No one should be surprised to waken up and discover that Labour have held the City of Chester Westminster by-election. Former Councillor Samantha Dixon comfortably won the seat with over 60% of the vote, with the Conservatives humbled in a distant second place on 22% of the vote.
Can we draw any lessons from this result?
Well, by elections are notoriously unreliable and taken in isolation at the mid-point of a government, the short answer is no! However, I think there are at least some crucial observations that we can make.
Samantha DixonFirstly, despite the previous Labour MP Christian Matheson for this constituency having resigned from the Party in disgrace, the electorate were quite happy to continue to place their confidence in Labour. What does that tell you about the electorate? Yes, the turn out was much lower than at a General Election but so what, to quote Sajid Javid, it was low for all Parties! It seems to me that there is a Labour red tide that is running in favour of Sir Keir Starmer and this will wash away the current Conservative Government in 2024 most likely. The idea that anointing former banker Rishi Sunak as Prime Minister would make a material change in Conservative fortunes is plainly delusional and it augers the looming collapse of this administration. Rishi is acting as more of an undertaker and less of a Prime Minister for his Party but the party faithful don’t appear to see it coming. They never do.
Secondly, can we talk about the performance of the other parties as this is often ignored in the conventional two horse race? The LibDems came in third although there share of the vote did not increase that much so this suggests in traditional RED WALL seats, the voters are sticking with Labour. This should send alarms bells to all those Conservative Red Wall MPs who face losing their jobs in less than two year’s time. Behind them in a lowly fourth position was the Green Party and then just behind them, in 5t place with 2.7% of the vote, the Reform Party. Diving even deeper we find UKIP losing its deposit with 179 votes. It is clear that despite the smaller parties standing, there is absolutely NO prospect of any breakthrough. This is an electoral system designed to support TWO parties and only TWO Parties so until the system is changed it will only ever deliver Team Red or Team Blue. A move to PR would help the smaller parties and potentially allow them a chance to get into Parliament and for that reason alone, it won’t be allowed to happen!
As we approach the 2024 General Election, we will be besieged by small Parties claiming to represent a fresh patriotic start but the electoral mathematics suggests this will be just so much hot air. The electorate is groomed by the media to vote either Conservative, Labour or maybe just LibDems, the rest is irrelevant.
On the current trajectory, the Conservatives are massively unpopular and cannot expect to remain in Government beyond 2024 and so that raises the dark spectre of the return of Labour to govern the UK. It seems to me that Sir Keir Starmer will be our next Prime Minister and if you thought things were bad under the Conservatives, you ain’t seen nothing yet. I see little talent on the Labour front benches and Starmer himself is a second division Blair so it’s not as if he can charm the people. But the Tories are dead in the water and that’s a hard truth we cannot avoid.
I’ve often argued that looking to politicians/political parties to “save” us is profoundly misguided. They are little more than tools of higher powers and will do as they are told. Boris Johnson is a great example of this. We need to look into ourselves and find the strength to resist what will be a time of great trial under Starmer as his administration does what VERY Labour Government has done in the past – bankrupt the country even more; punish wealth creators at all levels; and perhaps most crucially, re-engage with the EU so that the promises of Brexit are buried. Yes, it will be hard Labour but at least the enemy is in plain sight.
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