More Bad News for the By-elections

Graph from Election Maps UK (link)

The impact of Reform is unlikely to be large in Newham. However, the growing distance between Labour and its former supporters in the white working class might be beginning to work to Reform’s benefit nationally.

It is evident that the voters in the “Red Wall” have largely given up on the Tories. What is not so clear, is whether they are switching back to Labour.

We are less than three months into the new parliament and Labour is dogged by sleaze. It has already had one MP resign the whip and has suffered a (small) string of council byelection defeats. The most recent comes in Blackpool, where the byelection was caused by the resignation of Sarah Smith, who went on to become the Labour MP for Hyndburn.

This was the first time that Reform have taken a council seat from Labour.

One victory does not create a trend, but Labour is losing to whoever is strongest locally, whether that is Liberals, Greens, (Islamic) Independents, (Islamic) Greens or now, Reform; (even the seriously compromised SNP recently managed to pick up seats ahead of Labour in Strathmartine and in Lochee). 

This reflects what we see locally. Local opposition is picking up seats from an already unpopular government. What will they do when Labour is unpopular both nationally and locally?

Newham Labour could have reasonably expected a couple of years by way of a honeymoon for the new government. This would have buoyed them up approaching the council elections in May 2026. That ‘honeymoon’ is already over.

Labour have defended 33 council seats since July. They have lost 12 of these; a little more than one third. In the wake of a parliamentary ‘landslide’, Labour is losing seats. Against this they managed to pick up just two council seats in the same period, both from Independents.

If we look at just the most recent results since September 16th,

Labour has won 4 seats,

The Tories have won 9, 

The Lib-Dems have taken 5. It seems that Labour is struggling.