Labour’s win in Wakefield is not enough to put Keir Starmer in No 10

Oliver Dowden’s resignation is a bigger blow to the prime minister than either of the by-election defeats, writes John Rentoul

By-elections are a chance for people to express their disapproval of the government (Getty Images)

To be brutal, Labour’s win in the Wakefield by-election was not good enough to put Keir Starmer on course to win the next general election. And the Liberal Democrat victory in Tiverton and Honiton hardly matters at all.

The swing to Labour in Wakefield would win the party a majority in the House of Commons if it were repeated in a general election, but it won’t be. By-elections are a different kind of contest, a chance for people to express their disapproval of the government rather than a choice between alternative governments.

By-elections are still an important indicator of the state of play between the parties, but they require a big discount to be applied. Wakefield is the first gain by Labour from the Conservative government since Corby in 2012, which Andy Sawford won with the same swing that Simon Lightwood secured last night. Not only did Labour go on to lose the 2015 general election, but the Conservatives won Corby back.

We have to go further back to the 1990s for examples of the kind of Labour by-election wins that precede a general election victory, when the party won Barking, Dagenham, South-East Staffordshire and Dudley West with swings of 22-29 per cent, compared with the 13 per cent in Wakefield.

The Tiverton and Honiton result tells us even less about the national picture. It was clear from the Lib Dem wins in Chesham and Amersham and North Shropshire that the party was back as a formidable by-election machine, mobilising mid-term protest votes. The significance of North Shropshire – the seat vacated by Owen Paterson – was that the machine could deliver in seats that voted to leave the EU, as Tiverton did. But the swing to the Lib Dems in Tiverton, 30 per cent, was lower than the 34 per cent in North Shropshire, suggesting that things haven’t got worse for the government since December, when reports of lockdown parties in Downing Street were just breaking.

What has got worse for Boris Johnson is the resignation of Oliver Dowden, the Conservative Party chair. That is more ominous for him than either of the by-elections. Dowden’s letter of resignation makes it clear without saying so directly that he thinks the prime minister’s time is up. “Somebody must take responsibility,” he says, the implication being that if Johnson won’t then he, Dowden, will have to go. He pointedly does not accept responsibility himself, as the person in charge of the Tory party organisation, for the election losses.

Dowden was one of the three junior ministers who first came out for Johnson in 2019, along with Rishi Sunak and Robert Jenrick, giving Johnson’s leadership campaign an early lead that he never lost.

Dowden’s resignation will harden the conviction among Tory MPs and activists that someone other than Johnson must lead them into the next election. They cannot rely on Wakefield being another Corby. They know that David Cameron had more capacity for a fightback than Johnson does now. The only thing that sustains the prime minister in office is the absence of an obvious alternative who the party could be sure would be more popular.

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However, that is another reason for thinking that the Wakefield result was insufficient to put Labour on course for government. Johnson’s reputation has probably passed the point where almost anybody else as leader would be a better option for the Tories.

To understand why this is a problem for Starmer, we need to go back even further in time, to the Mid Staffordshire by-election in March 1990. That was won by Sylvia Heal for Labour with what was then the party’s highest ever swing, 21 per cent. Eight months later, however, Margaret Thatcher had gone, and Neil Kinnock, who had seemed set for No 10, found himself facing an entirely different proposition altogether in John Major. Major went on to win the 1992 election and the Tories’ period in office stretched on for a total of 18 years.

Starmer must worry that Labour’s win in Wakefield, although it may not be big enough to get him to No 10, will be enough to frighten the Tories into getting rid of his greatest asset: a damaged and discredited prime minister.