Labour ousted by Conservatives in Copeland byelection
Labour has suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of the Conservative party in Copeland, a heartland seat dominated by the party since 1935, just half an hour after seeing off the Ukip leader, Paul Nuttall, in a bitter battle for Stoke Central.
Many Labour MPs were privately blaming Jeremy Corbyn, and in particular his perceived hostility to the nuclear industry, for the loss of the Cumbrian seat, vacated by the resignation of Jamie Reed to work for Sellafield, the nuclear plant that is the biggest local employer.
The shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, said the result in Copeland was “really disappointing” and the party would “learn lessons”, but he hit out at the former leader Tony Blair for criticising Labour just days before the byelections, and insisted Corbyn had no intention of stepping aside.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, McDonnell said: “There’s mixed views on Jeremy; the issue for me is, actually, he is a different type of leader; he is that sort of person who does listen, is decent and honest and brings people together. He’s not the kind of macho leader we’ve had in the past, and that’s why we’ve had the disasters that we’ve had. He is not someone who doesn’t recognise that our party now needs to rebuild itself from the grassroots in those communities like Copeland.”
Labour’s candidate in Copeland, Gillian Troughton, was defeated by the Conservatives’ Trudy Harrison, marking the first time a governing party has taken a seat from another party in a byelection in 35 years.
Nuttall’s defeat in Stoke raised doubts about the Ukip leader’s ambition to replace Labour as the voice of the working classes and will leave many questioning the party’s relevance, given that its share of the vote shrank in Copeland.
Both results were good news for Theresa May’s Conservative party, which has made a deliberate pitch for traditional Labour voters by focusing on “just about managing” families, and sought to see off Ukip by promising a “red, white and blue Brexit”, pri-