Keir Starmer has said that Labour is “redrawing the political map” as he carried out a triumphant tour to the site of two historic overnight byelection wins, as his party overturned huge Conservative majorities in Tamworth and Mid Bedfordshire. Standing next to Alistair Strathern, who overturned the Conservatives’ near-25,000 majority under Nadine Dorries in Mid Bedfordshire, Starmer said the new MP had “made history here over the past 24 hours” with the scale of the win. The Labour leader then travelled to Tamworth to appear alongside the party’s winning candidate there, Sarah Edwards, who overcame the Tories’ 2019 majority of just under 20,000 to triumph. Speaking at a country park near Bedford, Starmer said Labour was “redrawing the political map” by taking seats such as Mid Bedfordshire, which had consistently returned Conservative MPs in every election since 1931. “We know that voters here have voted for us and they’ve put their trust and their confidence in a changed Labour party, and we will repay them for that trust and confidence,” he told assembled activists. “We do so humbly. And I know there are people yesterday who probably voted Tory in the past who voted for a changed Labour party because they despair at the state of their own party. “I’m glad that they see that our party is changed and they can put their trust and confidence in them, and I hope that that persuades other voters across the country who may have voted for other parties in the past, that the party of the future, the party of national renewal to reject the decline of the last 13 years, is this changed Labour party.”
Labour secured a 24-point swing in Tamworth – its second-highest byelection swing ever – giving Edwards a 1,316-vote majority over her Tory rival, Andrew Cooper. The last time the party took the seat from the Conservatives was in 1996, when it was called South East Staffordshire. It won a 22-point swing in a result that foreshadowed the landslide general election victory the next year. In Mid Bedfordshire, Strathern achieved a 20.5-point swing to win a 1,192 majority over the Conservative candidate, Festus Akinbusoye. It was the biggest majority overturned by Labour since 1945.
Both seats were being fought after controversial resignations from the sitting Tory MPs. In Mid Bedfordshire, Dorries had said she would resign after not being included in Boris Johnson’s resignation honours, but then did not step aside for another 11 weeks. The Tamworth byelection was called after the former deputy chief whip Chris Pincher quit, having lost an appeal against an eight-week suspension from parliament for groping two men at a private members’ club.
John Curtice, a professor of politics at the University of Strathclyde, said the results were “extremely bad news” for the Tories. “If you want to look at the precedent: what’s the last time that we had swings of this order? The answer is the parliament of ‘92 to ‘97. There were four byelections in that in which Labour got swings of over 20% from the Conservatives, and we all know how that ended,” he said. The Conservative vote collapsed in both seats, taking the party from 66% to 41% in Tamworth and from 60% to 31% in Mid Beds.
The Labour vote rose more moderately however, with tens of thousands of 2019 voters apparently choosing to stay at home. Turnout in Tamworth was little more than half the level at the 2019 general election, and in Mid Beds was about two-thirds of the 2019 level. The low turnout gave the Tories some hope that they may be able to recover some ground in time for the general election, which is likely to be held next year. Maria Caulfield, a health minister, said: “What I hear on the doorstep is they don’t feel that Keir Starmer is an alternative solution. We’re not seeing people voting for Labour in the way that they would need to form a government.” The Tory chair, Greg Hands, said: “I don’t think a single person came to the door to say that despite all the problems people are facing, that Labour and Sir Keir Starmer were the solution to their problems.
“I don’t see any enthusiasm for Labour but clearly there’s been a lot of, if you like, background circumstances in those two byelections that have also made the job difficult for us.” Conservative sources suggested the results would not prompt a change of strategy from Downing Street. Hands said: “We need to continue to deliver against our priorities and make sure that people see that Rishi Sunak is doing a very good job as prime minister.” The Liberal Democrats fell well short in Mid Beds, having expected to run Labour close. But the party celebrated an increased vote share in the seat, with a source saying “thousands of lifelong Tories” had switched their votes to the Lib Dems.