UK by-elections 2023: more questions than answers for Labour and Tories after dramatic night

Political journalists, commentators and pundits like to draw out a clear conclusion from election results. Particularly by-elections, which are used as a barometer for upcoming nationwide polls - however politics often isn’t that simple.

And it wasn’t on Thursday night and Friday morning, when the results came in for three by-elections across England - each in a markedly different constituency. The major parties will be left with just as many questions as answers as they build up to the general election in 18 months time.

Let’s start with Labour, who perhaps had the most polarising night. At 10pm after the polls closed, you sensed all was not well with Keir Starmer’s party, when a spokesperson issued a statement saying winning was “always going to be a challenge”. The party’s chairwoman Anneliese Dodds then doubled down saying they were “incredibly challenging elections”.

And while all were previously safe Tory seats - Labour only needed to see a swing in line with its 21 percentage point lead in the opinion polls to win both Uxbridge and South Ruislip and Selby and Ainsty. In fact, given the turmoil engulfing the Conservative Party and the economy there probably wasn’t a better time to contest these by-elections.

The first sign something was amiss was when the recount was announced in Uxbridge. Labour only needed a 7% swing for Boris Johnson’s former constituency, so that showed the race was much tighter than expected. 

And then when the final result came through, the Conservative Steve Tuckwell won by almost 500 votes. In his speech, during which he sounded surprised and overwhelmed, the new MP did not mention any of Rishi Sunak’s policies, but put the victory down to Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan’s Ultra Low Emission Zone expansion.

Ahead of the election, numerous voters told NationalWorld that the ULEZ was the number one issue for them - and it’s clear they associated it with voting Labour (even though it was a Boris Johnson policy originally). 

If Labour are to win an outright majority at the next election, they will need a far bigger swing than they saw in Uxbridge and South Ruislip, which was south of 7%. In fact, if their result across the country mirrors Selby and Ainsty, where 25-year-old candidate Keir Mather overturned the biggest Tory majority in Labour history, Starmer will romp home to a landslide.

So which result should we read into to gauge the state of Labour? Starmer will be hoping that the west London race is the outlier, a by-election fought on a single issue - the ULEZ - instead of a nationwide vote with broader factors at play.

However, Labour should be concerned that the party’s pitch to voters was not strong enough to overcome a single issue, while the Tories are at historically low popularity levels. And what does this mean for key swing seats in London’s outer boroughs at the next general election? Indeed, Sadiq Khan has already said he plans to “listen to Londoners” about the roll out of the ULEZ, following last night’s shock result.

Rishi Sunak and the Tories had played a game of serious expectation management ahead of these elections - briefing out that they expected to lose all three. So after the narrow win in Uxbridge the Prime Minister said that the next general election is not a “done deal”. He said the votes showed him he had to “double down, stick to our plan and deliver for people”.

That is an interesting read on events, as his own victorious candidate, Steve Tuckwell, made no mention of any of the Prime Minister’s policies or five priorities in his speech at all. Instead he said that Labour “had lost” instead of proclaiming people voted for the Tories because they believed Sunak was the right person to be PM.

And that’s without considering the Tories catastrophic losses in Selby and Ainsty and Somerton and Frome. In the West Country, the Liberal Democrats overturned a 19,000 vote majority - and this was not even their biggest by-election flip in recent times.

While in North Yorkshire, voters chose a 25-year-old Labour candidate - who Johnny Mercer said looks like a character from the Inbetweeners - instead of local councillor Claire Holmes. Mercer should probably be thinking about why voters trusted such a young Labour MP, instead of making patronising jokes.

Polling expert Professor Sir John Curtice took this view, saying the Tories are in “deep electoral trouble” following their by-election defeats. But do the results show that Labour will win an overall majority at the next election, that is still not clear.