Danny Beales was having dinner with his family on Friday evening when his phone started to vibrate insistently. “I was trying not to be rude, but eventually I couldn’t ignore the calls any more. I picked up, and a voice said: ‘Have you heard the news?’”
The news, which the Labour candidate for Uxbridge and South Ruislip had not yet seen, was the resignation of Boris Johnson as an MP for the constituency, in advance of the findings of an investigation into the Partygate scandal.
“It was very unexpected, so there was a mix of emotions … a bit of nervousness but excitement that we have a chance to put forward our case sooner than we thought,” says a very hot Beales, on a short break from canvassing on Sunday.
The 34-year-old has not stopped knocking on doors since the news broke, and says he expects to be out canvassing for votes every day until the byelection to replace Johnson takes place.
Of the three byelections dramatically triggered this week – former culture secretary Nadine Dorries and Johnson-loyalist Nigel Adams bookended that of Johnson – it is the prize of the former prime minister’s seat that most excites Labour.
Uxbridge was a key Labour target even before Johnson’s shock departure. With a majority of 7,210 the party thinks it has a strong chance of taking the seat. Although the Tory pollster Lord Ashcroft found that voters would have elected Johnson last week, Britain Predicts polling puts Labour on course to win the seat by 11 points.
Beales will not allow himself think that he may be an MP in a matter of weeks. “It’s slightly overwhelming to think about it, to be honest,” he says.
“At the moment, I am trying to focus on the here and now [on] the next conversation. Obviously, I want it to be the case, I want to serve the area I grew up in. I’m really passionate about making a difference here. But ultimately, it’s the voters that decide.”
In conversations on the doorstep Beales stresses that he wants to be a present constituency MP – something he argues the west London suburb has lacked for the past decade. He tells people he is also worried about his mortgage, the cost of his weekly shop, and he also has family members on NHS waiting lists.
“I think what matters most to people at the moment, is that I understand what they’re going through, I get what they’re frustrated about,” he says. “People feel really abandoned by politicians, really let down by lots of the promises that they’ve had over the last 15 years.”
The former charity worker – he recently gave up his job as head of policy and campaigns at the National Aids Trust – also stresses his local roots. He has been a councillor in Camden for a decade, but was born in Hillingdon hospital and grew up in South Ruislip and Ruislip Manor.
He hasn’t always wanted to be an MP, but underwent a political awakening in his teens, watching his single mother work two jobs and still struggle to make ends meet. The family was made homeless twice.
“I’ve had to fight, I worked incredibly hard to get on, to be the first in my family to go to university, to get a decent job,” he says.
“And I believe that the point of MPs and the point of government is to make it easier to get on and achieve your potential. It doesn’t feel like we’ve got that, it doesn’t feel like we’ve got people on our side, who’ve got our backs, who’re making it easier for us.”
Labour are throwing everything at Uxbridge – the party’s national campaigns coordinator, Shabana Mahmood, and the shadow work and pensions secretary, Jonathan Ashworth, were in the area on Saturday to begin campaigning less than 24 hours after the Johnson quit.
Beales knows there will be a huge amount of attention on the west London suburb until polling opens, and says he’s excited for the conversations ahead.
“I think we just have to make the case to those people who perhaps haven’t voted for us before – who are really fed up, but not sure what to do – that they can put their trust in us,” he says.
Does he expect to be standing in parliament making his maiden speech in the near future?
“People are incredibly fed up, they are saying they want change. So I think it is entirely possible for Labour to win this seat for the first time,” he says. “But we are not taking anything for granted. It’s going to be a hard fought battle on the ground.
