By-election results: a rural analysis

A rainbow result has occurred from yesterday’s three by-elections, with a win each for Labour, the Liberal Democrats and, to the surprise of many commentators, the Conservatives.

In historical terms the Selby and Ainsty result was a landmark for Labour: the 20,137 majority it overturned, to win by 46.0% to the Conservatives’ 34.3% with a swing of 21.4%, was the largest in the party’s history. The Liberal Democrats saw a similar banner day in Somerton and Frome, winning by more than 11,000 votes and achieving a swing of 28.4% with a majority of all votes cast. The Conservatives conserved a quantum of solace by retaining Uxbridge and South Ruislip, holding the seat vacated by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson against a swing to Labour of only 7.4%.

In the prelude to yesterday Labour had high hopes of taking at least two of the three seats. For Londoners, Labour’s failure to capture Uxbridge is most likely to be seen as a repudiation of Mayor Sadiq Khan’s policy of expanding his Ultra-Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) to the outer boroughs. 

As in much of Britain, however, the rural seat of Somerton and Frome offers the sharpest depiction of the challenge facing all three parties in the run-up to the next General Election. The seat was held until 2015 by the Liberal Democrats and the West Country has a tradition of electing that party’s MPs, to which this result may signal a return. The Liberal Democrats’ victorious Sarah Dyke led her campaign with a vow to be “an MP who will protect our rural way of life.” We hope and expect her to fulfil that pledge.

Nevertheless, more recently it has become archetypal of the Conservatives’ ‘blue wall’ and the threat to the governing party came from the resurgent Liberal Democrats, not from Labour. With only 1,009 votes, a 2.6% share and a swing against it of 10.3%, Labour sunk into fifth place. The victorious Liberal Democrats, the Conservatives, the Greens and even Reform UK placed ahead of the party that is currently expected to win power in 2024.

At last month’s Future Countryside event, Lord Mandelson invoked the experience of his grandfather, Herbert Morrison, who as Deputy Prime Minister to Clement Attlee created the Green Belt. Reflecting on the essential need to appeal to the whole country, rural as well as urban, Lord Mandelson said:

“The question is whether we should seek to bridge our divides or widen them further. For a party, a national party, aspiring to government, the answer to that question should be obvious. Even if it wasn’t an electoral necessity, failing to win rural seats would be a weakness for any government seeking to represent the country as a whole.”

While celebrating victory in North Yorkshire, Sir Keir Starmer would do well to heed the words of the architect of his party’s 1997 landslide victory. Labour, as Lord Mandelson told his party, cannot win Britain without winning the countryside.