Could Sunak’s by-election crisis be even worse than he feared?

Only two weeks remain until a likely triple Tory by-election defeat, says Sean O’Grady

Danny Beales is the Labour candidate for the Uxbridge and South Ruislip by-election (Getty Images)

Just two weeks are left until polling day in three crucial by-elections: Uxbridge and South Ruislip, Selby and Ainsty, and Somerton and Frome. And there are signs of yet more contests to come in what could be a summer that will keep both politicians and psephologists busy. Based on odds and polling, the results may be even bigger bombshells than previously thought.

What’s happening?

On 20 July, the three by-elections will mark the biggest test of public opinion since the local elections in May. It looks like a hat-trick of Tory losses, which they will want to get out of the way well before the party conference in the first week of October. Inevitably, the losses will be seen as an adverse verdict on the lack of progress on Rishi Sunak’s “five priorities”. One key thing to look for is how far the results confirm trends seen in opinion polls and the council elections. The strength of anti-Tory tactical voting will also be closely watched by party managers. Sunak will be hoping it finally marks the electoral nadir of his administration.

Who is winning?

Though bookies are hardly infallible, you can’t really argue with odds of 20 to 1 “on” (ie a 95 per cent chance) of the Liberal Democrats’ Sarah Dyke being returned in Somerton on a swing of at least 40 per cent; it would be in the top four of any UK by-election shocks and the most impressive Lib Dem gain from a Tory in history.

In its own way no less impressive would be Labour winning Selby. That requires a substantial swing of about 17 per cent in fairly unpromising territory, but here William Hill have Labour the strong favourites at 2/5, and the Tories drifting out at 15/8.

Keir Starmer with Keir Mather, Labour candidate for the Selby and Ainsty by-election (Getty)

Which leaves Uxbridge as a pushover Labour gain – and who could have imagined that in December 2019 when Boris Johnson made his victory speech there on his way to an 80-plus overall majority? It looks as if Johnson’s Conservative successor will be crushed. The odds vary, but it would now be a huge upset if Labour failed to take the seat; they’re about 1/20 favourites, with the Tories around 10/1 shots. (Interestingly for nerds, the last by-election here was in 1997, right after Tony Blair’s landslide, when the new PM was even more popular than on general election day – yet the Conservatives hung on quite comfortably.)

What about Nadine Dorries?

Her Mid Bedfordshire constituency should also have polling on 20 July, but she has postponed her promised resignation from parliament. Dorries was prepared to make the protest move for Johnson, but decided to await the results of her quest to discover what happened to her peerage nomination.

Latest polling from Opinium suggests Labour would take Mid Bedfordshire in the biggest Tory by-election defeat of all time (according to some headlines). Adam Drumming, from Opinium, commented: “The Conservatives are holding onto just under half of their 2019 vote and losing big chunks to a mix of Labour, Lib Dems, Reform and the local independent while Labour gains some from the Tories and Lib Dems to just put them ahead.”

Opinium put Tory candidate Festus Akinbusoye on 24 per cent, Labour’s Alistair Strathern, a Bank of England climate expert, on 28 per cent and the Lib Dems on 15 per cent. Independent councillor Gareth Mackey was on 19 per cent, while David Holland, for Reform UK, achieved just 10 per cent. Collectively, those performances would obviously demolish Dorries’s 2019 majority of 24,663 and exceed the previous record, set in Tiverton and Honiton just over a year ago after the bizarre tractor porn scandal.

In terms of swing, Mid Bedfordshire would be big but middle-ranking at 16 per cent – actually less than in Tiverton and lower than some Lib Dem and Labour gains in the 1990s.

All that said, our friends in the betting trade think it’s the Lib Dems who are the most likely to triumph in this particular seat. They’re on evens, the Tories are at 2/1 and Labour around 4/1.  The only hope for the Tories is that Labour and the Liberal Democrats somehow contrive to accidentally split the anti-Tory vote and hand Sunak an unusual electoral reprieve.

It looks as if we’ll have to wait as Dorries is only promising to be “gone long before the next general election”. Given her antipathy to Sunak, she may be timing her departure to inflict maximum damage.

Where else might there be by-election excitement?

It seems likely that Margaret Ferrier, ex-SNP, will be forced into a by-election in Renfrewshire, a marginal seat now widely expected to revert to Labour. The scale of the win would be the more important metric.

Even more fascinating, the Commons standards committee report into Chris Pincher’s unacceptable behaviour is due and he may similarly resign his seat or be forced out as a result of a lengthy suspension and subsequent recall petition. That would mean a by-election in Tamworth in late summer or early autumn. Pincher was the proximate cause of Johnson’s downfall, and perhaps his final political act will be to help fatally undermine Sunak. He scored a highly creditable 66.3 per cent in the “get Brexit done” election, with Labour trailing on a miserable 23.7 per cent. Should Labour turn that around and overturn Pincher’s massive majority of 30,542 then Sunak might as well go and see the King immediately.

Is it true there’s an earthquake brewing in Essex?

Arguably, there always is on Southend seafront. However, the police investigation into possible lockdown breaches at a gathering attended by Benard Jenkin and Dame Eleanor Laing carries the outside possibility of further resignations and two by-elections in the same county, a coincidence we’ve not seen for some time. Benard is an especially embarrassing case because he was a prominent member of the privileges committee that condemned Johnson for lying to parliament. Laing would be an especially sad case because she’s a deputy speaker and has been a popular figure across the house. Jenkin and Laing have outsized majorities, and so large that their departures might do Sunak a favour by showing that he can at least save some of his safest seats. Maybe.