Keir Starmer has hailed Labour’s “fantastic” results in the Kingswood and Wellingborough byelections after the party secured two victories that suggest the party is on course for a majority at the general election this year.
The Labour leader said the gain of two relatively safe Conservative seats showed voters wanted change and trusted his party to deliver it.
The party secured a near-record swing of 28.5 percentage points in Wellingborough and a more modest one of 16.4 points in Kingswood, both of which would give them a secure majority if repeated at a national vote.
Starmer said in a statement: “These are fantastic results in Kingswood and Wellingborough that show people want change and are ready to put their faith in a changed Labour party to deliver it.”
Separately, he told BBC Breakfast: “I was very pleased last night to see that we were clearly getting Tory switchers, in other words, people who hadn’t voted for the Labour party before, coming out last night and voting for the Labour party in a byelection.”
Rishi Sunak said the circumstances around both byelections had been “particularly challenging”. He added: “We’ve clearly been through a lot over the past couple of years as a country, but I genuinely believe at the start of this year we’re pointing in the right direction.”
The swing in Wellingborough, where 28-year-old Gen Kitchen overturned a Conservative majority of 18,000, would be enough that if repeated at a general election it could see the Tories win just four seats. It is Labour’s biggest swing from the Tories since 1994, and the second biggest since the war.
Kitchen said: “This is a stunning victory for the Labour party and must send a message from Northamptonshire to Downing Street.”
The circumstances in that vote were unusual, however, given the Conservative candidate, Helen Harrison, is the partner of the former MP Peter Bone, who was recalled by voters after being found to have bullied a member of staff.
In Kingswood, where Damien Egan won with a majority of about 2,500, the swing to Labour would give it a majority of about 60 seats if repeated nationally. The victory was more modest, however, than its wins in three byelections last year, reflecting a slight drop in Labour’s poll lead since then.
The results will provide welcome relief for Starmer, who has endured a bruising two weeks after dropping his pledge to spend £28bn a year on green investment and suspending two Labour candidates who were recorded making derogatory remarks about Israel.
Starmer said on Friday: “I’ve taken two tough and ruthless decisions in the last 10 days. Has it been bumpy? Yes, of course. It’s been bumpy but were they the right decisions is the question I asked myself, and they were the right decisions.”
Conservatives said on Friday they could still win a general election, pointing out the low turnout and the strong results for Reform UK, which won more than 10% in both seats. Some Tories believe they will boost turnout and squeeze the Reform vote when voters are forced to decide between Starmer and Sunak.
Richard Holden, the Tory party chair, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “People know in a byelection, they’re not voting to change the government. And I think to extrapolate from that to a general election isn’t quite right.”
The result is likely to exacerbate divisions about the future direction of the party. Some want the prime minister to shift to the right in an effort to recapture Reform UK voters, while others warn that doing so would put other more centrist seats at risk.
The former cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg urged the prime minister to “reunite the right wing of politics”.
“I think we win their support by concentrating on the areas where we [the Tories and Reform UK] agree,” he said. “That means getting into a position where taxes are reduced [and] dealing with the ridiculous net zero proposals that are becoming unaffordable and are closing down industry in this country.”
Holden said Sunak’s focus would remain on cutting inflation. “It doesn’t really matter if your taxes are coming down if you’re seeing inflation eating away at your wages,” he said.
Scott Brown, a Conservative councillor in Wellingborough, told the BBC: “We’re losing any kind of identity at the moment. You’ve got the Nat Cons coming in and all kinds of other little subgroups, and that makes it difficult to get a consistent message.”
Tim Montgomerie, the founder of the grassroots website Conservative Home, tweeted: “It’s over for the Tories. Absolutely over. We didn’t do what we said we’d do and did the things we said we wouldn’t. The longer Sunak delays the election date the angrier the electorate are going to get.”
Even if Sunak does decide to chase Reform voters, pollsters say they are unlikely all to switch to the Tories.
John Curtice, a professor of politics at Strathclyde University, said: “[These results provide] yet further evidence tonight that the Conservatives are in trouble – that wasn’t particularly new. It’s just that there’s a new aspect of that trouble.”
