The public ‘want change’, says Keir Starmer
Speaking after the Wellingborough result was announced, Labour leader Keir Starmer said “by winning in these Tory strongholds, we can confidently say that Labour is back in the service of working people and we will work tirelessly to deliver for them.”
He said the byelection results show the public “want change”.
“Those who gave us their trust in Kingswood and Wellingborough, and those considering doing so, can be safe in the knowledge that we will spend every day working to get Britain’s future back.”
Both wins will temper fears that a testing week for Labour has significantly threatened its electoral prospects and will further bolster predictions that the party stands to win a large majority at the next general election.
Key events
Veteran Labour MP Chris Bryant said the result in Kingswood was partly down to a lot of voters going directly from Conservative to Labour.
Speaking from the Kingswood count, Bryant said, “one man said to me today he was 65 and had voted Conservative all his life, including during the Tony Blair years, and today was the first time he voted Labour.”
Asked what the two byelection results meant for the Labour party, he said: “Keir Starmer is a winner. I think I am right in saying that if Keir Starmer wins both byelections tonight, he will be the most successful Labour leader in byelections in our history.
“For Jacob Rees-Mogg this is a bit of problem because 50% of this seat goes into his seat,” he said.
If I were him, I wouldn’t be happy. They also ran a very nasty, negative campaign. We ran a campaign based on Damien’s plan and what he wanted to get done for Kingswood and what he wanted to campaign for. Undoubtedly the biggest thing of all is the Rishi recession because you didn’t need to have it announced on the news – people felt it in their pocket.”
Speaking from the Kingswood election count, Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg congratulated Damien Egan on winning.
“Does it tell you anything about the general election? Almost certainly not,” he said.
“Byelections are an opportunity for people not to turn out, to protest, and at ensuing general elections they don’t give a consistent guide to what happens.”
The MP for North East Somerset said: “From the point of view of Kingswood, I think the Conservatives can be more pleased than they might have expected. I certainly thought this result would be worse.”
Rees-Mogg said the Conservative party needed to “learn from the result”.
Conservative party votes are most likely to come from people who stay at home or who voted Reform. How do we win them back to the Tory family … By delivering things they believe in and that means lower taxation, taking more of the advantages of Brexit, with more of the removal of EU retained law, it means doing less on the green issue that is making people cold and poor, and helping revitalise our economy.”
The public ‘want change’, says Keir Starmer
Speaking after the Wellingborough result was announced, Labour leader Keir Starmer said “by winning in these Tory strongholds, we can confidently say that Labour is back in the service of working people and we will work tirelessly to deliver for them.”
He said the byelection results show the public “want change”.
“Those who gave us their trust in Kingswood and Wellingborough, and those considering doing so, can be safe in the knowledge that we will spend every day working to get Britain’s future back.”
Both wins will temper fears that a testing week for Labour has significantly threatened its electoral prospects and will further bolster predictions that the party stands to win a large majority at the next general election.
Labour’s wins in Kingswood and Wellingborough mean the Conservatives have now lost 10 byelections in the course of this parliament – two more than the eight defeats suffered by the 1992-97 Conservative administration led by John Major.
It means the Conservative government has lost more byelections than any previous government since the 1966-70 Labour administration of Harold Wilson, which endured 15 losses.
The size of the majority Labour overturned at Wellingborough – 18,540 – is the third biggest Tory majority the party has overturned at a byelection since the war, behind those in Mid Bedfordshire in October 2023 (24,664) and Selby & Ainsty in July 2023 (20,137).
Here’s a selection of images from the evenings votes.
Wellingborough win is second largest postwar byelection swing from Tory to Labour
Labour won Wellingborough from the Conservatives on a swing in the share of the vote of 28.5 percentage points. It was just short of the largest postwar byelection swing from Tory to Labour, which was 29.1 percentage points at the Dudley West byelection in December 1994.
Labour won Kingswood on a swing in the share of the vote of 16.4 percentage points – some way above the 11.4-point swing the party needed to win the seat.
Prof John Curtice told the BBC that the Conservatives share of the vote was down by “nearly 38 points compared with the general election. That is the biggest ever drop that the Conservatives have suffered in a post-war by-election in a seat that they were trying to defend.”
Reform UK secures strongest byelection results in this parliament
Ben Habib, the deputy co-leader of the Reform UK party has secured 13% of the vote in the Wellingborough byelection, marking the party’s best performance at a byelection in this parliament and since it rebranded from the Brexit party in 2021.
Habib had said he hoped to emulate the party’s national polling level, which has been hovering around the 10% mark in recent months.
Standing on an anti-net zero platform, the former London MEP for the Brexit party had said he had been encouraged by people waving and tooting support at him while he campaigned on the party’s battle bus around the constituency.
While winning the constituency was seen as a two-horse race between the incumbent Tories and Labour’s Gen Kitchen, a key subtext of the campaign had been the extent to which disillusioned Conservative voters might defect to a party further to the right.
