Analysis | After Labour and Lib Dems take by-election seats from Conservatives, what happens next? – By Adam Boulton (Sky News) / July 23, 2023
With Rishi Sunak managing to avoid a total 3-0 defeat in Thursday’s by-elections, Adam Boulton says it still remains to be seen if voters will help Sir Keir Starmer into Downing Street next year.
This week’s trio of parliamentary by-elections are bound to be the biggest sampling of voter opinion in an election for Westminster this side of the next general election.
That election is most likely more than a year away. November 2024 is currently the favoured date, although the prime minister could run all the way into the buffers in late January 2025.
In truth in all three constituencies there was a significant swing in share of the votes away from the Conservatives – a 21% drop in support on average – which would have swept them out of power if mirrored across the nation.
As the polling analyst Professor Sir John Curtice put it “the results confirmed the depth of the electoral hole in which the [Conservative] party now finds itself”.
