Tory voters switching to Reform may have cost party by-election

Fears grow that split on the Right may end up costing Conservatives at general election

Conservative Festus Akinbusoye was beaten by Labour’s Alistair Strathern who won with a majority of 1,192 CREDIT: JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP

THE TELEGRAPH

ByDominic Penna, POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT20 October 2023

Tory voters switching to Reform cost the Conservatives the by-election seats of Mid Bedfordshire and Tamworth, data suggest. 

The amount of votes picked up by Richard Tice’s insurgent centre-Right party was bigger than the Labour majority in either constituency.

This means that if Reform voters had either stayed at home or chosen to back the Tories, Labour could have been denied one or both of its victories.

Labour inflicted two of the heaviest ever by-election losses on the Tories on Friday morning, with a 19,634 majority being wiped out in Tamworth and Labour in Mid Bedfordshire setting a new record for the biggest numerical majority overturned in a UK by-election since 1945.

However, Reform won 1,373 votes (5.4 per cent) in Tamworth and 1,487 (3.7 per cent) in Mid Bedfordshire, while the Labour majorities in the two seats were 1,316 and 1,192 respectively.

In a post on Twitter, Mr Tice, wrote: “Twice in the same night have Reform ensured [that the] Tories lost their seat with this by-election result.

“This despite a huge squeeze – pressure from Tories to voters, saying ‘do not vote Reform’.”

Reform UK vote enough to give Conservatives a majority

Election results if Reform UK vote had gone Conservative

Blue: Conservatives Red: Labour Gray: Reform UK

On Thursday, the Conservatives released a Facebook advert targeted at Tamworth residents which read: “Reform can’t win. Every vote for them makes a Labour victory more likely.”

Luke Tryl, the UK director of the More In Common think tank, said: “The Tories will have a new worry after tonight – the emergence of a split on the Right, which saw the Reform UK vote larger than the Labour majority in Tamworth and Mid Bedfordshire.

“It suggests that Rishi Sunak may now be losing support on two fronts – on the Left to Labour and the Liberal Democrats, and on the Right to Reform UK.

“Expect to see more hand wringing on splits on the Right in the weeks to come.”

Dave Holland, the Mid-Bedfordshire by-election candidate, casts his vote on Thursday CREDIT: Facebook

It came as turnout plummeted in both by-elections, with 40,720 votes cast in Mid Bedfordshire, down by 29.6 per cent on the 2019 general election, while 25,586 ballots in Tamworth represented a decrease of 28.4 per cent.

Senior Tory figures were quick to note that many of their own voters had appeared to stay at home, as Labour actually only increased its share of the vote in Tamworth from 10,908 to 11,719.

Lord Hayward, a Tory peer and election expert, told The Telegraph: “They’ve not voted for the Government, but turnout is down and down markedly. My assessment would be that normally a by-election is viewed as a protest vote. In this case, it’s a protest ‘non-vote’.

“They’re just sitting on their hands. There’s no question, it’s a very good result for Labour. In Tamworth there was always the latent Labour support, but it’s non-voters that win the day, basically.

“Under these circumstances, people are not voting, or if they do vote, they are voting against the Government because of the events of the last two years – exhaustion with the saga of 2020, 2021 and 2022. So what you have to do is prove you’re competent, and hope that works.”

1997 landslide victory

Comparisons have been drawn with 1997, the year of Sir Tony Blair’s landslide victory, in the wake of the current scale of swings to Labour.

Between 1992 and 1997, the Conservative government defended a majority in eight by-elections and lost every single one.

However, turnout was significantly higher at a number of these polls, including in South East Staffordshire – which was replaced by Tamworth in a review of constituency boundaries – in 1996.

That election, which also saw a swing of more than 20 percentage points from the Tories to Labour, saw a turnout of 62 per cent.

Labour also increased its number of votes by more than 4,000, which suggests far greater numbers were switching over to Sir Tony’s party almost three decades ago than they were under Sir Keir on Thursday.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/10/20/tory-voters-switching-reform-cost-party-by-election/