Labour overturns huge majorities to inflict two by-election defeats on Tories

By Becky Morton

Political reporter

The Conservatives have suffered two heavy by-election defeats, with Labour overturning huge majorities to take Mid Bedfordshire and Tamworth.

The party saw off a challenge from the Liberal Democrats to make history in Mid Bedfordshire, overcoming a 24,664 Tory majority to win the seat for the first time.

In Tamworth there was a 23.9% swing to Labour from the Tories.

Leader Sir Keir Starmer said Labour was “redrawing the political map”.

“I think this really is a gamechanger,” he said.

“There is a confidence now in this changed Labour party that we can go anywhere across the country, put up a fight and win seats that we’ve never won before.”

However, he said: “I don’t want to get carried away” and added that “every single vote on this journey has to be earned”.

Tory Party chairman Greg Hands said the results were “disappointing” but that the “biggest problem was Conservative voters staying at home”.

“Clearly for us I think it is right that a number of our voters are unhappy with the government,” he told BBC Breakfast. “We clearly have a job to do to win them back.”

With the Tories also trailing in the national polls, the results have provided a boost to Labour ahead of an expected general election next year.

The largely rural constituency of Mid Bedfordshire has had a Tory MP since 1931 and has never been held by Labour in its century-long history.

The 24,664 Tory majority was the biggest the party had overturned in a by-election since 1945 and Labour’s Alistair Strathern secured a swing of 20.5% to win by 1,192 votes.

In a three-way fight for the seat, the Conservative candidate Festus Akinbusoye, Bedfordshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner, came second with 12,680 votes and Lib Dem Emma Holland-Lindsay came third with 9,420 votes.

In his victory speech Mr Strathern, a former councillor who has worked for the Bank of England, said: “Tonight residents across Mid Bedfordshire have made history, after decades of being taken for granted, feeling left behind, being underrepresented, they made a decision it was time for a change.

“Nowhere is off limits for this Labour Party and tonight’s result proves it.”

Image source, Getty / PA Media

Both by-elections were triggered by resignations from the previous MP, with some anger locally at the circumstances of their departure.

Mr Hands said “fury” among voters about the background to the by-elections was partially to blame for the Tory defeats.

In Mid Bedfordshire, former Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries stood down after her name was not included on Boris Johnson’s resignation honours list.

She pledged to stand down “with immediate effect” in June, but waited more than two months before officially resigning, saying she wanted to find out why she was refused a seat in the House of Lords first.

Critics accused her of being an “absentee MP”, after not speaking in the Commons since July last year.

The case and how it was handled triggered the wave of ministerial resignations that brought down Boris Johnson’s government last year.

Labour’s Sarah Edwards, a union organiser for Unite, overturned a Conservative majority of more than 19,600 to win the Staffordshire seat, which has been held by the Tories since 2010.

The swing of 23.9% to Labour was the party’s third to top 20% this year, after by-elections in Rutherglen and Selby, and the second highest achieved by Labour at a by-election since 1945.

Calling for a general election, Ms Edwards said voters had “sent a clear message to Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives that they have had enough of this failed government, which has crashed the economy and destroyed our public services”.

She added: “I know a lot of you have voted Labour for the first time, and I will not let you down.”

Tamworth voted strongly for Brexit in 2016 and Labour will be hoping this means it can win in other leave-supporting areas in a general election.

The Conservative candidate Andrew Cooper, who was ushered out of a side door seconds after his defeat was confirmed, was 1,316 votes behind his Labour opponent.

In Mid Bedfordshire, there had been concern among Labour supporters that a split in the anti-Conservative vote with the Lib Dems could allow the Tories to clinch a narrow victory.

In the end the Lib Dems finished in third place but claimed they had “played a crucial role in defeating the Conservatives”.

Deputy leader Daisy Cooper said: “We nearly doubled our share of the vote which would see the Lib Dems win dozens of seats off the Conservatives in a general election.”

Ms Cooper told BBC Breakfast there would only be “a very small number” of seats at the next general election which would be contested by all three parties and that the Lib Dems would focus their resources in areas where it was the “key challenger” in second place.

She added that the Lib Dems would not be doing any deals with other parties and would be running candidates in every single seat.

As well as a drift to Labour and the Liberal Democrats on the left, the right-wing Reform UK party also picked up votes, securing 1,487 in Mid Bedfordshire and 1,373 in Tamworth.

It means the Tories have lost four by-elections in just three months.

In July, the party was also defeated in Somerset and Frome by the Lib Dems and in Selby and Ainsty by Labour.

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