'It's gone': Tories prepare for crunch by-election losses
Rishi Sunak’s Conservative party faces three very different election challenges this week in three very different parts of the country.
His MPs are not confident of success.
Somerton and Frome
In Somerton and Frome, in rural Somerset, where the former MP David Warburton resigned after accusations of sexual misconduct and drug use (he denies the former but admitted the latter), most Tory MPs have already written off their chances.
They expect the Liberal Democrats to wipe out their 19,213 majority when the votes are counted overnight on Thursday.
The Lib Dems held the seat from 1997 to 2015 and have essentially been campaigning to retake it for the past year while David Warburton had the Conservative whip suspended.
I’m told the now-familiar Lib Dem by-election victory prop is ready to go on Friday morning, so confident are the party of victory.
Selby and Ainsty
Further north, not too far from Rishi Sunak’s North Yorkshire constituency, the Conservatives face another tough test - perhaps surprisingly - in Selby and Ainsty.
The seat wasn’t on Labour’s target list and in its current form has only ever had a Tory MP.
It was viewed as a solid blue safe seat. But Labour have grown increasingly optimistic they could overturn the Tories' 20,000 majority.
Labour’s team say they’ve picked up on anger from voters at the way the former MP Nigel Adams quit the seat after missing out on a peerage in Boris Johnson’s resignation honours.
And the campaigners say lifelong Tory voters are prepared to speak to them on the doorstep - a total change from the toxic atmosphere activists say they encountered across northern seats in 2019.
One Conservative MP who has campaigned in Selby predicted to me “it’ll be close.” Another was more blunt: “It’s gone.”
Uxbridge and South Ruislip
Strangely, it is in the seat where the Tories enjoy the smallest majority they feel they have the best chance of winning on Thursday.
When Boris Johnson dramatically quit as an MP and abandoned his Uxbridge and South Ruislip constituency last month, most Conservatives considered the seat a lost cause.
But the Tories have tried, somewhat successfully it appears, to turn the by-election into a referendum on London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone, or ULEZ, which is due to expand to outer boroughs later this summer.
There is widespread concern in the constituency about the proposed expansion, so much so the Labour candidate has come out against the policy - championed by London’s Labour mayor Sadiq Khan.
With a majority of just over 7,000, Uxbridge was on Labour’s target list. It’s a seat the party would be expected to take if it wants to be in government in a few years time.
Rishi Sunak’s team would probably view anything other than three losses as a decent result this week.
The Lib Dems publicly say they are taking nothing for granted.
Labour say winning two previously safe Tory seats is a big ask - but the party would desperately love to see its huge polling lead can translate to real votes.
The good news for the prime minister is that MPs will already have been sent home for their summer recess by the time polls close on Thursday night.
There won’t be much opportunity to collectively chew over any potential bad results and plot some sort of rebellion.
More by-elections on the horizon
The bad news for Rishi Sunak is that when summer is over, he faces another three possible by-elections: in Rutherglen and Hamilton West in Scotland, Tamworth in the midlands and Mid Bedfordshire in the South.
In Mid Bedfordshire, the incumbent Conservative MP Nadine Dorries has already announced she’s quitting but has yet to formally do so.
Both the Lib Dems and Labour are whipping up opposition to the Tories by claiming voters have been left without an MP.
Rishi Sunak’s summer may prove to be a brief escape from two sets of unwanted dates with the electorate.
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