He’s gone: the Tories are preparing for a by-election crisis

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By Harry Horton, Political Correspondent

Rishi Sunak’s Conservative Party faces three very different electoral challenges this week in three very different parts of the country.

His deputies are not sure of success.

Somerton and Frome

In Somerton and Frome, in rural Somerset, where former MP David Warburton has resigned after accusations of sexual misconduct and drug use (he denies the former but admits the latter), most Tory MPs have already written off their chances.

They expect the Liberal Democrats to wipe out their majority of 19,213 when votes are counted overnight on Thursday.

David Warburton faces an allegation of misconduct Credit: PA

The Liberal Democrats held the seat from 1997 to 2015 and have mainly campaigned to take it back over the past year while David Warburton has suspended the Conservative whip.

I’m told the support for Lib Dem’s now familiar election victory is ready to go Friday morning, so I’m sure the victory party.

Selby and Inesty

To the north, not too far from the North Yorkshire constituency of Rishi Sunak, the Conservatives face another tough test – perhaps surprisingly – in Selby and Ainstey.

The seat was not on Labour’s target list, and in its current form had only a Conservative MP.

It was seen as a solid blue safe seat. But Labor grew optimistic about its ability to overturn the Conservative Party’s majority of 20,000.

The Labor party team say they have caught voter anger at the way former MP Nigel Adams resigned from the seat after losing a peer in honor of Boris Johnson’s resignation.

Nigel Adams has resigned as MP for Selby and Ainsetti after being dropped from Boris Johnson’s resignation honors list.

Campaigners say Tory voters for life are ready to be spoken to on the doorstep – a total change from the toxic atmosphere campaigners say they faced across the northern benches in 2019.

“It will be close,” a Conservative MP who campaigned in Selby predicted to me. Another was more blunt: “He’s gone.”

Uxbridge and South Ruislip

Oddly enough, it is in the seat where the Conservatives have a small majority that they feel they have the best chance of winning on Thursday.

When Boris Johnson resigned as an MP in a big way and gave up his constituency of Uxbridge and South Ruislip last month, most Tories considered the seat a lost cause.

But the Tories have tried, apparently somewhat successfully, to turn the by-election into a referendum on London’s Ultra Low Emissions Zone, or ULEZ, which is set to expand to the outer boroughs later this summer.

There is widespread concern in the constituency about the proposed enlargement, to the point where the Labor candidate has come out against the policy – championed by Labor Mayor of London Sadiq Khan.

With a majority of just over 7,000, Uxbridge was high on Labour’s target list. It is a seat that the party is expected to take if it wants to be in government in a few years.

Rishi Sunak’s team will probably look at anything other than three losses as a good result this week.

Liberal Democrats openly say they take nothing for granted.

Labor says winning two previously safe seats in the Conservative Party is a big ask – but the party would very much like to see its huge lead in the polls translate into real votes.

The good news for the prime minister is that MPs will indeed be sent home for their summer vacation by the time polls close on Thursday night.

There wouldn’t be much opportunity to collectively chew any potential bad outcomes and plan some kind of rebellion.

More by-elections on the horizon

The bad news for Rishi Sunak is that when the summer ends he will face three potential by-elections: in Rutherglen and Hamilton West in Scotland, Tamworth in the Midlands and Mid Bedfordshire in the south.

In Mid Bedfordshire, incumbent Conservative MP Nadine Dorries has announced she is quitting but has yet to formally do so.

Both the Liberal Democrats and Labor are stoking opposition from the Tories by claiming that the electorate has been left without an MP.

Rishi Sunak’s summer may be a brief escape from two sets of unwanted dates with voters.

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