Britain’s ruling Conservatives win Copeland parliamentary seat, first gain in 35 years

Conservative Trudy Harrison won the seat in Copeland, a rural district in the far north of England that has always been a Labour stronghold. The hype carried on despite the fact that polling evidence suggests Labour have lost twice as many votes to the Lib Dems since 2015 than to UKIP.

The long-promised UKIP storm had turned out to have been a mere mirage, while the very real rise of the Conservative party continued unabated.

With Labour trailing badly in the opinion polls, the contests are being seen as a test of whether Jeremy Corbyn can re-connect with the party’s traditional supporters in the wake of the Brexit referendum vote.

A strong 62 per cent of the constituency also voted to leave the European Union (EU) in last year’s Brexit referendum.

Mr Corbyn said: “Labour’s victory in Stoke is a decisive rejection of Ukip’s politics of division and dishonesty”. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Theresa May rallied around winning candidate Trudy Harrison in Copeland, becoming the first Tory to win the seat since the 1930s.

Other key issues in the largely rural constituency include healthcare, transport and infrastructure.

With Labour’s lead remaining comfortable at 12.4% (albeit on a reduced turnout of just over 21,000), the catastrophic defeat that many were predicting did not come to pass, and instead of the media being preoccupied with two by-election disasters in one day for Jeremy Corbyn’s struggling party, they have instead focused on what this poor result means for the future of UKIP.

Labour’s shadow leader of the Lords, Baroness Smith, described the Copeland defeat as “devastating” and said Mr Corbyn should “think long and hard” about his response. It is unlikely that with their man gone they would suddenly decide to back a Hilary Benn, a Rachel Reeves or a Dan Jarvis – someone who might effectively hold Theresa May to account as Britain approaches its most profound period of change in the post-war era.

The former UKIP leader said his party’s messaging was too “mainstream” and its campaign machine lacked professionalism. The Conservatives, Labour and UKIP have all thrown the kitchen sink at these by-elections. But as I say in The Sun this morning, the really alarming things for Labour is that things can get worse for them.

David Miliband has thrown himself into Labour’s by-election infighting by declaring the party is at its weakest for 50 years, while also refusing to rule out a comeback.

Meanwhile, the simultaneous victory for Labour in a separate by-election in Stoke-on-Trent Central provided an element of relief for the party.

But despite calls for Corbyn to step down, both Labour’s supporters and political analysts can not see any viable replacement for him. The only feature of Labour candidate Gillian Troughton’s campaign was that she was against the Tory attempt to close Copeland’s maternity service. “They seem to have been naive about the election and taken the view that to defeat Labour, all you need to do is win Labour votes”. Parachuting in an outsider might make sense for a party trying to get its bigger names into elected offices, but it plays badly on the ground. Because if UKIP, the party of Brexit, can’t win in the capital of Brexit then, it’s many critics will have reason to ask, where can it win?