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2:00 AM 27th June 2022
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Reflecting On The Wakefield By-Election

 
Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay
Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay
Daniel Cobby, currently working on the fall of the red wall for his PhD at Teesside University, reflects on the Wakefield by-election.

Last Thursday, on 23 June 2022, voters in Wakefield, West Yorkshire went to the polls to decide their new MP. They were presented with two very distinct choices – either stick with the Conservatives or return the seat to the Labour Party. By Friday morning, it was confirmed that they had chosen the latter, ousting the Tories after only three years.

The result

As numerous polls had predicted, Wakefield returned a Labour MP by electing NHS worker Simon Lightfoot. Labour had embarrassingly lost the seat to the Conservatives back in 2019, an election which saw Labour’s historic ‘red wall’ crumble almost overnight. Not only did Labour win back Wakefield, but they did it comfortably. The party secured 13,166 votes, with a majority of 4,925 – a swing of 12.7% from Conservative to Labour. The result was unsurprising as for the past few months Labour had dominated the opinion polls amid Conservative scandals surrounding Boris Johnson. The result on Thursday marks the beginning of the end for Johnson’s ‘blue wall’ gained in 2019, as traditional Labour voters begin to turn their backs on the Conservatives only three years after gifting them an electoral landslide.

What it means

The importance of Labour’s victory in Wakefield cannot be overstated. After losing the seat in 2019, new leader Sir Keir Starmer had the difficult task of regaining the party’s historic working-class heartlands. Although his first real test came in May 2021 with the Hartlepool by-election – which Labour lost – Wakefield was another chance for Starmer to prove he is the right leader for Labour. Over the past year or so the British public have been slowly souring towards to the Prime Minister and his government mainly due to the infamous ‘Partygate’ scandal in which it was revealed that Boris Johnson had been hosting parties at Number 10 in the middle of Covid lockdown, whilst the rest of the UK were not allowed to come within six feet of each other. Johnson has been relentlessly attacked for his blatant hypocrisy ever since, resulting in Labour gaining ground in the realm of public opinion. The Conservatives, and especially Boris Johnson, are no longer trusted by working-class constituencies and are looking likely to vote Labour at the next general election. The Wakefield by-election is a huge win for Starmer and the Labour Party, but also serves as a harbinger for what is about to come for Boris Johnson, as his famous 2019 gains look to be built on unstable foundations.

23 June in focus

23 June 2022 will be remembered as a day of disaster for Boris Johnson. Not only did he lose Wakefield to Labour, the people of Tiverton in Devon opted for Richard Foord and the Liberal Democrats in their by-election, turning a previously Tory safe seat orange. Foord’s victory was the third by-election seat won from the Conservatives by the Liberal Democrats since the 2019 election, following their victories in both North Shropshire and Chesham and Amersham last year. The result in Tiverton was a record-breaker, which saw a massive swing of 29.9% to the Lib Dems, successfully overturning a Conservative majority of more than 24,000 – the largest ever loss in a by-election for the Tories. The Conservatives have managed to lose both a ‘red wall’ constituency as well as a safe rural seat in the space of one day. Furthermore, in the wake of these election defeats and a narrow victory in the vote of confidence in the Prime Minister earlier this month, Conservative Party chairman Oliver Dowden resigned in the early hours of Friday, realising Johnson’s position is becoming untenable. The Prime Minister has suffered a monumental triple blow to his leadership, and in the coming weeks there may well be more challenges for Boris Johnson which could result in the toppling of his government and potentially ending twelve years of British political dominance by the Conservative Party.

What next?

Sir Keir Starmer and the Labour Party will be silently hoping for a general election before the end of this year. The Conservatives are at their most vulnerable position in twelve years with the British public losing trust as well as Labour dominating polls regarding Westminster voting intentions. Starmer needs to take advantage of Boris Johnson’s weakened position by applying endless pressure to the government, with hope that his Cabinet either oust him or a snap election is called. Johnson has a difficult few months ahead as his party begins to think about replacing him, even going as far as possibly changing party rules so that a new vote of confidence can be issued sooner than the twelve month cooldown period. Should the current political situation remain unchanged for the foreseeable future and Boris Johnson’s appeal continues to diminish, a general election is truly a possibility as Sir Keir Starmer will look to build on Thursday’s victory and attempt to return Labour to power for the first time in twelve years, as the Conservatives desperately try to hang on.