Labor has “thrown the kitchen sink” over the Conservative stronghold of Selby and Ainsty, amid growing hopes it could pull off a shock victory that would show its growth in rural seats. held by the Tory.
The North Yorkshire constituency, recently vacated by Boris Johnson’s ally Nigel Adams, returned a majority of more than 20,000 for the Tories at the last election. Labor is targeting a strong second place in the seat, to counter claims that only the Liberal Democrats can win the Tories their hearts.
However, while Labor officials believe the campaign will be defined in the last 10 days before polling day, early reports from the byelection campaign have raised hopes that the party will have a chance at an improbable victory. victory.
Labor is expected to win another byelection in Uxbridge and South Ruislip, the seat vacated by Johnson, where the majority in the previous election was only 7,210 votes.
Senior officials have chosen to provide resources for the Selby campaign on the same basis as Uxbridge ahead of the ballots on 20 July. A series of shadow cabinet ministers were sent to the bench, including Rachel Reeves and Emily Thornberry last week.
The news comes with figures around Keir Starmer frustrated by speculation that the Lib Dems are the biggest threat to Selby and other rural seats. Labor is also planning an all-out assault on Mid Bedfordshire, another largely rural seat that former culture secretary Nadine Dorries has promised to leave. He has not yet formally resigned.
Insiders believe Labor’s progress outside its heartland is an important step ahead of next year’s general election. However, the extent to which hard-line Tory voters chose not to turn out in the Selby by-election is seen as likely to be a significant factor in the outcome.
“This is not a constituency we hold,” said a senior figure. “The seat as it is currently constructed will never be Labor in any kind of general election challenge. But it’s going well. Whether the pace is good enough to win, it’s hard to say.
“We put resources into both [Uxbridge and Selby] and we are in a fortunate position where we have good staff, MPs and organizers and activists alike. Our aim at the start of Selby was to show that we could give ourselves a chance of winning a drawn seat in the general election.
“But we also want to show in this campaign that Labor can win votes in rural parts of the country directly over the Tories. I think that’s what will happen in Selby – whether that’s enough or not, we’ll have to see. For us, it’s kind of a no-win situation. We can throw the kitchen sink at it.”
Today’s byelection poses a big problem for Rishi Sunak, who has seen Labour’s poll lead widen in recent weeks after first improving his party’s standing after Liz Truss’s disastrous time in office. Sunak headed to Selby and Ainsty’s seat today [SAT] as he tries to fend off Labour’s challenge. A recent poll suggests Labor has a 12-point lead in Selby, with 41% backing Labour’s Keir Mather and 29% backing the Conservatives’ Claire Holmes. This would represent a swing of 24 points from the Tories to Labor if repeated on polling day.
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Meanwhile, Labor officials are nervous about the Uxbridge race after losing a Cambridge local council election to the Conservatives last week. The campaign was dominated by a plan to introduce a congestion charge. The Tories have not had a councilor in Cambridge since 2012.
In the last few days, Labour’s Uxbridge candidate, Danny Beales, has spoken out against London mayor Sadiq Khan’s plan to extend the capital’s ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) into the constituency. The disagreement was seized upon by the Tories, who effectively tried to turn the race into a competitive issue. Beales said last week that “it is not the right time” to extend the Ulez scheme. His intervention appears to have been approved by the leader’s office, which is desperate to win the symbol of Johnson’s former constituency.
“You can see that if you are wrong in politics, even if the polls are good, you can do badly,” said a figure involved in the byelection campaigns.
“Both Selby and Uxbridge present different challenges – Uxbridge because of Ulez and Selby because of the large number of Tory votes there and how rural the constituency is, which makes it difficult for us to cover a short campaign. “
