggested.
Rochdale is an unholy mess for Labour, which exposes one of the most painful divisions in the party.
Labour has held the seat since 2005. Tony Lloyd, who died last month, held it in 2019 with more than half the votes cast.
In its haste to make the best of a sure thing, Labour rushed to hold the vote to find a replacement MP.
Azhar Ali, a local council big wig, was chosen quickly as the Labour candidate. Too quickly, it turns out.
Image: Labour’s former candidate for Rochdale, Azhar Ali. Pic: PA
The Mail on Sunday and then The Daily Mail exposed comments about the Israel-Gaza conflict which he had made at Labour gatherings, in clear violation of party policy.
Ali had embraced conspiracy theories that Israel allowed the 7 October attacks to happen and made accusations about Jewish influence in the media.
He later issued an “unreserved” apology, saying the comments were “deeply offensive, ignorant, and false”.
After an agonising weekend when Labour leaders tried to keep Ali as their official candidate, he was cut loose along with the candidate in neighbouring Hyndburn for similar comments.
It is easy to see why Starmer was reluctant to act. Nominations for the Rochdale by-election had closed.
Labour was stuck with Ali on the ballot paper as their candidate, come what may. It was too late to select a substitute.
Labour must sit it out for the remainder of the campaign, as Ali presses on as an independent. If he wins, he will not receive the Labour whip.
This will automatically exclude him from being the Labour candidate at the approaching general election.
The party leadership could then impose Paul Waugh as the Labour candidate.
In a move which surprised many, Waugh gave up a career as a top political journalist to stand for selection in this by-election – unsuccessfully as it turned out.
This awkward outcome is probably the best that Labour can hope for.
Two controversial ex-Labour MPs are also standing in the by-election.
Simon Danczuk won Rochdale for Labour in 2010 and then 2015. But he was suspended from the party shortly afterwards for sexting a 17-year-old girl. This time, Danczuk is standing for Reform UK.
The candidacy of George Galloway is of much greater concern.
Image: George Galloway. File pic: PA
Since his first election in 1987, Galloway has been an MP in four constituencies: Glasgow Hillhead/Kelvin for Labour, and Bethnal Green & Bow, and Bradford West, for the Respect Party.
Galloway is pugnacious and articulate, and he specialises in fighting highly charged by-elections.
He is highly litigious and willing to take on his critics. He takes a close interest in the Middle East and is pro-Palestinian.
There have been allegations of antisemitism against him – claims he has strongly denied and even once labelled “outrageous”.
Roughly a third of the population in Rochdale has a Muslim background. As Ali’s comments showed, the Israel-Gaza conflict has already inflamed passions.
Opinion polls show that a clear majority of the British public does not take sides in the current conflict.
Of the remainder, around 20% each sympathise with Israel and the Palestinians. But the balance among Labour activists favours the Palestinians.
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0:40
Starmer: ‘People want change’
Rooting out the antisemitism which characterised Labour during Jeremy Corbyn’s far-left leadership is one of Starmer’s signal achievements.
Rough justice has meant that figures such as Corbyn, Diane Abbott and now Ali have been kicked out of the party.
But tensions have mounted as Israel’s high-casualty counteroffensive continues.
In the past, Labour has benefitted from strong support in British Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities. In a handful of constituencies, this has been decisive.
Starmer is not pleasing many in his party by lining its Middle East policy up close to the government’s own position.
The Conservatives certainly are not going to give him any credit for backing them up.
Even without the divisive return of Galloway, Conservatives are already saying that the developments in Rochdale reveal that it is the same old Labour Party underneath, for all the changes supposedly wrought by Starmer.
Rochdale means chronic by-election pain for Starmer. There is no end to agony in sight for Sunakeither.
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3:17
How Labour’s latest row unfolded
There is another by-election in the offing in Lancashire in the marginal constituency of Blackpool South
The Commons Standards Committee has recommended a potentially by-election-triggering 35-day suspension for the Conservative MP Scott Benton over lobbying and corruption allegations.
Voters do not like by-elections in grubby circumstances. They are inclined to punish the incumbent, but the reputation of all politics takes a hit.
The excuses Sunak gave this weekend for the Tory defeats in Kingswood and Wellingborough do not stand up.
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With the general election imminent, these were not “midterm by-elections”. Nor was turnout exceptionally low for such contests. The exception was the massive scale of the drop in the Conservative vote.
The quickest way to make it stop would be to call that general election.
In the past few days, keen observers report an upsurge in activity by those involved in running the Tory campaign.
While Starmer is mired in Rochdale, a giveaway budget on 6 March as the springboard to a May election must remain a distinct possibility – before it gets any worse.
The business secretary has told Sky News he would not bring a Chinese company into the “sensitive” steel sector again – after the government was forced to take control of British Steel.
Urgent legislation rushed through the House of Commons and House of Lords on Saturday gave ministers the power to instruct British Steel – owned by Chinese company Jingye – to keep the plant open.
The Steel Industry (Special Measures) Bill essentially allows the government to take control of British Steel “using force if necessary”, order materials for steelmaking and instruct that workers be paid. It also authorises a jail sentence of up to two years for anyone breaching this law.
Image: British Steel’s Scunthorpe plant. Pic: Reuters
Jonathan Reynolds told Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips that he would not “personally bring a Chinese company into our steel sector” again, describing steel as a “sensitive area” in the UK.
