RISHI Sunak could be facing by-election “disaster” this week and become the first Prime Minister in decades to lose three parliamentary seats in one day.
Battles are looming on Thursday in three constituencies where Conservative MPs are stepping down, including Uxbridge and South Ruislip, Boris Johnson’s former seat.
While Labour are eyeing the prospect of a win there, the party will face a bigger challenge to overturn the Tory majority in Selby and Ainsty in North Yorkshire, where Johnson ally Nigel Adams has stepped down.
Meanwhile, the LibDems have high hopes for securing Somerton and Frome in the West Country – a seat they held for 18 years before the Tories won it in 2015.
The former MP David Warburton resigned after being suspended from the Conservative Party over allegations of sexual misconduct he denies and drug-taking.
The last Prime Minister to lose three seats on one day was Labour’s Harold Wilson in by-elections held in March 1968.
Paul Whiteley, professor in the department of government at the University of Essex, said having multiple by-elections in one day was unusual and reflective of the crisis in the Conservative Party and UK Government.
He said: “If you look at the national picture in polling, it looks like Labour have a pretty good chance of winning Uxbridge and South Ruislip, Boris Johnson’s old seat.
“There is a poll which suggests that they might actually win Selby
and Ainsty.
“But that’s a tall order because the majority over Labour in the last General Election in 2019 was more
than 20,000.
“I’m not saying they couldn’t win, but it’s much more iffy.”
A win for Labour in this seat would mean breaking the record for the previous highest majority the party has overturned at a by-election – 14,654 votes in Mid-Staffordshire more than 30 years ago.
But it’s just over a year since the LibDems made by-election history, overturning a record 24,239 Conservative majority in Tiverton
and Honiton.
Whiteley said there was a “good chance” the LibDems could win back Somerton and Frome, which they had lost in the wake of their unpopular coalition with the Conservatives.
“Here we are many years ahead, and people have forgotten that,” Whiteley said.
“And of course, the unpopularity of the Conservatives nationally means that – especially in the West Country, where traditionally the main opposition party has been the Liberal Democrats – people turn to the Liberal Democrats rather than turning
to Labour.”
Whiteley said the loss of three seats would be a “big blow” to Sunak and was likely to bring a portent of what will happen in the General Election.
“The kind of conventional wisdom for many years was that by-elections don’t tell you anything about General Elections,” he said.
“You can find examples of by-elections that have been a great success for a party and then it’s not done particularly well in the following
General Election.
“This was true for Labour in 2019 when it won the Peterborough by-election, but of course, later on in the year, it did very badly in the
General Election.
“But what you’ve got to do if you want to understand these things, is look at a lot of by-elections.”
Whiteley said examination of the results of 474 by-elections since 1945 showed that wins for a party are a “pretty good predictor” of what might happen in a UK election.
“For instance, the Conservatives during the period just before Mrs Thatcher won the election in 1979 had chalked up six wins from Labour in the Labour period from 1974 up to 1979,” he said.
“And of course, they ended up winning the General Election.
“So what happened in the by-elections was a predictor, to some extent, of what happened in the General Election.”
Whiteley said he worked out that for every by-election won by the Tories from 1945 up to the present day, this translated into around nine extra seats in the House of Commons – and a loss in a by-election takes away the same number of seats.
He cautioned this kind of forecasting was subject to errors, but said the relationship showed by-elections “are something of a predictor” for
General Elections.
He said: “What it means is that if the Conservatives lose all three – whether it’s to Labour or to the Liberal Democrats, it’s a disaster for
Rishi Sunak.
“People expect the Uxbridge seat to go to Labour because the majority is only about 7000.
“But when you’ve got majorities of 20,000 being lost – and some of those have happened already in by-election to the benefit of the Liberal Democrats – then you really are
in trouble.
“So I think it’s a portent of what will happen in the General Election if it turns out that the Conservatives lose all three of them on Thursday.”
