Labour has beaten the Conservatives and held off the Lib Dems to win the hotly contested Mid Bedfordshire by-election.
The seismic result has seen the party of Sir Keir Starmer overturn a huge 25,000 majority in a seat that has been held by the Tories since 1931.
It is Labour’s second win in a night of double by-elections, after also taking the Conservative stronghold of Tamworth.
The tense battle for Mid Bedfordshire kicked off after the resignation of former culture secretary Nadine Dorries, who resigned in anger at being denied a peerage in Boris Johnson’s resignation honours list – but did not officially vacate her seat for 81 days.
Labour candidate Alistair Strathern won 13,872 votes compared to the Conservative Festus Akinbusoye’s 12,680 votes.
He secured a swing of 20.5% to win by 1,192 votes.
In his victory speech he said the result “made history” and showed “it was time for change”.
“Nowhere is off limits for this Labour Party and tonight’s result proves it”, he said.
Speaking afterwards to Sky News, the former maths teacher said he began campaigning the Saturday after Ms Dorries announced her intention to quit “immediately” – although she didn’t formally vacate the seat for over two months after that.
He said the unusually long campaign allowed him to “speak to people and start building that connection and trust” in an area where voters were “deeply sceptical” of politicians.
“This was no longer an area that felt as though it was being treated [with] respect, both nationally and locally, by our MP,” he said.
The Lib Dems, who won 9,420 votes, also remained upbeat despite coming third place in a seat they had hoped to win as part of their strategy to tear down the Tory “Blue Wall”.
Deputy leader Daisy Cooper said the party had nearly doubled their share of the vote “which would see the Lib Dems win dozens of seats off the Conservatives” if mirrored in a general election.
She added: “The Liberal Democrats played a crucial role in defeating the Conservatives in Mid Bedfordshire, and we can play a crucial role in getting rid of this Conservative government at the next election.”
Another spectacular victory for Labour
A night of fluctuating predictions ended more than five hours after the polls closed with a Labour majority of 1,192.
At first, when the polls closed at 10pm, the betting at the count at the offices of Central Bedfordshire Council was that the Tories would hold the seat, coming through the middle as the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats fought a bruising battle against each other.
But it soon became clear that the Tory vote, even in its strongholds in the small villages in this sparsely populated rural constituency, was collapsing.
First, the Liberal Democrats claimed that their vote in the villages had increased significantly, doubling their vote share, a change the Lib Dems claimed would help hand victory to Labour.
But then it emerged that the Labour Party was making big gains over the Tories in the villages.
One local councillor told Sky News the Tories were being “hammered” by Labour in the rural areas, even in some of what had previously been their safest wards.
At one point, a very senior source at the count told Sky News that the “whispers” in the hall where the votes were being counted were that Labour was going to win by 3,000 or possibly even 4,000.
But that prediction was swiftly discounted by Labour sources as it became clear that the party’s winning margin was likely to be around 1,000, which turned out to be the case when the result was declared around 3:15am.
Labour clearly benefitted from a very long campaign. Winning candidate Alistair Strathern told Sky News he began campaigning back in June. Normally, a governing party facing a tricky by-election opts for a short campaign to make their opponent’s task much harder.
But the Conservatives were scuppered in Mid Beds by the maverick former MP, Nadine Dorries at first saying she was going to stand down, but then delaying her resignation for 11 weeks.
After the result was cleared, the Tories’ humiliation was complete when their defeats candidate, Festus Akinbusoye, fled from the platform even before Mr Strathern had made his victory speech.
Together with the result in Tamworth, Mid Beds is another spectacular victory for Labour, coming on top of its success in Rutherglen and Hamilton West a fortnight ago.
Sir Keir Starmer will be pleased that Labour had shown it can defeat the SNP in Scotland and the Tories in Middle England.
But many Conservative MPs, even those with majorities of 10,000 or 15,000 will be fearing the worst at the next general election.
There had been concerns that the Tories might squeak through on a massively reduced majority because of a split in the anti-Conservative vote. But the Labour victory ended up being by a strong margin on a 44% turnout.
Labour ‘redrawing political map’
Sir Keir Starmer said the results show “Labour is back in the service of working people and redrawing the political map”.
“Winning in these Tory strongholds shows that people overwhelmingly want change and they’re ready to put their faith in our changed Labour Party to deliver it.”
However government minister Andrew Bowie claimed despite the double victory there was “no momentum” behind Labour and it is “unusual for governments to win by-elections”.
He told Sky News: “I would be very surprised if these results were to be repeated in a general election.
“Our job now is to take stock of these results, absolutely, but to move on.”
