The final by-elections of 2024 only served to emphasise what we have been pointing out for months – that the electorate appears both volatile and disengaged.
Labour lost four seats – two each to the Conservatives and Reform.
Its share fell back in every case where a comparison with a previous election could be made; the Conservative share was also down in both cases where Reform was victorious.
Reform polled an average of a quarter of the vote from a standing start in the 10 out of 13 vacancies it contested.
Yet all this activity passed the vast majority of voters by.
In seven contests, fewer than one in five electors cast a ballot; the highest turnout, just 24.4 per cent, was in the Liberal Democrat safe seat of Dodworth, Barnsley.
Attention now turns to the largely county-level contests in May. It’s currently uncertain how many authorities will actually have elections pending discussions on devolution and unitary status.
However, the legacy from when these seats were last fought in 2021 (and indeed 2017) could not be clearer.
Taking into account boundary changes due to come into force in 16 of the 32 authorities scheduled to go to the polls, the Conservatives will be defending more than six in 10 of all 2,240 vacancies.
Labour and the Liberal Democrats, by contrast, each defend more than 1,000 seats fewer than the Conservatives.
This rather skewed picture is the product of two successful electoral cycles for the Conservatives.
In 2017, the party secured nearly half of all votes cast in the English counties at a time, just five weeks before the general election, when it looked as if Theresa May was on course to win a landslide victory.
In 2021, Boris Johnson’s government was still basking in public approval of its handling of the pandemic – the vaccine rollout in particular – winning control of all but three of the now 21 county councils, and of seven of nine ‘county’ unitaries.
In the current climate, neither major party can be looking forward to May.
The Conservatives can surely only go backwards from an historic high point. Labour faces a set of elections that are always among its weakest and with its poll ratings below where they were in either 2017 or 2021.
So, inevitably, speculation will mount about the degree to which Reform can exploit the public mood.
Looking back to the 2013 county and unitary council elections, the wild card in those contests was also a Nigel Farage-led party – UKIP.
UKIP’s 20 per cent vote share pushed Labour very hard for second place – across the counties, the party polled just 250 votes fewer overall than its rival – but it is the geography of the party’s success that offers the best clues.
In Boston, where, in 2024, former Reform Leader Richard Tice captured the second safest Conservative parliamentary constituency in the country, UKIP won five of the seven county divisions; in Great Yarmouth, won by Reform’s Rupert Lowe last year, it was five out of nine.
Other parts of East England and the south coast where UKIP attracted the support of a third or more of electors a dozen years ago included Basildon and Castle Point in Essex; Folkestone & Hythe, Swale, and Thanet in Kent; South Holland in Lincolnshire; and Adur in West Sussex.
And, of course, UKIP’s actual and potential electoral success had already been a factor in persuading a reluctant David Cameron that there was little alternative to conceding a referendum on EU membership. Could Reform have a similar impact on the big picture of English politics again this year?
The focus on Reform should not lead us to overlook either the Liberal Democrats or the Greens. Although their showing since July has been rather low key, they proved at the general election that in parts of counties such as Cambridgeshire, Devon, Suffolk and Wiltshire they are well placed to pose an alternative threat to the Conservatives from the ‘left’.
| By-elections |
|---|
| Barnsley, Dodworth LIB DEM HELD 25.4% over Reform Turnout 24.4% |
| Cardiff, Splott LAB HELD 16.7% over Green Turnout 19% |
| Chelmsford, South Hanningfield Stock and Margaretting CON HELD 74% over Green Turnout 24% |
| Dudley, Brockmoor and Pensnett CON GAIN FROM LAB 5.3% over Reform Turnout 15.7% |
| Essex, Stock CON HELD 11.6% over Reform Turnout 19% |
| Fylde, Kilgrimol CON GAIN FROM IND 18.4% over Reform Turnout 21.1% |
| Greenwich, West Thamesmead LAB HELD 12.4% over Lib Dem Turnout 14.9% |
| Runnymede, Ottershaw IND HELD 20.7% over Con Turnout 21.0% |
| South Oxfordshire, Cholsey LIB DEM HELD 38.5% over Con Turnout 20.5% |
| St Helens, Blackbrook REFORM GAIN FROM LAB 6.5% over Lab Turnout 16.3% |
| Swale, Milton Regis REFORM GAIN FROM LAB 8% over Res Turnout 17% |
| Wakefield, Featherstone LAB HELD 16.3% over Lib Dem Turnout 16.4% |
| Wokingham, Shinfield CON GAIN FROM LAB 30% over Lab Turnout 21.7% |
- For more information on all recent by-elections, please download the Excel spreadsheet of by-election results below.