Shades of Blair in Selby sucker-punch gives Starmer hope of election-winning swing

The three by-elections are good news for Keir Starmer and Labour, clouded by Ulez doubts that failed to unseat Tories in Uxbridge, writes John Rentoul

The Selby result on its own suggests that Keir Starmer could match the 10 per cent swing to Labour that Blair achieved in 1997 (AFP/Getty)

If you want sensational by-election results these days, they are when seats surprisingly fail to change hands. The Liberal Democrats have been back to their by-election winning ways for a while – in Chesham and Amersham two years ago they overturned a huge Conservative majority and wiped out the unpopularity of the coalition years.

They did it again in North Shropshire, Tiverton and Honiton and now Somerton and Frome. No disrespect to Sarah Dyke, the new MP, or to Ed Davey and the by-election team, but the Lib Dem win in Somerset was the least interesting result of the night. After the aberration of the Clegg years in government, we are back to the truism that dogs bark, cats miaow and Lib Dems win by-elections.

Labour’s win in Selby and Ainsty, a formerly safe Tory seat in North Yorkshire, on the other hand, was an unusual result. Not since Tony Blair was leader of the opposition has the Labour Party seen a swing on that scale. The swing from Tory to Labour in Selby was 24 per cent, the second highest Labour has ever secured, topped only by Dudley West (29 per cent) in 1994, in Blair’s first few months as leader. The Selby result even beats Labour’s score in Southeast Staffordshire (22 per cent), which was in 1996, after Blair had been leader for two years and the year before the general election.

By-elections are not good predictors of subsequent general elections, but the Selby result on its own suggests that Keir Starmer could match the 10 per cent swing to Labour that Blair achieved in 1997, which is what he needs to win a bare majority in the Commons.

In the depths of Labour despair after the 2019 election, this seemed an impossible target. It still seems a stretch: Starmer is surrounded by none of the hype and excitement of Blair circa 1996, and yet the Conservatives have contrived to trash their own record so comprehensively that the impossible has now become likely.

Except for the truly sensational result of the night: the Tories holding Uxbridge and South Ruislip. There, the swing to Labour was a mere 7 per cent – the kind of result that could point to the Conservatives holding on to a small majority in a general election, or to a hung parliament.

It is the most sensational by-election result since Kim Leadbeater held Batley and Spen for Labour two years ago: that was a seat that should have gone to the Tories in 2019, but for a Eurosceptic local candidate who split the “Get Brexit Done” vote, and it was the first sign that Starmer’s Labour was shaking off the voter-repelling legacy of Jeremy Corbyn.

Boris Johnson must be kicking himself this morning – although he managed a formal public congratulation of Steve Tuckwell, his successor as the MP for Uxbridge. But he could have fought and won that by-election, which would have been the best response to the findings of the privileges committee against him.

But he won’t be kicking himself as hard as Starmer – or indeed as Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London whose plan to expand the Ulez, the Ultra Low Emissions Zone, cheated Labour of what would have been a conclusive by-election victory. The politics of Ulez is simple: it is a £12.50 daily charge to drive an older petrol or diesel car in London. Like the poll tax, it is a plan to tax the floating voter. Danny Beales, the Labour candidate, came out against it, but it is a Labour plan and it was still going ahead in outer London by polling day. The policy’s future is now in doubt – Khan should have scrapped it the moment the by-election was called – because Khan clearly cannot win re-election as mayor next year with it in place.

But the bigger question for Starmer is whether Ulez-phobia is symbolic of more general weakness in Labour support. Does it mean that Labour leads in opinion polls and protest-vote by-elections are vulnerable to ruthless Tory fear-mongering about the costs of a Labour government?

I think it clearly suggests that potential support for the Tories has not evaporated. The potential is there. Rishi Sunak can take no comfort from the Tory spin that their voters stayed at home in these by-elections – the turnout in all of them, between 45 and 46 per cent, is about the norm these days.

But he can note that Reform and Reclaim, the fringe parties to the Brexit and libertarian right, failed to save their deposits, winning fewer than 5 per cent of the votes. That eases Tory fears of a Nigel Farage vote-splitting exercise at the general election.

And the Conservatives can see how Labour’s support might be soft in the right circumstances. It still requires a lot to go right for the government over the next year, but all Tory hope is not lost.