July 2023 By Elections

On July 20th 2023 the Conservatives faced three by elections on the same day following the resignations of three of their MPs. In Selby & Ainsty, Labour saw a 22% swing from the Conservatives, with 25 year Keir Mather becoming the new MP. In Somerton & Frome, the Liberal Democrats also overturned a large Conservative majority to take the seat. Only in Boris Johnson’s old seat of Uxbridge & South Ruislip did the Conservatives hold on and retain the seat. Whilst a considerable positive for Sunak, that Labour came within just 495 votes of winning the seat is a cause for concern.

The main concern for Sunak will be the overall trend towards Labour which as the chart below indicates shows that there is a clear 10% swing from the Conservative Party.

How concerned should Conservative MPs be? Well, by elections are always difficult for the governing party to win, often acting as a referendum on the record of the party in government. The table below shows that on occasions the governing party can gain seats at by elections, but this is rare occurrence. So whilst, it was always unlikely that the Conservatives would keep hold of all three seats Sunak will still be concerned by the swing away from his party in three, very different constituencies.

On the plus side, Rishi Sunak survived the ignominy of being the first Prime Minister since Harold Wilson in 1968 to lose three by elections on the same day. Nonetheless, in losing two out of three by-elections, Sunak saw his majority reduced to 56. Though still a sizeable majority, the reduced number of Conservatives in the House of Commons will increase the power of rebellious Conservative Backbenchers.

Sunak might also take comfort in the low turnout in each election. He’ll know that by-elections have notoriously poor turnouts and therefore are less than representative of what might conceivably occur in a General Election.