Chester delivered a brutal verdict for Tories: the red wall is breached
Labour could win a super-landslide at next election if result in Chester were to be replicated nationally
Rishi Sunak’s political honeymoon – such as it was – is well and truly over. The people of Chester have spoken, and the result has been devastating for the new Conservative leader, 38 days into his job.
I have been saying for weeks now in Chopper’s Politics Newsletter that Mr Sunak has to find an idea to inspire. That need is getting urgent now. The City of Chester by-election offered the first verdict on the Prime Minister since he was installed as leader by his own MPS after Liz Truss was forced out. And it was a brutal one.
Samantha Dixon, the new MP for the city, won 17,309 of the 28,541 votes cast, beating Liz Wardlaw, the Tory candidate, into a distant second with 6,335 votes.
Labour increased its share of the vote from 49.6 per cent to 61.2 per cent, marking the party’s best ever performance in the city. Sir Keir Starmer, their leader, was delighted. He said: “There’s this strong sense now that the Government has run out of road, run out of ideas, hasn’t got a mandate, and it’s time for change.”
Tory voices were largely absent from the airwaves yesterday morning. I asked Conservative Central Office for the positives from the result.
One source said the result was “as expected”, given the effort that Labour put into winning it.
There are still more than two years to the next general election. And it is worth remembering that just 14 months ago the team around Boris Johnson, who was then prime minister, were contemplating a three-term Tory government.
But the mood among MPS is grim. Sir Charles Walker, a Tory grandee, warned it will now be “almost impossible” for the Conservatives to win the next general election.
Look at what the result means for the Tories if the 13.8 per cent swing to Labour was replicated nationally at a general election. Prof Sir John Curtice, a polling expert, said it would be enough for Sir Keir Starmer to win a majority.
Others think it is worse than that. The estimated result – according to the Electoral Calculus – would be a Labour super-landslide of 272 seats, the worst Conservative result at a general election since the year 1900.
This would see Labour with 461 seats, the Tories on 86, the Liberal Democrats on 29, the SNP on 50, the Greens with one MP and Plaid Cymru with four MPS.
One health warning: by-elections are idiosyncratic and are often not a good guide to future general elections. But what is worrying for the Conservatives is that the by-election result is very consistent with (if slightly worse than) the national opinion polls.
The careers of some Tory big beasts would be over if the Chester result were repeated nationally: Sir Graham Brady, Nadine Dorries, Sir Iain Duncan Smith, Mel Stride, Dominic Raab, Oliver Dowden, Penny Mordaunt, Alok Sharma, Jacob Rees-mogg, Kwasi Kwarteng, Andrew Mitchell, Grant Shapps, John Redwood and, er, Boris Johnson would all have to find new jobs outside of politics.
Electoral Calculus got to these figures by combining the Chester result with national polling on vote shares. Martin Baxter, chief executive of Electoral Calculus, told me: “Although a single by-election is just one data point, it seems to confirm that the polls are broadly correct in showing that Labour are much more popular than the Conservatives and are set for a big parliamentary majority if there were an election soon.”
What is Mr Sunak’s response? The Prime Minister led a debate in his Cabinet on Tuesday about the importance of science, technology and innovation to the UK. According to the minutes, Mr Sunak told the meeting he “wanted it to be a defining focus for the Government”. Yes – and? What about cutting taxes? Tackling immigration? Where is the hope? The vision?
What do the Tories stand for? Right now it is not clear, with Labour wanting to cut the base rate of income tax from 20p to 19p and the Conservatives keeping it as it is.
While Mr Sunak decides what he wants to do as Prime Minister, voters are sending him their own message that they want to see more Conservative policies on tax and immigration. That would explain why Reform UK appears to have benefited, increasing its share of the vote to nine per cent, up four points.
Richard Tice, its leader, is ramping up the pressure with aggressive social media campaigning. A major announcement on health and social care is expected on Monday. And all the while Reform’s life president and star player – Nigel Farage – sits on the sidelines, waiting for the right time to re-enter the political fray.
The City of Chester is known as the Walled City, because of the Roman ramparts circling it. Yesterday’s result shows that the Tory party’s walls are breached by a rampant Labour party. Chester also sits among the party’s red wall seats that it has to hold against a resurgent Labour at the next election.
How will Tory MPS in the north of England respond when they can see their political careers disappearing?
One former minister told me: “Given that it is a northern bellwether seat, it really is worrying for all red wall MPS.
It seems the Tory party is facing political annihilation until its MPS can pressure the new leader to change tack and offer some hope amid the gloom.