There is no escaping that the North Shropshire by-election result is a disaster for the Conservative Party. Although there had been significant speculation that the Liberal Democrats might indeed come from third place and overturn a 23,000 majority, few Conservatives wanted to believe that it was possible in such a Tory stronghold, despite the scandals that have engulfed the Conservative Government in recent weeks. The come-down from the high of the 2019 General Election is extraordinary.
It is true that the by-election took place against a challenging backdrop – the sitting MP having resigned amidst a high-profile sleaze scandal, and the ‘partygate’ affair having undermined the confidence of many in the Conservatives and their leadership. But what does this result mean for the future of Boris Johnson’s Conservative Government?
There is of course a long precedent of Governments losing safe seats in by-elections, only for them to be won back comfortably at the subsequent General Election. But this particular result does not bode well for the Conservatives. Unlike Chesham and Amersham, where specific local factors played a significant role in the result, there is nowhere that the Conservatives can pin the blame for this result other than themselves. Many MPs in what they thought were safe seats, with majorities far less than 23,000, will be wondering if this result is the beginning of a trend which could see themselves out of a job at the next election.
The question on everyone’s lips is whether this result is the beginning of the end of Boris Johnson’s tenure as Prime Minister. But this remains difficult to say, particularly as the Prime Minister’s record of defying the political odds is well-known. Certainly, we could see more letters delivered calling for a vote of no confidence, but it’s not yet clear that there is the critical mass needed to meet the threshold and, even if there was, it doesn’t automatically follow that Boris Johnson would be forced to resign. Remember of course that Theresa May won the subsequent confidence vote in her leadership when that threshold was reached in 2018.
Perhaps more likely at this stage is that the Prime Minister will once again be given the benefit of the doubt, at least for now. However the likelihood is that the grumblings from Conservative MPs will become far more vocal and regular, with significant public and private pressure being applied for demonstrable changes in his and the Government’s approach. The so-called Red Wall MPs will be the ones to watch – previously loyal to the Prime Minister but sitting for very marginal seats - if they turn on him, then things could become terminal.
The Prime Minister’s relationship with his backbenchers has always been transactional. The transaction being that they accept his faults, in return for him being able to win elections and keep the Conservatives in Government. It may have been a marriage of convenience until now, but if Boris Johnson can no longer deliver on his side of that bargain, he might find that the support of his colleagues drains away rather quicker than he might have expected.
For the Liberal Democrats, taking the North Shropshire seat from under the Conservative’s nose is so much more than July’s victory in Chesham and Amersham. Whilst the earlier triumph should no doubt be applauded, it was arguably won on local issues that cannot be replicated nationally. There, disaffected Tories voted for a Lib Dem candidate who campaigned against planning reforms that would see more houses built in rural areas and HS2 being constructed through the constituency – despite the party supporting the latter at the national level.
North Shropshire on the other hand suggests that simply not being the Conservatives is a good recipe for electoral success. The Lib Dem’s campaign played upon the growing anti-Tory sentiment and the ‘one rule for them’ mentality to convince voters to break away from their ingrained Conservative allegiance. Of course, with the Government lurching from one crisis to the next, they had no shortage of material to enforce this point. A good example being that, within hours of the photo of the Conservative Christmas party emerging, the image was reposted on Lib Dem social media channels under the comment “Tell them the party’s over”.
As the Liberal Democrats now cast their eyes to the future, they will be asking themselves how they can apply the winning North Shropshire playbook elsewhere in the country. If a 23,000 majority can be overturned in a blue stronghold, there is no reason they should not target other seats in Conservative’s southern heartlands whose voters are increasingly rejecting the Johnson experience. Come 2024, it may be that Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davey will need a bigger hammer.
Typically, coming a distant third in an election as Labour did in North Shropshire would be seen as an abject failure. Some will also point to the Liberal Democrats’ impressive victory and argue that Labour should have fought harder for this seat. They have come second to the Tories in the constituency in each of the last three general elections and have a presence in the area that could have been leveraged. However, it is unlikely that Labour Leader Kier Starmer will be dwelling on this performance. He will instead be focussed on the big picture and what are seemingly changing fortunes for his party.
In 2019, the British electorate emphatically rejected Labour and their former leader Jeremy Corbyn. The party had lost the swathes of its traditional northern red wall seats and was staring into the abyss. On the other side, the Tories were riding high having achieved the highest percentage of the popular vote for any party since 1979.
Fast forward almost two years exactly and Johnson’s Government have just lost a seat that has only ever returned Conservatives and his personal poll ratings are plummeting. Conversely, Labour is surging ahead in the national polls, with one survey putting the party on 41 per cent of the vote to the Tories’ 32. Starmer and his new frontbench team will be looking at these numbers and the by-election result with renewed optimism. It is becoming increasingly clear that the Tories are not electorally infallible and that a future general election is much more open than previously thought.