British politics has been characterised by a combination of turbulence and stagnation for a number of years. The country has had three prime ministers in two years, all from a party that has been in power since 2010. For as long as Rishi Sunak has been in Downing Street, opinion polls have shown the Conservatives trailing far enough behind Labour to suggest that Sir Keir Starmer will take over at the next general election. Yet the opposition radiates insecurity about this advantage.
There is both firmness and brittleness about the Starmer project. Cracks have reached the surface in recent weeks, first with the messy dismantling of a flagship green investment policy, then with the even messier repudiation of two parliamentary candidates embroiled in rows about antisemitism.
Whether that wobble will have a sustained impact on national polling is hard to foresee. It will affect the Commons in the short term because one of the renounced prospective MPs, Azhar Ali, is running in the Rochdale byelection in two weeks. Now there will be no official Labour candidate on the ballot paper.
There is less controversy clouding two byelections this Thursday, but those contests also express features of the underlying instability in British politics. Kingswood, in South Gloucestershire, is up for grabs because the incumbent Tory MP, Chris Skidmore, resigned in protest over Mr Sunak’s retreat from carbon reduction policies. The race for Wellingborough, in Northamptonshire, was triggered after the parliamentary standards commissioner upheld complaints of bullying and sexual misconduct against Peter Bone, formerly the area’s Conservative MP.
Boundary changes mean that Kingswood constituency will cease to exist at the next general election. The Conservatives appear to have written it off. By contrast, the Tory majority of 18,540 in Wellingborough ought to put it beyond reach. It is made vulnerable by disaffection with a long-incumbent ruling party, exacerbated by the selection of Mr Bone’s partner as the local candidate.
One significant variable in this Thursday’s ballots will be the performance of Reform UK, successor to the Brexit party. Another will be the extent of tactical voting by Liberal Democrat supporters aiming to maximise punishment for the Tories. The combination of those forces, extrapolated nationwide, could make the difference between narrow defeat and colossal rout for the Tories in a general election. Mr Sunak could shed votes left, right and centre, as voters with very disparate motivations seek the most efficient route to regime change. Labour might be propelled into power by this anti-Tory momentum, but it will not reflect much enthusiasm for Sir Keir’s prospectus.
Labour is benefiting from structural incoherence in the voter coalition that Boris Johnson assembled to win the 2019 election, while also embedding analogous faultlines in its own electoral bloc. Partly that is a normal function of building a parliamentary majority, especially given Britain’s electoral system. But large political parties should offer points of common interest and unifying belief to bind diverse voters with a sense of stable common allegiance. Mr Sunak has failed to do that. Sir Keir is already struggling, despite the appearance of a safe path to victory. The coming byelections will no doubt send a clear signal of national frustration with the Tories. But the consistency of that message belies a profound volatility that makes the task of governing Britain challenging for any prime minister.
• This article was amended on 16 February 2024. The Brexit party was not “formerly Ukip” as an earlier version said.
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