Labour’s real by-election fear is finishing third

Politics Explained: With the Brexit Party poised to gain its first MP, the battle for Corbyn’s party is remaining relevant

Jeremy Corbyn with the party’s prospective parliamentary candidate Lisa Forbes (Getty)

Seven hundred and eighty one.

That is the number of voters that separated Labour from the Liberal Democrats in the European elections, a mere 1.8 per cent of the vote.

In Peterborough, that is, where a parliamentary by-election on Thursday looks near enough certain to return the Brexit Party’s first MP at Westminster. That will be added to the 29 MEPs the party garnered when the Brexit Party finished first, nationally, in those Euro elections on 23 May. Remember, just in case Nigel Farage has allowed you to forget, that this party was only founded in April this year. The Brexit Party’s Mike Greene is the runaway bookies’ favourite to be the next MP for Peterborough. He, and Farage, will be at the centre of a media circus on Friday, with the reverberations rumbling into the Tory leadership contest. After all, Peterborough voted 60 per cent leave in the 2016 EU referendum, and only 5 per cent of the electorate signed the petition to revoke Article 50 this year, well below the national average. Peterborough is Brexit country.

The question, really, is who will come second. And what kind of second? A borderline miss to hang on to the seat, or humiliation?

At the 2017 general election, Peterborough was a Lab-Con marginal, gained by Labour’s Fiona Onasanya by all of 607 votes, a majority representing just 1.3 per cent of the poll. The Conservatives had held Peterborough since 2005. It was one of the lost seats that robbed Theresa May of an overall majority.

In a normal world this classic marginal constituency – middle England almost literally – would be a hotly contested battle between the two main parties. Of course it is not. The Tories aren’t even in the running this time. They finished fourth in Peterborough in the Euro elections, only a smidgen ahead of the greens on a little over 10 per cent. They could easily end up fifth now, when only two years ago they held it. Those with long memories may recall that, in the Thatcher-Major era, it was once a safe-ish seat held by one-time Conservative Party chairman Brian Mawhinney.

Tories have the perfect alibi – Brexit and leadership chaos. Self-inflicted, yes, but it allows them to at least say “all will be well with a new leader and when we deliver Brexit”. No one believes that. What is happening now is very clear. The working class, Brexit-supporting, discontented section of the Tory vote is defecting en masse to the Brexit Party, and the moderate, professional, pro-EU wing is off to the Lib Dems.

That should mean that Labour would hold the seat easily. Except of course that Brexit is simply so very large in Peterborough – 38.1 per cent of the vote in the Euro elections.

Compare the Brexit Party’s showing with that of Labour – a poor second on 17.1 per cent in the European poll; and the Lib Dems on 15.3 per cent. That, in turn, compares with the Lib Dem showing of just 3.3 per cent in the 2017 general election.

So you can see where the momentum is going, and it is not to Labour. It would not take much for the Lib Dems to edge ahead of Corbyn’s candidate, Lisa Forbes.

The bookies seem to think Labour is still stronger than the Lib Dems, but it may not turn out to be by very much at all.

Labour has endured another week of ridiculously bad headlines, from the row over backing a second referendum, to the Alastair Campbell affair, through more credible allegations of antisemitism, Corbyn’s anti-Trump posturing, and an unwise tweet by Labour’s candidate, for which she has apologised. Jewish groups called on Labour to disown her. It does feel like a campaign on the slide. Desperate emails to Labour members to come and help add to the sense of panic and despair.

As the Brexit Party is doing to the Tories, so the Lib Dems are outflanking Labour on Brexit, and especially attracting Labour’s professional, educated “moderate” centre-left voters, leaving the rest to be picked off by the Brexit Party and apathy (staying home). It is precisely what is happening across England (Wales and Scotland have the added complication of the nationalist parties – generally also depressing the Labour vote).

More deprived than the national average, with lower ages and life expectancies, higher than average levels of migration, suffering from austerity, council tax up six per cent and cuts to local services, Peterborough should be an easy Labour win. It is worth mentioning that Tony Blair won here by a landslide in 1997, delivering a majority of 7,323, and just over half of the vote. To get from there to about one in 10 voters is quite something.So there is some chance that the Liberal Democrats should elbow Labour into third place in Peterborough by, say, 100 votes. But even if Labour hangs on to its national second place, it would be far behind the Brexit Party, and a far from a convincing result. The tussle between Labour and the Lib Dems for second ranking may come down to the effect of the fringe parties such as Ukip and various independents. There are 15 candidates in all to help confuse Peterborians.

Distant second or third placed – the reverberations of such another disastrous showing for Labours should – should – reach right into the office of Leader of the Opposition and his remarkably complacent team of advisers – the likes of Unite leader Len McCluskey – who tells them to “hold their nerve”. They may hold their nerve, but if they cannot hold places like Peterborough when the Tory party is disintegrating and has given up the fight, then Labour really has had it.

Meantime, Nigel’s having a party.