Can the by-elections break Boris?

Thursday 23 June will go down twice over as a red letter day in British political history. Precisely six years after voting to leave the EU in the referendum, voters in two very different “leaver” constituencies have administered the sharpest blow they could to the front man who rode the Brexit wave to the Tory leadership and 10 Downing Street.

The byelections in Tiverton & Honiton and Wakefield were not about Brexit. That is the point. The sands of time have blown over the dividing line of “getting Brexit done” which has served Boris Johnson so well. Voters are once again overwhelmingly concerned about the state of the nation, the economy and their own circumstances and about the qualities of a charismatic leader, whose faults of character are now more evident than his charm. 

A Tory Chairman, Chris Patten, put the phrase “Double Whammy” into the lexicon of political cliches, deploying it in 1992 against Labour’s tax policy. The Tories won that election, although Patten lost his seat. Now Johnson has been hit by a Triple Whammy on the same day, with the two by-election defeats and the poison-tipped resignation of his party chairman, Oliver Dowden. 

Such blows would have felled many a party leader but will they knock out Boris Johnson?

Famous by-election routs are often reversed at subsequent general elections. At least that was the experience of the John Major years. The last time the Tories lost two by-election seats on the same night was in 1991, both of which were recaptured at the General Election. Liberal Democrat stickiness — their ability to build up support once they get a local toe-hold — has also been wiped away since their 2010 coalition with David Cameron’s Conservatives. 

The Tiverton victory should leave the Liberal Democrats “cock-a-hoop”, in the words of the psephological guru, Sir John Curtice. It shows that backing neither the EU nor joining the Coalition will be held against them forever in what was once the Liberal’s West country heartland. 

The LibDems broke the record which has stood since 1935 for Conservative majorities overturned, converting Dominator tractor fancier Neil Parish’s 24,239 Tory majority in 2019 into John Richard Foord’s 6,144 LibDem majority. The 30.1 per cent Conservative-LibDem swing is less than the 34.2 per cent in Owen Paterson’s North Shropshire seat last December, but it is still the party’s sixth-best by-election performance against Tories ever (just below Clement Freud on the Isle of Ely in 1973 (31.6 per cent) and above David Rendel’s 28.4 per cent swing in Newbury in 1991. If repeated across the nation at a general election the Conservatives would be down to a rump of about 40 MPs.

Wakefield was a must-win for Keir Starmer. Had Labour not regained a northern working-class seat it had held continuously from 1932 until 2019, there would have been immediate calls for him to step down, whether or not Durham Constabulary serve him a fixed penalty notice for Currygate. Simon Lightwood’s recapture was better than that. The 12.7 per cent Conservative-Labour swing almost exactly matches Corby in 2012, the last time Labour took a by-election from the Tories. Much more importantly, that size of swing across the country at a general election is the threshold where Labour would move from being the largest party to an overall majority. As yet no opposition has managed it in a national poll. 

Yet in both Devon and Yorkshire the Conservative vote held up relatively well; 38.5 per cent in Tiverton and 30 per cent in Wakefield is not a wipeout. Defeat in both places resulted from tactical voting between the main opposition parties. In Tiverton Labour lost its deposit with less than 5 per cent of the vote, and Liberal Democrats did likewise in Wakefield. 

Professor Michael Thrasher of Nuffield College Oxford, also an election guru points out: “there’s also a similar pattern between 1993-1994 and 2021-2022 in terms of council by-elections with the Tories now losing close to half the seats they defend.” But he also notes there “is one, perhaps crucial difference.  The Tories are now losing seats to Lab/LD/Green/Independents whereas in the early 90s they were getting thumped by New Labour.  Starmer’s Labour is nowhere near as competitive as its predecessor.”

Starmer may not be on course to outright victory but these by-elections are further evidence that the Conservatives under Boris Johnson are heading for more defeats. The Conservatives are being hit across the board: in leaver and remainer areas; north and south and in the “Red wall” and middle-class city and town Tory territory. Michael Howard has now made explicit the sour demeanour of fellow previous Tory leaders May, Major and Hague, to say that it is “in the interests of the country and the party” that Johnson resign now. Howard says Johnson has lost his biggest asset “the ability to win votes.”

In his resignation letter, sent in the cold light of dawn at 5.55 am, as soon as the results were in, the outgoing Conservative Party chairman cites “a run of very poor results”. The bulk of Dowden’s letter neither praises nor thanks Johnson, instead it pointedly concentrates on personal  responsibility: “our supporters are distressed and disappointed by recent events, and I share their feelings. We cannot carry on with business as usual. Somebody must take responsibility…”

Dowden, who metamorphosed to serve Johnson from a One Nation Remainer aide to David Cameron into a Brexiteer culture warrior is his own man again. His resignation lacks the heft of those of Heseltine, Lawson and Howe. They ultimately prized Thatcher from office but it took years. They also quit over matters of policy, whereas the present cabinet is complicit in the muddle of actions and gestures which Johnson defines as getting on with the job. 

By common consent of Boris Johnson watchers, whether fans or foes, the Prime Minister will not go voluntarily. Further resignations by senior ministers could force him out. Loyalist fire watchers will be keeping beady eyes on the likes of Rishi Sunak and Michael Gove. Cabinet resigners didn’t come out at the time of the confidence vote on 6 June when they could have been decisive.  It would be out of character now if any of them join Dowden and put their careers on the line.

Revolt below Cabinet level seems to be a more likely destroyer of Prime Minister Johnson. If it becomes a tidal wave, Ministers might find the courage to administer the coup de grace. 

The public has made its feelings known in opinion polls, local and by-elections and by booing on the steps of St Paul’s: 40 per cent of Conservative MPs have now expressed their lack of confidence in their leader. They may have acted prematurely as Johnson played for time over partygate, but it is within their power to change the rules and have another vote. Minds may be concentrated by contemplating their own electoral prospects if things go on as they are. Should he make it to the autumn, the Prime Minister still faces an unprecedented trial by his peers for lying to parliament.

If 23 June 2016 marked the notional launch of the Boris Johnson Era, 23 June 2022 was the day it crashed to the ground.