Losing control… since the Tories returned to power in December 2019, a total of 10 by-elections have been lost — six of them while Rishi Sunak was at the helm. Photo: Dan Kitwood/AFP
Two defeats in Kingswood and Wellingborough on Thursday mean Rishi Sunak has broken a series of unenviable by-election records.
In by-elections. In Wellingborough, the Conservative share of the vote fell from 62.2% in 2019 to 24.6% on Thursday — a fall of 37.6%, the biggest fall in the Tory vote in any by-election.
< p>Previous the biggest decline was in Christchurch in 1993, after Conservative support fell by 32.2 percent since the previous year's general election.
Conservative support in Kingswood fell 21.7% in the fight sparked by Chris Skidmore's resignation over Mr Sunak's watering down of North Sea oil and gas licenses.
Tory sources blamed Wellingborough's result on the divisions around St. Petersburg. Bone, a former minister who was recalled by voters after a panel upheld allegations of bullying and sexual harassment, which he denies.
Labor won with 45.9 per cent of the vote in Wellingborough and 44.9 per cent in Kingswood, where the Tories received 34.9 per cent.
The Wellingborough by-election saw a 28.5 per cent swing from Tory to Labor, which was the second largest shift from government to opposition in history.
The highest ever swing of this kind, including from the Tories to Labor, was 29.1 per cent in the West Dudley by-election in 1994, three years before Sir Tony Blair's landslide victory in 1997 and amid a series of dastardly and sex scandals that crippled Mayor's administration.
The Conservative vote share has now fallen by an average of 21.5 percent in by-elections held since Mr Sunak became No. 10 in October 2022 year.
This means the Prime Minister achieved the highest average vote drop. vote share for a Conservative incumbent since registration began in 1950. Sir John Major's vote share fell by an average of 18 percentage points.
Sir Keir Starmer's performance in the by-election against Mr Sunak now exceeds that of Sir Tony.
In 11 competitive by-elections Since Mr Sunak came to power, Labour's average vote share has increased by 12.5 per cent, compared with 10.3 per cent in the election between Sir Tony and Sir John.
Compared to others For sitting Conservative prime ministers, the average vote share losses achieved by Rishi Sunak and Sir John are almost double those of any prime minister since Harold Macmillan.
Since the Tories returned to power in December 2019, a total of 10 by-elections have been lost, the most in a single parliament since the 1960s.
However, the net loss is nine. when the Conservatives took Hartlepool from Labor during Boris Johnson's government in May 2021.
Six of the 10 defeats occurred while Mr Sunak was in power. His success rate in defending seats is just 13.5 per cent, the lowest since Sir John, who did not retain a single seat in a by-election.
In addition to defeats in Kingswood and Wellingborough, on July 20 last year Selby, Ainsty, Somerton and Frome lost to Labor and the Liberal Democrats respectively, and on October 19 Labor won in Tamworth, and Mid-Bedfordshire.
Mid Bedfordshire previously had a Tory majority of 24,664, the highest numerical majority overturned in a by-election in history.
The second highest result was 24,239 in Tiverton and Honiton, which the Lib Dems also won in 2021 towards the end of Johnson's premiership.
Downing Street will be keeping a wary eye on the UK's reform progress following Richard Tice's victory. The rebel right-wing party achieved its best results on Thursday, winning 10 per cent of the vote in Kingswood and 13 per cent of the vote in Wellingborough.
The figures mean that the reform has nearly quadrupled its previous average by -share of votes in elections since its inception in 2020.
Reform's work in Kingswood was enough to negate the Tory victory, since its share of the vote exceeded the size of the Labor majority.
The only grain of consolation for Conservatives are that Reform is nonetheless still struggling to replicate UKIP's by-election success in the early 2010s, when the Eurosceptic party won two contests outright.
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