By-elections 2023 live: Labour takes historic win in Selby & Ainsty after Tories hold Uxbridge & South Ruislip

The Conservatives have held Uxbridge and South Ruislip in a shock result. Tory candidate Steve Tuckwell narrowly beat Labour's Danny Beales. The Conservatives received 13,965 votes while Labour got 13,470. This is a big blow to Labour, who were odds on to win the seat. Tuckwell says that "Sadiq Khan has lost Labour this election", saying he won based on anti-ULEZ sentiment.

The Liberal Democrats have won Somerton and Frome off the Tories, overturning a majority of more than 19,000. Lib Dem Sarah Dyke gained 21,187 votes, while Conservative Faye Purbrick received just 10,179 votes. Dyke said the result shows "the Liberal Democrats are back in the West Country" and said she would "take this woeful government on".

The new Tory MP was very clear about why he won the seat - the Ultra Low Emission Zone. Steve Tuckwell said Mayor Sadiq Khan had cost Labour the seat: "It was his damaging and costly Ulez policy that lost them this election.

“This wasn’t the campaign Labour expected and Keir Starmer and his mayor Sadiq Khan need to sit up and listen to the Uxbridge and South Ruislip residents."

These comments will have concerned both Labour and Tory HQs. Rishi Sunak might have been slightly perturbed that Tuckwell did not mention any of his policies as to why he had been elected.

And Labour will be wondering whether the ULEZ is a single issue for this by-election, or whether it will affect the next general election. And Keir Starmer's team should be worried that one local issue was stronger than Labour's overall pitch, with the Tories suffering in the opinion polls.

If you're still there, stay with me - we're expecting Selby and Ainsty pretty soon. It sounds like Labour believe they may have won it off the Conservatives, which would be a huge result and completely change the complexion of Keir Starmer's night.

It looks like the Selby and Ainsty result is fairly imminent, someone has just stood on stage and asked the candidates and their agents to follow someone called Barry.

Labour has taken a historic victory, winning Selby and Ainsty off the Conservatives. This is the largest majority Labour has overturned from the Tories in history, and dramatically improves Sir Keir Starmer's night after the shock loss in Uxbridge and South Ruislip.

The former Conservative MP Nigel Adams, who quit alongside Boris Johnson, had previously had a majority of 20,137. Labour's 25-year-old candidate Keir Mather - who will become the youngest MP in Parliament - won 16,456 votes, a fairly sizeable majority over Tory Claire Holmes, who received 12,295 votes.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has described his party's victory in Selby and Ainsty as a 'historic result'. He said this shows "that people are looking at Labour and seeing a changed party that is focused entirely on the priorities of working people with an ambitious, practical plan to deliver".

“Keir Mather will be a fantastic MP who will deliver the fresh start Selby and Ainsty deserves," Starmer said.

“It is clear just how powerful the demand for change is. Voters put their trust in us — many for the first time.

“After 13 years of Tory chaos, only Labour can give the country its hope, its optimism and its future back.”

The swing from Conservative to Labour at Selby & Ainsty of 23.7 percentage points is the second largest swing managed by Labour at a by-election since 1945.

It is not quite as large as the record 29.1 point swing achieved by Labour at the Dudley West by-election in December 1994.

Labour has blamed the Ultra Low Emission Zone (Ulez) scheme for their by-election defeat in Boris Johnson’s former seat, with shadow justice secretary Steve Reed insisting those responsible for the policy will now need to “reflect”.

Despite Labour’s hopes of winning Uxbridge and South Ruislip, a seat held by the former prime minister with a majority of 7,210 in 2019, Tory candidate Steve Tuckwell managed to retain it for Rishi Sunak’s party.

Speaking after the results were announced from the count at Queensmead Sports Centre in South Ruislip, Labour frontbencher Mr Reed pinpointed the Sadiq Khan-backed scheme as a significant factor behind their defeat.

He told the PA news agency: “I think the winning Conservative candidate just said it, didn’t he? He said that if it wasn’t for Ulez, he believes Labour would have won this by-election.

“Clearly, it did resonate with a lot of people. They didn’t like the fact that Ulez was going to cost people more to drive around at a time when there’s a cost-of-living crisis going on. That’s exactly what Danny Beales was saying all the way through the campaign.

“But I think when the voters speak, any party that seeks to govern has to listen. So that’s what Labour will be doing after this.”

The failure to overturn the Tory majority in the seat was dubbed “Uloss” by a party insider in a sign of the unease at Mr Khan’s plan.

Mr Tuckwell received 13,965 votes to Mr Beales’s 13,470 to claim the constituency for the Tories.

Polling expert Professor Sir John Curtice has said the Tories are in “deep electoral trouble” following their by-election defeats.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Taken in the round, these by-election results do suggest that the Conservatives remain in deep electoral trouble, as the opinion polls have been telling us.”

Across the three seats contested, the Conservative vote was down 21 percentage points which is comparable to the national polling, he said.

He said Labour must ask why its hold on the electorate is “apparently so weak” that when a local issue like the Ulez ultra low emission zone in Uxbridge comes up they “don’t perform as they should”.