Labour’s other Keir looks to hold on to seat he won in dramatic fashion in 2023
In a seat that was last contested in July 2023 in a by-election which saw Labour wipe out a 20,000 majority, Mason Boycott-Owen looks at the issues and boundary changes.
LAST summer’s Selby and Ainsty by-election arguably cemented Labour’s position as an electoral force ready to win the next election.
Overthrowing a 20,000 majority is no small task, especially in North Yorkshire, and Sir Keir Starmer’s party has continued to plough through by-election and council victories since then.
However, at the next general election, it is a different task.
Due to changes in the seat’s boundaries, it no longer contains the more Tory area of Ainsty and instead takes in areas to the east of the Labour stronghold of Leeds, such as Kippax.
Analysis suggests that this change would have shaved around four points off the Conservative majority in the seat, changing the expectations from a mammoth task to one which Labour should win if it wants a decent majority in government.
Being the only seat in our Battleground Yorkshire series which has changed hands since the last election, many of the issues in the seat are still there today.
On local issues, there are very few as controversial and impactful for the country as the future of Drax power station, the biomass fuel company which employs thousands locally but is facing watchdog investigations and government consultations over its viability as a green energy source.
Both Labour and the Conservative candidates are, unsurprisingly, supportive of its future in the area that provides so many jobs.
“To be blunt with you, I think the notion that there is a world in which Drax winds down is for the birds,” says Keir Mather, who won the by-election for Labour last year, while his Tory opponent Charles Richardson said that he would fight “tooth and nail to ensure Drax gets the long-term commitment it needs from the Government to adapt and continue”.
Housing, as with every seat on our list, is chief among the issues that have not gone away, with the seat home to the highest proportion of mortgage holders of anywhere in Yorkshire.
This makes the seat a case study on the effects of the Liz Truss mini-Budget, which saw mortgage payment costs soar for households across the country.
No party has been better at making this stick than Labour, with Sir Keir Starmer referencing in Parliament a Selby police officer who was having to sell his family home because their mortgage payments have soared, with other residents in the town sharing similar frustrations.
The party will have to be able to both attack the Conservatives on mortgages but also offer a compelling offer on house building. Labour has set a target of 1.5 million new homes over five years alongside changing planning laws and reviewing the building of homes on green belt land.
In rural areas such as Selby, this will not always be met with positivity by voters.
Earlier this year North Yorkshire Council scrapped plans for a new village called Heron by between Selby and York containing some 4,000 proposed homes, which local campaigners called “damaging and unnecessary”.
The first instinct of most modern Labour politicians is to build houses, and so many MPs in rural seats who are sceptical about new homes are having to perform a delicate balancing act on their stance, which is often tied to the idea that new homes must come alongside more public services such as schools or GP surgeries – something few residents can argue against.
“I do think people understand fundamentally that we are in a housing crisis,” says Mr Mather. He added that there is also a need for “more appropriate” housing to the needs of people on lower incomes, as well as the infrastructure to “support the housing once it’s built”. He said: “I don’t think it makes people NIMBYs to have that point of view.”
Labour’s ability to make the Conservatives look weak or untrustworthy on their core values is driving the Opposition party’s success in seats like this, and allows them to pick up votes at the expense of parties such as the Liberal Democrats who have focused on healthcare and the environment.
The Lib Dems only managed three per cent of the vote in the byelection, finishing in sixth.
This year’s contest is predicted to see Labour win by a margin of anywhere between six and 15 points, with the performance largely dependent on the performance of Reform UK who, without Nigel Farage’s star power, has had underwhelming by-election and local election performances.
Labour, meanwhile, is hoping its policies on pensions will eat into the remaining Tory, undecided and Reform vote in many seats.
The average age that the public are more likely to vote Tory over Labour has risen dramatically to around 70 years old, with pensions being one of the top concerns of the Conservative’s only remaining loyal demographic.
Both main parties have now committed to keeping the triple lock on pensions, a top-three issue for pensioners at the next election.
Ahead of Labour’s victory in the York and North Yorkshire mayoral election, Rachel Reeves was in North Yorkshire, standing in front of a poster that told older voters that the Tories cannot be trusted with their pensions.
The Conservatives have repeatedly been pushing their ambition to eliminate National Insurance, calling it a “double tax on work”.
Despite this being a good policy to win voters in principle, due to the popularity of tax cuts, Labour is looking to make this another assault on Tory principles.
National Insurance is not paid by pensioners because it was a tax on their earnings while in employment in order to qualify them for the state pension, but pensioners do pay income tax on their total earnings when in retirement.
Labour’s argument is that scrapping National Insurance will require pensioners to pick up the cost of some £46bn through income tax increases, which it argues constitutes an even more “dangerous” risk than the Liz Truss mini-Budget which saw voters leave the Conservatives in their droves.
Some 20 per cent of Selby’s population is over the age of 65, according to the last census, providing Labour with enough winnable votes to help see them over the line in seats like this.