Following double by-election success, is Labour on track to win the general election?

Starmer at Party Conference. Photo courtesy of Flickr CC-BY-NC-ND

Roughly a year ago, the disaster that was Liz Truss’s short-lived but by no means forgetful premiership ended, and the country was ushered into the seemingly safe and reliable hands of former chancellor Rishi Sunak. For the 197 MPs who picked Sunak as our PM, had you asked them what they thought the state of the Conservative party would be a year on from the Truss ousting, they probably wouldn’t have predicted complete recovery. However, I don’t think anybody would be under the impression that Conservative MPs would be going on Have I Got News For You and joking about how utterly hopeless the party’s prospects were at the next election with a sort of nihilistic acceptance, as Dehenna Davison did last Friday. 

A historic double by-election win for Labour has been the latest in a series of successes for Keir Starmer, and comes off the back of a very well-received party conference speech in Liverpool - a step in the right direction for a man who is constantly criticised for lack of flair and connection with voters. From the way that much of the British press has discussed the by-election wins and the trajectory of the Labour Party on the whole, if you were Keir you’d be measuring curtains and picking out swatches for Number 10 right now. But are we perhaps counting our chickens before they hatch?

By-election successes do not necessarily mimic real general election majorities. The Conservatives have been in power for 13 years, and it is far from uncommon for voters to oust sitting governments in by-elections as a form of protest, especially in the circumstances of the two constituencies in question. One is the former seat of the accused groper Chris Pincher and the other of the deeply unpopular Boris Johnson lackey Nadine Dorries. This fight was never going to be an easy one for the Conservatives. But who are we kidding, this is not simply a fluke of unpopularity for a broadly supported government, this is a symptom of a diseased government that has been limping along for two years.

When Labour is winning seats with a swing of 20.5% in deep Tory territory, that is not just protest votes against the Conservatives, that is the end of the Conservative party as we know it. Not only are they winning in Tory heartlands but they are winning back seats in the Red Wall (Wakefield) and, crucially if Starmer hopes to copy Blair’s success, in Scotland with Rutherglen. Starmer is, as of this week, 24 points ahead of Sunak in the opinion polls. Though it is wise to exhibit caution in the case of by-elections, it is surely the case that the next general election in Labour’s to lose, not win.

But then, is it still possible for them to throw their shoo-in away? Despite all of Starmer’s work centralising the party’s command to him and his core team, there has certainly been trouble in paradise of late. The Israel-Palestine conflict, and the ideologies surrounding it have dogged the Labour Party for years, but a pre-prepared line delivered by Starmer on LBC last week has sent tremors throughout the previously well-checked backbench of his party. The condemnation of Hamas, the assertion that Israel has a right to defend itself, and an arguably late clarification of support for a ceasefire, allegedly left a number MPs on the brink of resigning according to the Telegraph. In Labour's safe seats with large Muslim populations, there is fear that anger towards Starmer may threaten their majorities. 

However, while it's true there are internal conflicts, and the argument that it is not passion for labour but disillusionment with the Conservatives that are propping up their success, it’s hard to see how anyone but Keir Starmer will be the next prime minister. All that is really yet to be decided is; how big their majority will be, how much the Liberal Democrats and the SNP will remain a thorn in the Labour party’s side, and just how much of a massacre will take place across the Tory heartlands. Regardless of these variable factors, if we look ahead to a year from now - sources are tentatively reporting a Halloween general election, which is great news for Jacob Rees Mogg as he won’t have to spend any money on an Addams family Lurch costume -  for the first time since 2005, we will hear the bell of Big Ben toll and the exit poll proclaim that it is a majority win for the Labour Party.