The Prime Minister has described the double Conservative by-election losses in Tamworth and Mid Bedfordshire as “disappointing” but said there were “local factors at play”.
Rivals Labour took both seats, which enjoyed healthy Tory majorities, in results that party leader Sir Keir Starmer said “made history”.
Both contests were triggered by the high-profile departures of their previous MPs.
Former cabinet minister Nadine Dorries quit – eventually – as Mid Bedfordshire’s MP in anger at being denied a peerage in former prime minister Boris Johnson’s resignation honours list.
Mid-term elections are always difficult for incumbent governments
In Tamworth, Chris Pincher resigned after being found to have drunkenly groped two men in an “egregious case of sexual misconduct” at London’s exclusive Carlton Club last year – an incident which helped trigger Mr Johnson’s exit from No 10 because of his handling of the situation.
Rishi Sunak, speaking to broadcasters as he prepared to fly to the UK from Egypt, said they were “obviously disappointing results” but that it was “important to remember the context”.
He said: “Mid-term elections are always difficult for incumbent governments.
“And of course there are also local factors at play here.”
The Prime Minister, who is returning after a diplomatic blitz of the Middle East, said he remained “committed to delivering on the priorities of the British people” following the defeats.
Mr Sunak said he would “keep on” with his five priorities, which includes halving inflation and stopping migrants in small boats crossing the Channel.
He also highlighted his recent “long-term” decisions — such as halting the HS2 rail programme at Birmingham to invest the £36 billion saved into other transport projects and rowing back on some net zero commitments — that he argued would “change our country for the better”.
But some Tories are calling for the Prime Minister to be “braver” if he is to turn the party’s fortunes around ahead of a likely general election next year.
Opposition leader Sir Keir claimed Labour was “redrawing the political map” by taking seats which had been comfortably Conservative as his party plots its return to power.
During a visit to Tamworth, where Labour’s Sarah Edwards defeated Tory Andrew Cooper by a majority of 1,316, Sir Keir said voters choosing to back his party “replicates what is going on across the country” and that people wanted a “fresh start”.
The Conservatives were defending a 19,634 majority in the Staffordshire constituency, but a 23.9 percentage point swing to Labour saw that eradicated.
The result was the second-highest ever by-election swing to Labour.
There was even better news for Sir Keir in Mid Bedfordshire, announced just half an hour after Ms Edwards’ victory, which witnessed the largest majority overturned by Labour at a by-election since 1945.
The Tories had held Mid Bedfordshire since 1931, with a 24,664 Conservative majority in 2019.
But Alistair Strathern took the seat with a majority of 1,192 over his Tory rival Festus Akinbusoye, with a swing of 20.5 percentage points to Labour.
Elections expert Professor Sir John Curtice said the two results were “extremely bad news” for the Conservatives and suggested Mr Sunak was on course for a general election defeat.
He warned the Tories risked seeing votes drift to Labour on the left and Reform UK on the right.
By-elections are always incredibly difficult for governing parties.
— Andrea Leadsom MP (@andrealeadsom) October 20, 2023
Despite really strong campaigns from @FestAKINBUSOYE and Andy Cooper, it is clear too many of our voters stayed at home.
We must and will work even harder to win their support over the next year.
Reform, formerly the Brexit Party, secured 1,487 votes in Mid Bedfordshire and 1,373 in Tamworth – in both instances more than Labour’s majority over the Conservatives.
Former Conservative chancellor George Osborne, speaking on his Political Currency podcast ahead of the results being announced, said a defeat in a seat as solidly blue as Mid Bedfordshire would likely signal that “Armageddon is coming for the Tory Party”.
Greg Hands, the Conservative Party chairman, sought to blame the “legacy issues” predating Mr Sunak’s premiership which led to the two by-elections.
Mr Hands pointed to low turnout in both contests, with 44% in Mid Bedfordshire – down from 74% at the last general election – and 36% in Tamworth, down by around 28%, as an example of a lack of “enthusiasm” among the electorate for Labour.
Other MPs, including former business secretary Dame Andrea Leadsom, suggested the party’s traditional supporters “stayed at home” during Thursday’s polls.
Mr Sunak was out of the country as the results came in, having been in Saudi Arabia and then Egypt on Friday as he toured the Middle East in the aftermath of the Hamas attacks on Israel.
The election blows were announced a year to the day after Mr Sunak’s predecessor Liz Truss resigned as prime minister and leave him with a headache as he prepares to mark his first anniversary in No 10.
Danny Kruger, a member of the New Conservatives made up of MPs elected since 2019, said the Tories needed to be “more robust and braver” ahead of the next election.
He urged Mr Sunak to reduce net migration numbers, cut taxes and intervene in the so-called culture wars, an area where he suggested Mr Sunak could have “real cut-through” with voters.
The Devizes MP told BBC Radio 4’s World At One: “I really do believe that the PM wants to do the right thing in this, I think he is constrained by opinion in Whitehall, in the Civil Service and to a degree on our benches as well.
“And I just encourage him to recognise that he gets a proper poll bounce and the support of our people when he leans into the great realignment in our politics that happened over the last 10 years, with the Brexit referendum and our victory in 2019.”
In Mid Bedfordshire the Liberal Democrats came third, and claimed their ability to switch Tory voters cleared the way for Labour’s victory.
