It looks as if Rishi Sunak has run out of road. The latest Labour byelection victories in Wellingborough and Kingswood come despite Keir Starmer’s most challenging fortnight as Labour leader, with a key policy U-turn on the party’s £28bn green economy package and its continued issues with tackling antisemitism. Yet in spite of all that, Labour won with significant swings, and Thursday’s results show a Conservative party whose vote is being eaten up on all fronts.
On one side, the Conservatives are losing out to a Labour party that is stealing the Tories’ levelling up mantra, itself now claiming the mantle of being the party of aspiration with a “breaking down barriers” mission. And on the other side, the Tory party is under pressure from Reform UK, which is highlighting Sunak’s failed “stop the boats” policy and portraying that as a wider failure to control post-Brexit immigration.
