Wakefield has become an increasingly marginal seat in recent years. Yet after switching to the Tories in 2019 for the first time in almost 90 years, it has swung back to Labour
insisted the twin defeats inflicted on his government in by-elections on June 23rd were nothing more than run-of-the-mill results. “Although I don’t want to in any way minimise the importance of what voters are saying, it is also true that in mid-term, governments post-war lose by-elections,” he said. The prime minister, in Rwanda for a meeting of Commonwealth governments, attributed the revolts, in Tiverton and Honiton and in Wakefield, to unhappiness at spiralling inflation.
In Tiverton and Honiton, a rural seat in Devon, the contest was triggered by the resignation of Neil Parish, a Conservative, who admitted watching pornography in the House of Commons. The seat and its predecessors had voted Conservative almost continuously since 1885. Mr Parrish secured more than 60% of the vote in 2019, making it among the Tories’ safest seats. It was lost to the Liberal Democrats, whose candidate, Richard Foord, won by a margin of 22,537 votes to the Tories’ 16,393.
In Wakefield, a city in west Yorkshire, the contest came after Imran Ahmed Khan, the incumbent, was jailed for sexually abusing a child. The seat has become increasingly marginal in recent years, and switched from Labour to the Tories in 2019 for the first time in almost 90 years. On June 23rd it returned to Labour on a 12% swing. Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, declared that the victory placed his party “on track” to return to government at the next general election.
The fear for the Conservatives is that they are now caught in a pincer movement between two opposition parties that are increasingly aligned on policy. In towns in the Midlands and north, Labour appears more competitive in areas that it lost in 2019. In rural seats and wealthier commuter towns, the Tories’ once-reliable electorate seems to be increasingly volatile.
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