Boris Johnson’s lying and bungling in government has not gone unnoticed by voters. Opinion polls show his popularity fading. Two byelections in England next Thursday could see Mr Johnson’s Conservatives lose a working-class northern “red wall” seat to Labour and a true-blue seat in the Devon countryside to the Liberal Democrats. Defeats in both contests would send a clear message to Tory MPs that their seats are not safe unless there is a change at the top, even if that requires altering party rules. This is why Labour voters should cast their ballot for the Liberal Democrats in Tiverton and Honiton, and Lib Dems should back Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour party in Wakefield, West Yorkshire.
Neither seat will slip easily from the Conservatives’ grasp. The Tories have a majority of 24,000 in the bucolic leave-voting Devon constituency. Yet the Lib Dems won North Shropshire in Tory farming heartland against similar odds last December. Then, as now, the former Conservative MP was locally popular but forced to resign after a parliamentary scandal. The Lib Dems’ message that Mr Johnson doesn’t care has struck a chord in left-behind rural England, which suffers long ambulance waits and dilapidated schools. The prime minister is seen as so untrustworthy that the party’s own candidate in Devon won’t say he is honest. A win for the Lib Dems next week would be a step towards rebuilding the party in the south-west, a stronghold that the Tories captured in 2015.
Sleaze is also back in politics. In Wakefield, the former Tory MP was sent to prison for molesting a 15-year-old boy. Labour has to overturn a 3,000-odd majority. The Tories have been on the offensive this week. The immoral Rwandan deportation policy is an attempt, in part, to revive a Brexit dividing line with Labour. Casting Labour as a party in the pay of striking railway unions is a more traditional electoral cleavage. Mr Johnson, however, has been noticeable by his absence – cancelling a trip to Wakefield today and avoiding reporters in Devon last weekend.
Even if Mr Johnson were to lose both seats, a progressive alliance on the centre-left would still be a long way off. Byelections are not a useful guide to a national contest. There are two battlegrounds emerging in England: one between Labour and the Conservatives, another between the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives. Labour and the Lib Dems rarely, in target seats, square off against each other. But in general elections local parties are loth to stand aside. If this were possible then Labour could focus on winning back red wall seats and Lib Dems could target southern Tory voters.
Pacts can work. During the 2019 general election the Brexit party stood down candidates in Tory-held seats, which academics suggest helped double Mr Johnson’s Commons majority. In every postwar election, apart from 2015, more voters supported progressive parties than conservative ones. Under Britain’s first-past-the-post electoral system a vote split between Labour, the Lib Dems, the SNP and the Greens has meant long periods of Tory hegemony. But were the SNP to be involved in a progressive alliance right now, the prospect of Scottish independence would be a gift to the Tories.
If Labour and Lib Dems win next week, Britain might see a new era of non-aggression between them. That should be welcomed. But parties do not own their voters, who don’t like being taken for granted. The electorate knows how to vote tactically and understands pragmatic decisions about directing campaign resources. This is happening to some extent. Labour heavyweights have flooded the Yorkshire constituency, while Sir Ed Davey has concentrated his party’s energies on the Devon seat. Informal cooperation to win next week’s byelections is a necessary way to convince Tories that their interests – and Britain’s – lie in ousting Mr Johnson.