The business secretary agreed there is now a high trust bar for Chinese companies to be involved in the UK economy.
He said: “I think steel is a very sensitive area. I don’t know… the Boris Johnson government when they did this, what exactly the situation was. But I think it’s a sensitive area.”
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Jingye stepped in with a deal to buy British Steel’s Scunthorpe plant out of insolvency in 2020, when Mr Johnson was prime minister.
But the company recently cancelled orders for supplies of raw materials needed to keep blast furnaces running at the site – the last in the UK capable of producing virgin steel.
This threw the future of the steel industry into question, and ultimately led to MPs and peers being recalled from parliamentary recess to take part in a rare Saturday sitting when negotiations with Jingye appeared to break down.
An emergency bill to save the plant became law later that day.
Public ownership currently ‘likely option’
It stops short of full nationalisation of British Steel, but Reynolds told Sky News that public ownership remains the “likely option” for the future.
He said: “Well that remains an option. And to be frank, as I said to parliament yesterday, it is perhaps at this stage the likely option.”
However, the minister said he believes there is “potential” for a commercial private sector partner.
He said: “That is my preference, but I feel we’ve got to find a bridge to that. The kind of investments required for the transition to new steel technology, whichever technology that is, it’s a lot of money, a lot of capital.”
Andrew Griffith, the shadow business secretary, said the government’s emergency bill amounts to a “botched nationalisation”.
He told Sky News the Conservatives supported the “least worst” option in the Commons on Saturday.
“There’s clearly still more work to do because the taxpayer is now picking up the bills for a business that is still owned by its Chinese owner,” the Tory frontbencher said.
“I hope the government will very quickly come back and clarify that situation.”
Anti-corruption authorities in Bangladesh have issued a warrant for the arrest of British Labour MP Tulip Siddiq.
Bangladesh’s Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) sought the warrant over allegations Ms Siddiq received a 7,200sq ft plot of land in the country’s capital, Dhaka.
Ms Siddiq’s lawyers have told Sky News the allegations are “completely false”, adding there was “no basis at all for any charges to be made against her”.
They said there was “absolutely no truth” behind the allegations regarding the plot of land.
The MP resigned as a Treasury minister earlier this year following an investigation by the prime minister’s ethics adviser into her links to her aunt Sheikh Hasina’s regime, which was overthrown in Bangladesh last year.
Lawyers acting for Ms Siddiq wrote to the Bangladeshi Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) several weeks ago saying the allegations were “false and vexatious”.
The allegations surrounding Ms Siddiq are focused on links to her aunt Ms Hasina – who served as the prime minister of Bangladesh for 20 years.
She is accused of becoming an autocrat, with politically-motivated arrests and other abuses allegedly happening on her watch. Ms Hasina claims it is all a political witch hunt.
Image: Tulip Siddiq with Sheikh Hasina in 2009. Pic: Reuters
Ms Siddiq’s lawyer said in a statement that she “has not been contacted by the ACC or any authorities in Bangladesh”.
“The ACC has made various allegations against Ms Siddiq through the media in the last few months,” they said.
“The allegations are completely false and have been dealt with in writing by Ms Siddiq’s lawyers. The ACC has not responded to Ms Siddiq or put any allegations to her directly or through her lawyers.
“Ms Siddiq knows nothing about a hearing in Dhaka relating to her and she has no knowledge of any arrest warrant that is said to have been issued.
“To be clear, there is no basis at all for any charges to be made against her, and there is absolutely no truth in any allegation that she received a plot of land in Dhaka through illegal means.
“She has never had a plot of land in Bangladesh, and she has never influenced any allocation of plots of land to her family members or anyone else.
“No evidence has been provided by the ACC to support this or any other allegation made against Ms Siddiq, and it is clear to us that the charges are politically motivated.”
Senator Tim Scott, the chairman of the US Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, recently said that he expects a crypto market bill to be passed into law by August 2025.
The chairman also noted the Senate Banking Committee’s advancement of the GENIUS Act, a comprehensive stablecoin regulatory bill, in March 2025, as evidence that the committee prioritizes crypto policy. In a statement to Fox News, Scott said:
“We must innovate before we regulate — allowing innovation in the digital asset space to happen here at home is critical to American economic dominance across the globe.”
Scott’s timeline for a crypto market structure bill lines up with expectations from Kristin Smith, CEO of the crypto industry advocacy group Blockchain Association, of market structure and stablecoin legislation being passed into law by August.
Support for comprehensive crypto regulations is bipartisan
US lawmakers and officials expect clear crypto policies to be established and signed into law sometime in 2025 with bipartisan support from Congress.
Speaking at the Digital Assets Summit in New York City, on March 18, Democrat Representative Ro Khanna said he expects both the market structure and stablecoin bills to pass this year.
The Democrat lawmaker added that there are about 70-80 other representatives in the party who understand the importance of passing clear digital asset regulations in the United States.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, pictured left, President Donald Trump in the center, and crypto czar David Sacks, pictured right, at the White House Crypto Summit. Source: The White House
Khanna emphasized that fellow Democrats support dollar-pegged stablecoins due to the role of dollar tokens in expanding demand for the US dollar worldwide through the internet.
Bo Hines, the executive director of the President’s Council of Advisers on Digital Assets, also spoke at the conference and predicted that stablecoin legislation would be passed into law within 60 days.
Hines highlighted that establishing US dominance in the digital asset space is a goal with widespread bipartisan support in Washington DC.