Labour have comfortably won the City of Chester by-election held on 1st December. The fact this is pretty much a non-story shows how far the opposition has come in the last 18 months. If scandal had forced a Labour MP to resign their seat in a marginal constituency last summer, in the wake of defeat in the Hartlepool by-election, this would have been a hard fought and high stakes contest. Instead, the Conservatives barely campaign and the media barely reported on what was universally, and correctly, seen as a foregone conclusion. Starmer’s office will be happy with that.
The scores on the doors:
Labour 61.2% (+11.2)
Conservatives 22.4 (-16.1)
Liberal Democrats 8.4 (+1.5)
Green 3.5 (+0.9)
Reform UK 2.7 (+0.2)
Rejoin EU 1.0 (+1.0)
Three Brands of Loony (UKIP, Raving Loonies, Freedom Alliance): 1.4 (+1.4)
Conservative to Labour swing: 13.7 points
As Labour sources are keen to remind us on the airwaves, this is Labour’s best performance ever in a City of Chester contest. As Conservative sources are keen to emphasise, this isn’t as impressive as it sounds as the seat, which was perpetually marginal but always in the blue column from 1910 to 1997 (when the first Blair landslide swept away Gyles Brandreth after a single term in the Commons), has swung pretty heavily in a Labour direction in recent years. It is graduate heavy, Remain leaning and on the fringes of Merseyside - all red shifting factors since 2016. Labour held on with only a modest swing to the Conservatives in the catastrophic defeat of 2019.
The by-election is also interesting for what didn’t happen further down the ticket. Despite many weeks of negative headlines about immigration, and much hand wringing in Conservative circles about a possible radical right challenge, there was virtually no increase in the minimal support for the latest UKIP tribute act ReformUK. The huge swings to the radical right routinely seen in 2010-15 have not returned as yet.
Similarly, there are no signs of life to Labour’s liberal left. The Lib Dems made only a modest advance, the Greens trod water and a new single issue “Rejoin EU” party scored barely one per cent. Starmer’s steady move towards centrist or even centre right positions does not yet seem to be causing electoral trouble for Labour on its left flank, despite the regular howls of despair from some left activists online
The long view - Labour’s best run of form in by-elections for decades?
The swing Labour achieved looks even more impressive, and the Conservative performance even more dismal, if we take a longer view. To make historical comparisons more straightforward, I focus comparisons only on by-elections where Labour and the Conservatives shared the top two spots in the previous general election (patterns of vote switching are very different in contests with the Lib Dems, the SNP or someone else in the running).
The 11.6 point rise in Labour support is the largest in such by-elections since Labour’s 13.5 point gain in Barnsley Central eleven years ago. The 13.8 point swing from Conservatives to Labour is the largest since Labour returned to opposition in 2010, beating the 12.7 point swing achieved in both Wakefield this June, and Corby a decade ago.
The Conservatives’ 15.9 point slump is worrying for a different reason. Over the past decade, such large falls in Tory support have only occurred when a UKIP or Brexit party candidate has heavily split the right wing vote. Yet in both Chester and Wakefield the Conservatives have slumped despite weak showings from ReformUK. It is no longer a revolt on the right driving the Tory vote down in by-elections, it is a collapse in the centre.
Labour’s two recent big by-election wins look all the more impressive when we bear in mind the long period of opposition under-performance which preceded them. Labour’s vote declined for 9 successive Con-Lab or Lab-Con contests over six years from Witney in October 2016 to Batley and Spen last July. The 2017-19 Parliament saw the Labour vote fall by an average of 16 points in three contests, while the 2015-17 Parliament saw an average gain of just 0.6 points across 8 contests. Labour’s vote increased by a measly 1 point on average across 13 “top two starter” by-elections in 2010-15, though the party achieved a substantial 7 point swing on average thanks to large scale Con to UKIP switching splitting the right vote, particularly in the tail end of that Parliament.
Looking even further back, the double digit swings in Chester and Wakefield recall but do not yet surpass the massive Tory to Labour swings in Wirral, Dudley and Staffordshire in the 1992-1997 Parliament, harbingers of coming electoral doom for the Major government. Starmer has not come close to matching those performances, but he has achieved a double digit swing in three of the last four straight Con-Lab or Lab-Con contests. That kind of consistent performance will put a spring in Labour’s step, and give a lot of worried Conservative MPs sleepless nights. We will get another chance to read the runes in just two weeks, when Stretford and Urmston voters will choose a replacement for Kate Green, who is leaving Parliament to become Deputy Mayor of Greater Manchester. On current form, this will provide another night to forget for Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives in the run-up to Christmas.
This post edited on 5th December 2022 to correct an error in the initial reported voting figures
Con vs Lab or Lab vs Con by-elections 2015-2022
Con vs Lab or Lab vs Con by-elections 2010-15
Con vs Lab or Lab vs Con by-elections 1992-1997
Hi Rob, some of these 1990s swings are quite high. The 2019 election through up a lot of 3 way marginals, for instance in Scotland or good Lib dem performances where Labour were strong in 2017 ore previous. Are there may examples from history of Labour (or the Tories) coming from third to first place in a good election year?
Ryan