Tories suffer two losses but hold onto Boris Johnson's old seat

The Conservative Party has lost two out of three byelections after voters yesterday went to the polls in the English constituencies of Uxbridge and South Ruislip, Selby and Ainsty, and Somerton and Frome.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak had prepared the party for disappointment, telling members of the 1922 Committee on the eve of the vote that it had a “tough battle” on its hands.

The Tories managed to retain the Uxbridge and South Ruislip seat vacated by former prime minister Boris Johnson after the House of Commons privileges committee found he had lied to parliament over Partygate.

Though Labour increased its share of the vote by close to 6 per cent, Steve Tuckwell, who had represented South Ruislip on Hillingdon Council and whose campaign focused on opposing the expansion of London's Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ), won with a majority of just 495.

Labour’s Keir Mather won the Selby and Ainsty seat that had been held by Johnson ally Nigel Adams until he resigned when his name did not appear on Johnson’s resignation honours list.

University of Oxford history and politics graduate Mather, who at 25 has become the youngest MP in Westminster, won with a majority of 4,161 after Labour’s share of the vote increased by 21.4 per cent.

In Somerton and Frome, where incumbent David Warburton had last year been suspended from the Tory party following allegations of sexual misconduct, the Liberal Democrats saw an even bigger swing, with its share of the vote increasing by more than 28 per cent since the last general election.

Sarah Dyke took 54.6 per cent of the vote and overturned a Tory majority of 19,000. She thanked Labour and Green voters for “lending” her their vote in order to oust the Conservatives and said that while “there is no doubt that our electoral system is broken” the use of tactical voting has “shown that the Conservatives can still be beaten under it”.

Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey said the win shows that his party is “firmly back” in its former West Country stronghold.

"The people of Somerton and Frome have spoken for the rest of the country who are fed up with Rishi Sunak's out-of-touch Conservative government," he said.

Labour leader Keir Starmer hailed his party's "historic" win in Selby and Ainsty, saying "the people are looking at Labour and seeing a changed party, focused entirely on the priorities of working people".

He has not yet commented on the Tory win in Uxbridge and South Ruislip, which Labour had been targeting.

Conservative Party Chairman Greg Hands similarly hailed the Uxbridge result, but speaking on BBC Breakfast admitted that his party must "regain the trust and confidence" of voters.

Polling expert Sir John Curtice said the results show that the Tory party is in “deep electoral trouble” and that Labour’s campaign had been “too brittle”.

“Both the Conservatives and Labour agree that a local issue – London mayor Sadiq Khan's proposed extension of London's ULEZ low emission zone to the capital's outer boroughs – played an important role in helping shore up the Conservative vote in Uxbridge and South Ruislip,” he said.

“Indeed, the newly elected Conservative MP himself suggested the issue was crucial, and did not give Rishi Sunak and his government any credit for his success [but] together with the heavy scale of the party's losses in Somerton and in Selby it would seem unwise for Tory MPs to draw any conclusion other than that their party is still in deep electoral trouble.

“Meanwhile, as in previous byelections over the last couple of years, voters registered their dissatisfaction with the Conservatives by switching to whichever opposition party appeared best able to defeat the local Conservative candidate.

“In Uxbridge and in Selby, the already-low Liberal Democrat vote was badly squeezed, while in Somerton, Labour were pushed into fifth place. In a general election such a pattern of tactical voting could seriously accentuate the scale of Conservative losses.

“Yet at the same time, Labour's failure to take Uxbridge will raise questions about the effectiveness of Sir Keir Starmer's electoral strategy. Characterised as it is by few promises and a focus on the centre ground, his critics may well argue that Labour's appeal proved too brittle when confronted by a difficult local issue.”