Keir Starmer has said Labour has "more work to do"
after it inflicted two by-election defeats on the Conservatives.
The party overturned majorities of 11,220 in Kingswood and
18,540 in Wellingborough, where the 28.5% swing was the second biggest from the
Tories to Labour in any post-war by-election.
Sir Keir said he was "proud" of the results, but
did not "want to get into the warm bath of saying: 'Job done'".
Rishi Sunak said "midterm" polls were "always
difficult" for governments.
Speaking in Harlow, Essex, the prime minister said "the
circumstances of these elections were of course particularly challenging".
The Wellingborough by-election was triggered by the ousting
of disgraced former MP Peter Bone and the Kingswood poll by incumbent Chris
Skidmore standing down in protest at government plans for new North Sea oil and
gas licences.
Mr Sunak said the results showed that his party had
"work to do to show people that we are delivering on their priorities and
that's what I'm absolutely determined to do, but also shows that there isn't a
huge amount of enthusiasm for the alternative in Keir Starmer and the Labour
Party, and that's because they don't have a plan.
"When the general election comes, that's the message
I'll be making to the country. Stick with our plan, because it is starting to
deliver the change that the country wants and needs."
Tory gloom deepens after double poll blow
By-elections leave Tories 'with mountain to climb'
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The turnout in Kingswood was 37% of registered voters, while
in Wellingborough it was 38% - both around half the figure in 2019, but close
to the average for by-elections in this parliament.
Labour leader Sir Keir said the country was "crying out
for change", telling OceanNewsUK his party was "a different
party" to what it had been in 2019. He said voters "can see that
we've got the answers to their problems."
But he added: "There is always more work to do."
He said he had told his team to "fight like we're five points
behind".
"As every football fan knows, you don't win the league
by a good result in February," he said.
The results mean the Tories - who are trailing a long way
behind Labour in national opinion polls ahead of a general election due this
year - have suffered 10 by-election losses in this parliament, more than any
other government since the 1960s.
In Wellingborough, Labour's Gen Kitchen, a former London
councillor who works in the charity sector and grew up in Northamptonshire,
secured a comfortable majority of 6,436.
Meanwhile, the Tories suffered their biggest drop in vote
share in any by-election since 1945.
Ms Kitchen said: "The people of Wellingborough have
spoken for Britain. This is a stunning victory for the Labour Party."
The by-election came after former Tory MP Mr Bone was kicked
out by voters in a recall petition, following his suspension from Parliament
over bullying and sexual misconduct allegations, which he denied.
Mr Bone had held the constituency since 2005, increasing his
majority since then to turn it into a safe Tory seat.
His partner, Northamptonshire councillor Helen Harrison, was
selected by local members as the Tory candidate to replace him.
Ms Harrison told the OceanNewsUK she would be "back and
fighting again for the general election".
The Tories also faced a challenge from the right with Reform
UK, which achieved its best by-election result since it rebranded from its
previous name, the Brexit Party, in 2021.
The party came third in both by-elections, picking up 13% of
the vote in Wellingborough and 10.4% in Kingswood.
Mr Sunak warned that a vote for anyone other than the
Conservatives was a vote for Sir Keir, because the general election would be
"between me and him, between the Conservatives and Labour".
Nigel Farage, honorary president of Reform UK and former
Brexit Party leader, told OceanNewsUK at One programme he believed
Labour would win the next election "with or without Reform".
He said the Tories were "sunk below the water
line" and now was the time to "build a general movement for
change".
"At some point people like myself and [Conservative MP]
Jacob Rees-Mogg have to be in the same party - whether Conservative or
Reform."
A source close to Conservative critics of the prime minister
said Labour was "storming to a huge victory and we have an insurgent party
on the right polling above 10%".
"Cue Nigel Farage's intervention two months out from a
general election and we're facing an extinction level event," the source
added.
Danny Kruger and Miriam Cates, co-chairs of the New
Conservatives group, said the party had to "change course", and
called for cuts to tax and legal migration numbers.
Bar chart showing the results of the Wellingborough
by-election with vote share for the top six parties: Labour 45.9% up 19.5
points, Conservative 24.6% down 37.6 points, Reform UK 13% up 13 points, Lib
Dem 4.7% down 3.1 points, Independent 3.7% up 3.7 points, Green Party 3.4% down
0.1 points
Labour secured a majority of 2,501 over Tory candidate Sam
Bromiley in the South Gloucestershire seat of Kingswood, near Bristol.
In his victory speech Damien Egan, who resigned as mayor of
Lewisham in London to fight the seat where he grew up, said 14 years of a
Conservative government had "sucked the hope out of our country".
The constituency had been held by former Tory MP Mr Skidmore
since 2010, until he quit over the government's climate policies.
Bar chart showing the results of the Kingswood by-election
with vote share for the top six parties: Labour 44.9% up 11.5 points,
Conservative 34.9% down 21.3 points, Reform UK 10.4% up 10.4 points, Green
Party 5.8% up 3.4 points, Lib Dem 3.5% down 3.5 points, UKIP 0.5% up 0.5 points
Former cabinet minister Sir Jacob, who represents the nearby
seat of North East Somerset, said the Kingswood result was "not as bad as
I'd expected".
He told the OceanNewsUK a lot of Tory voters appeared to have stayed
at home and suggested more could turn out at a general election, which he said
"focuses people's minds in a different way to a by-election".
However, the results pile further pressure on the prime
minister following the latest official figures on Thursday which showed the UK
economy fell into recession at the end of last year.
It also comes at the end of a difficult week for Labour,
after the party dropped its flagship pledge to spend £28bn a year on green
projects and was forced to withdraw support for its candidate in the upcoming
Rochdale by-election over comments he made about Israel and Jewish people.
Sir Keir denied being slow to act, saying: "I did
something that no leader of the Labour Party has ever done before, which was to
remove a candidate in a by-election where they can not be replaced because I
was determined to take decisive action in relation to antisemitism."
He acknowledged the last week had been "bumpy",
but argued he had taken a "tough" decision to "give up a Labour
seat".
