Starmer has turned Labour into the most hated party in Britain
The usual caveats apply. There have been many such by-election successes for Liberals, Social Democrats and other smaller parties in the past. By-election results can rarely be extrapolated across the country. With no record to defend, Farage's party had the advantage.
But this was a seat won by Labour with a 14,696 majority last year and was the party's 49th-safest seat of the 411 secured in 2024. Keir Starmer's personal approval rating has plummeted; Labour has slipped behind Reform in polls. This time it could be different.
The Government's agenda for 'change' and its promises for 'growth' now lie in tatters. They've talked centrist but governed Left: hiking taxes and handing those revenues to public sector workers and Mauritius. They've raised the energy bills they pledged to lower, made enemies of farmers and small businesses, prompted an increase in unemployment and triggered bond market turmoil.
Perhaps worst of all, they've done nothing to bring down legal migration, whilst small boat crossings have reached record levels. Serco is now incentivising landlords to host those migrants, offering five-year guaranteed rent agreements with the taxpayer footing the bill. Few believe Yvette Cooper wants to bring down the numbers: we've just learned that benefits claims by refugee households have surged past £1 billion. Reform, by contrast, are unapologetically promising to leave the ECHR and settle zero illegal migrants here.
Millionaires are doing the rational thing and leaving. Private schools are closing, businesses are dishing out P45s. People are increasingly asking themselves what the point is of studying, striving, risk-taking if their hard work won't lead to a better life. Young people, one expert recently told a House of Lords Committee, don't want to get out of bed for less than £40,000. This isn't just idleness: our welfare and tax system is so dysfunctional that it barely pays to get entry-level jobs any more.
As if on autopilot, a Labour spokesman has responded to the by-election defeat by insisting the Government needs to 'move faster'. Like the snake oil salesman whose solution is to double the dose when the patient deteriorates, Starmer will stick doggedly to his high-tax, high-spend agenda. When the Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall announced a £5 billion cut to disability benefits (which will still increase by more than £20 billion by 2030), it prompted a backlash from Labour MPs. They'd prefer Rachel Reeves brought in a wealth tax.
So long as Labour continue to believe that public spending drives growth, that Net Zero is the economic opportunity of the century, that all boat people are genuine asylum seekers, that GDP cannot expand without mass migration, that private enterprise is a predatory target to be shot not a horse pulling the wagon, Britain will continue to decline. However much the Government may utter platitudes about 'fixing foundations' and whinge about '14 years of Tory chaos', voters know who's really responsible. Four more long years.
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