Labour has secured a stunning victory in the Blackpool South by-election in a major blow for embattled Rishi Sunak.
The Conservatives last won the seat from Labour at the 2019 general election with a majority of just 3,690. But Labour sources said activists on the ground had reported “large numbers numbers of former Tory voters saying they’ll be voting Labour for the first time”.
Reform UK’s leader Richard Tice also claimed his party “is rapidly become the real opposition to Labour, whether it’s in the North, the Midlands, we know it’s the case in Wales”.
It follows a series of stunning victories for Labour in traditionally safe Tory seats at by-elections in recent months and comes as results also trickled in across the country in key local elections in England where over 2,600 council seats up for grabs.
The ex-Blackpool South MP Scott Benton was caught by an undercover newspaper sting last year offering to lobby ministers on behalf of gambling investors. The Commons sleaze watchdog found that he had committed an “extremely serious” breach of Parliamentary rules and recommended that he face a 35 day suspension.
The Standards Committee said the message he gave was that he was “corrupt and ‘for sale'”. Mr Benton challenged the decision but lost his appeal last month. Instead of waiting for the results of a recall petition from his constituents, Mr Benton announced his resignation as an MP in March.
Before the result was announced Cabinet minister Chris Heaton-Harris accepted that Blackpool South was likely to be lost by the Conservatives. The Northern Ireland Secretary said it was “going to be a tough seat for us to hold” given the scandal which led to it. He told the BBC: “You are highly unlikely to be rewarded by the electorate. Electorates do not like by-elections being put on them because of a failing like that. From the very start I would have expected to lose Blackpool South.”
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