As we noted in our posts earlier in the year, Sir Keir’s first test as a leader - the Hartlepool by election and local elections - suggest his programme of change for Labour isn’t going as well as he’d hoped. In July, after Kim Leadbeater has managed to cling on to Batley & Spen for him, he launched a tour of the country to sell his message to voters. While we applaud his desire to meet us, the general public, so far the tour seems to be a bit of a mystery, as we have yet to see a venue advertised.
Still, we're sure it will have an impact, and luckily we've had some recent by-elections that could perhaps serve as a barometer for the tour's success to date.
In the last fortnight two Tory, two Labour, one independent and one SNP council seats being contested. So what happened and what does it mean for Sir Keir?
In Gaywood South in Norfolk, the Liberal Democrats gained the seat from the Tories with Labour coming second and Tories third. At first glance, that looks like a reasonable result for Labour until you review the history. Between 2013 and 2017, the Labour share of the vote increased in Norfolk, with the party moving from 3rd to 2nd place in terms of seat numbers ahead of the Liberal Democrats. This positive progress was halted in 2021 with the Tories gaining ground at the expense of both the opposition parties, whose seat numbers fell from 17 to 11 for Labour and 11 to 9 for the Liberal Democrats.Only in May, Labour came a close second in Gaywood South, only 200 votes behind the Tories, so one might have expected them to be the party to have gained this seat. And yet it was the Liberal Democrats who saw a massive increase in the vote share of 28%, to storm past both parties and win. While Labour’s vote share only decreased by 1.6%, this has to be a disappointing result for Labour, particularly since the Liberal Democrats now have an equal number of council seats to them.
The Liberal Democrats also grabbed Knaresborough Scriven Park in Harrogate from the Tories. Although this is less surprising (in the last twenty years Harrogate has been led by the Tories, Lib Dems or been under no overall control) what should worry Labour is a massive 18.1% loss of vote share. Yet again, the Liberal Democrats have gained at their expense among the affluent electorate they are trying to attract.
So what about the seats Labour lost?
East Retford South in Bassetlaw would be worrying for Labour except for the particular context. The by-election occurred because the incumbent Labour councillor resigned in protest over housing developments pushed through by the Tory Nottinghamshire County Council. She re-stood as an independent, splitting the vote between her and the Labour candidate, giving the seat to the Tories by a very narrow margin. Sir Keir probably won’t lose any sleep over this one, as Bassetlaw remains firmly Labour. However, it does flag up the problems that party divisions can create, and the dangers of an incumbent going solo and losing Labour seats.
More worrying for Labour will be the loss of Pitsea North West in Basildon. Apart from two years when it was Tory, Basildon has been under no overall control since 2000, with UKIP being the second party until 2018. In 2018 and 2019, Labour made small gains at UKIP’s expense, which were reversed at the 2021 election. This loss continues that trend and gives the council back to the Tories. Again, Basildon is the kind of constituency that Sir Keir is allegedly trying to attract, white working class former Labour communities that Labour lost a long time ago. It seems from this by-election and the recent council election, that yet again, his message isn’t cutting through.
Meanwhile in Scotland, the death of Dave King in West Lothian meant a by-election in East Livingston and East Calder in a seat he'd held for thirty years. Scottish local council elections work on a second preference system, and in previous elections, Labour has won by gaining enough votes in round one to pick up second votes in round two. Alas, for Sir Keir, this successful formula was not repeated. The seat was won by the SNP, with 42% of the votes. with Labour coming a disastrous third after losing votes to the SNP, Tories and Greens, in every polling district. We can’t help noticing that Sir Keir was in Scotland on the day of the by-election, where he made it clear he wouldn’t be working with the SNP or supporting a second referendum. We wonder if this had an impact on the result?
At least there was one glimmer of hope. Labour did manage to take back Felgate and Hedworth in South Tyneside from an Independent Councillor. The fact that the incumbent has a controversial record locally (including receiving a 40 week suspended sentence for driving into council buildings in 2011), and had created the by-election by not realising he couldn’t retract his resignation, is of course, neither here nor there. Still Labour HQ will no doubt be celebrating this result with the same brio with which they greeted Batley & Spen.
In sum, with 6 seats up for grabs in a wide variety of constituencies, Labour lost out twice to the Lib Dems, twice to the Tories and once to the SNP. The only by-election they did win was against a candidate whose grasp of the electoral system was less than impressive, and even then he managed to get 30% of the vote.
All of which suggests Sir Keir’s tour and revamped messaging as Blair’s natural heir is failing to gain him votes at a time when Boris Johnson’s popularity is finally dipping.
It looks like he'll be playing the By-Election Blues will be playing for a long time to come.