In Kingswood, Reform candidate Rupert Lowe finished in third place with 10% of the vote, marking the party’s second-best performance in a byelection in this parliament, behind Wellingborough.
Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg told reporters that if you add together the Reform UK and Conservative vote in Kingswood it is more than Labour’s. “If we can reunite the right in politics there’s a real opportunity for us,” he said.
Rees-Mogg also highlighted the poor turnout of 37.1%. “If you’re a Tory and you stay at home, Rishi Sunak will still be prime minister in the morning,” he said. “I certainly thought this result would be worse. Bear in mind a lot of the postal votes would have been back before Labour’s problem with antisemitism was in the public.”
Sammy Gecsoyler
Gen Kitchen, the new MP for Wellingborough, said she was “ecstatic” at the result, adding that the double byelection win for Labour shows that people are “fed up” and want change.
“The people of Wellingborough have spoken for Britain. This is a stunning victory for the Labour party and must send a message from Northamptonshire to Downing Street,” she said.
After the result was announced, Conservative candidate Helen Harrison was swarmed with cameras while leaving the counting hall and declined to say whether her loss was Sunak’s fault, instead saying she was “disappointed”.
The byelection in Wellingborough was triggered when voters recalled the former Tory MP Peter Bone after he received a six-week suspension from the Commons when an inquiry found he had subjected a staff member to bullying and sexual misconduct.
Harrison is the partner of Bone and there was controversy when she was selected as the Conservative candidate.
High-profile Tory MPs have been absent in the constituency and not a single frontbencher endorsed Harrison. Last month, Rishi Sunak dodged the opportunity to endorse her after he was asked whether he was “proud” she had been selected given her connection to Bone. He said it was up to local members to select their candidate.
Harrison stayed firmly out of the spotlight in the run-up to the byelection. She refused all national media interviews and has not posted on the social media platform X since 11 January, when she announced her selection.
Steven Morris
Damien Egan used his victory speech in Kingswood to thank voters, saying: “Fourteen years of Conservative government have sucked the hope out of our country. There’s a feeling that no matter how hard you work, you just can’t move forward, and with Rishi’s recession we are left once again paying more and getting less.”
Asked if he had been worried that the turmoil in Labour this week could have put the result in jeopardy, he said candidates worried about everything, including the heavy rain that fell on voting day.
He said Labour’s troubles had not come up on the doorstep. “The things that our residents are telling us are the things that Keir and the Labour party have been talking about – the NHS, cost of living crisis, community policing. Kingswood feels neglected after 14 years of Conservative government.”
The defeated Conservative candidate, Sam Bromiley, left the count as soon as Egan had finished speaking, declining to comment to reporters.
North East Somerset Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg was left to speak to reporters. He highlighted the poor turnout of 37.1%.
“If you’re a Tory and you stay at home, Rishi Sunak will still be prime minister in the morning,” he said. “I certainly thought this result would be worse. Bear in mind a lot of the postal votes would have been back before Labour’s problem with antisemitism was in the public.”
Labour overturns majorities in Kingswood and Wellingborough
Labour has claimed victory in the Kingswood and Wellingborough byelections, dealing a double blow to Rishi Sunak’s government.
Labour candidate Gen Kitchen overturned a Tory majority of more than 18,000 to secure victory in Wellingborough, making it the first win for Labour in the seat since the 2001 general election.
Kitchen won the seat with 13,844 votes, beating the Conservatives’ Helen Harrison who received 7,408 votes.
The byelection in Wellingborough was triggered when voters in the constituency recalled the former Tory MP Peter Bone after he received a six-week suspension from the Commons when an inquiry found he had subjected a staff member to bullying and sexual misconduct.
In the South Gloucestershire constituency of Kingswood, Labour overturned a majority of more than 11,000.
Damien Egan, who resigned as the mayor of Lewisham in south-east London to contest the seat even though it is being abolished at the next general election, won by 11,1176 votes to 8,675 for his nearest rival, the Conservatives’ Sam Bromiley.
The byelection was called after Chris Skidmore, a leading Tory voice on green issues, resigned in protest against the government’s dash for oil and gas.
Over the last half century, Kingswood has swung between the Tories and Labour. Skidmore won the seat in 2010 and had built up an 11,220 majority by 2019.
As the constituency is abolished at the next general election, Kingswood voters will be divided among four constituencies. Egan had previously been selected as the candidate for one of these, Bristol North East, a key Labour target.
Welcome and opening summary
Good morning and welcome to the UK politics live blog as we look at reaction to two byelections with huge implications for the party leaderships of Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer.
Here are the headlines:
Aside from reaction to the byelections, it should be a quiet day in UK politics. None of the Commons, Lords, Scottish parliament, Senedd or Stormont assembly are sitting today.
