The first by-election of Keir Starmer’s premiership has been confirmed in Runcorn and Helsby after incumbent Labour MP Mike Amesbury announced he would stand down.
Dubbed the ‘sucker-punch MP’, Amesbury was convicted of assaulting a constituent of his Cheshire seat after footage of him battering a man in a drunken street brawl went viral online.
He was heard saying: “You won’t threaten your MP again will you, you f****** soft lad?”
He was sentenced to ten weeks in jail which was suspended on appeal, but Amesbury has since announced he would ‘step aside at the earliest opportunity’.
There is still no date for the by-election as Amesbury is in the business of making his staff redundant and is yet to officially resign.
But the announcement has provoked heavy speculation as to who will win the resulting by-election.
On paper, commentators say it should be Labour. Amesbury won the new seat in July 2024 with 52.9 per cent of the vote and a hefty majority of 14,696, making it the 49th safest seat of Labour’s 411.
However, since Labour took power Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have enacted a series of deeply unpopular measures sparking a slump in the polls.
With immigration figures surging, it is the anti-immigration Reform UK party heading the other direction in the polls.
Add to this the fact that by-elections are notoriously difficult to defend for incumbent parties, analysists are pointing to a two-horse race in the Cheshire seat.
Mike Amesbury has been handed a suspended sentence PACan Reform UK oust Labour? What the polls are saying
The insurgent party came second in July 2024, securing 18 per cent of the vote and 7,662 votes, just ahead of the Tories on 16 per cent and 6,756 votes.
However, Labour has made some hugely unpopular decisions that are set to hit Runcorn and Helsby harder than many constituencies.
The seat is 60 per cent rural which is bad news for Labour after its highly controversial decisions on inheritance tax and the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI scheme.
Chancellor Reeves slapped 20 per cent death duties on farmers’ assets over £1million, enraging rural folk some of whom say their parents are considering killing themselves before the tax kicks in next April.
Then came the ‘cruellest betrayal’ to date, the suspension of SFI, an environmental scheme that paid farmers to improve soil, maintain hedgerows and grow wildflowers and made up a vital part of farmers’ budgets for 2025.
Despite assurances it would not be touched, and Defra’s public promise to give six weeks’ notice before changes to the scheme were made, it was suspended with no warning.
Another worrying sign for Labour is that 21 per cent of Runcorn and Helsby is over 65.
Support for Labour in this age category has crashed since Labour stripped the winter fuel payment from most pensioners, leaving many choosing between heating and eating.
Further ‘betrayals’ were made when the government denied WASPIs compensation, despite indicating they would pre-election.
Reform UK has overtaken Labour among bookmakers in the market to win disgraced MP Mike Amesbury’s Runcorn & Helsby seatPALord Ashcroft Poll / Reform by five points
To date, there has only been one opinion poll conducted of voters in the once industrial seat, and it gives Reform UK the advantage.
Lord Ashcroft Polls puts Nigel Farage’s party ahead of Labour by 40 per cent to 35 per cent when respondents are weighted on their likelihood to vote, with the Tories third on 10 per cent.
However, when the polls include only those who say they are certain to vote, the Reform lead rises to nine points in a 22 per cent swing since July.
Lord Ashcroft’s Poll of Runcorn and Helsby puts Reform ahead
Lord Ashcroft Polls
The poll also revealed Labour could suffer from low turnout. Only just over half (55 per cent) of Labour’s general election voters say they will definitely vote, compared to 78 per cent of 2024 Reform voters and 70 per cent of Tories.
Labour’s chances of holding the seat therefore depend on persuading as many of possible of their supporters from last July to return to the ballot box.
The poll also revealed Starmer’s unpopularity compared with Reform leader Farage.
Asked who would make the best prime minister, 34 per cent of Runcorn and Helsby voters named Nigel Farage, compared to 27 per cent for Keir Starmer and 11 per cent for Kemi Badenoch.
Just under half (49 per cent) of 2024 Labour voters named Starmer, with nearly 1 in 5 (19 per cent) choosing Farage, illustrating Farage’s ability to win votes from the left.
Lord Ashcroft Polls shows Runcorn thinks Nigel Farage would be the best PM
Lord Ashcroft Polls
Britain Predicts / Labour by three points
While not a direct poll of Runcorn voters, polling models have been shown to accurately predict the outcomes of elections based on UK wide polls and adjusted for local factors.
Britain Predicts, a sophisticated polling model, shows Labour would hold the seat with 33 per cent to Reform’s 30 per cent, while the Conservatives would languish on third on 20 per cent.
This would represent a 20-point fall in the Labour vote, and a 12-point rise in Reform’s. Voters tend to turn out at lower rates in by-elections, so this contest could only have a few hundred votes in it.
This, polling guru Ben Walker says, would mean ‘Labour has a six-in-ten chance of holding on’ whereas ‘Reform has a four-in-ten chance of gaining it.’
Britain Predicts gives Labour a narrow lead
Britain Predicts
Electoral Calculus / Labour by two points
Electoral Calculus have also projected a narrow Labour lead, well within the margin of error.
Based on their latest MRP poll (Multi-level Regression and Post-stratification- a relatively recent innovation in polling science which has been used to successfully predict the last three British general elections), the research gives Labour 32 per cent of the vote.
This is just ahead of Reform’s 30 per cent with the Tories a distant third on 15 per cent.
Electoral Calculus gives Labour a narrow lead in Runcorn
GBN
Nowcast Model / Labour by 13 points
The outlier at the moment is the Nowcast model, which aggregates UK wide polling and weights it for recency and historic pollster accuracy.
It is showing a comfortable Labour win. Despite their projected vote share falling 10.3 per cent, Labour would still scoop 42.7 per cent of the vote, easily ahead of Reform’s 29.4 per cent.
LATEST FROM MEMBERSHIP:
Nowcast Model gives Labour a safe win in Runcorn and Helsby
ElectionMapsUK
Despite no date for the by-election yet, both Reform and Labour have begun campaigning in the seat.
The former party have used a campaign truck with a large screen to share their message in the constituency.
Reform UK’s van screens said: “Runcorn’s Labour MP punched a constituent”, “He’s going to jail”, and “Runcorn needs Reform UK”.
The party is reportedly ‘flooding’ the constituency with activists who began leafletting over the Christmas holidays.
Labour has been pushing online material about Reform recently voting against their workers’ rights bill.
It comes as Reform UK looks to put its first high profile public row behind it. Rupert Lowe, former outspoken Reform MP, was booted out of the party and reported to police for making physical threats to party chairman Zia Yusuf.
On Thursday, Labour announced that Karen Shore, a teacher and councillor, will stand for the party in Runcorn and Helsby.
Keir Starmer said: “Karen Shore will be a champion for the people of Runcorn and Helsby. She’s local, and her experience as a teacher and serving the community as a councillor will give people a strong voice in the House of Commons.
“That’s what people in Runcorn and Helsby deserve in their Member of Parliament. I look forward to her working hard with ministers if she is elected to deliver the local change that the area and our country deserve.”
Reform UK was approached for comment.