By-Election Winners Share What They’ve Learned On Hoovering Up Votes

Seven unexpected by-elections were held in 2023, allowing parties a trial run of campaigning tactics ahead of the next general election and a chance to test whether the polls are on the money.

Labour held one seat, swept up three more from the Conservatives and one from the SNP, while the Liberal Democrats took one from the Tories, who in turn held only one seat in Boris Johnson’s former Uxbridge and South Ruislip constituency, with a significantly reduced majority. 

According to the new MPs who won this year’s contests, tightly “tailoring” campaign messaging to the specific concerns of their patch was key to their success, and is a tactic they believe should be replicated by candidates nationally for the general election, which must be called before the end of 2024

Alistair Strathern, who is now Labour MP for Mid-Bedfordshire following a by-election in October, told PoliticsHome that his campaign met a “deeply and understandably sceptical electorate” following Nadine Dorries’ resignation. 

The former culture secretary took 81 days to formally resign after she announced her intention to do so in June in protest at missing out on a peerage in Johnson’s resignation honours. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak appeared to share voters’ frustration with Dorries when he told LBC that “people aren’t being properly represented”. 

Strathern, a former London councillor, said Labour should take “a lot of confidence” in the fact that voters in Bedfordshire who were “very fed up of being taken for granted” demonstrated that they were “open to the idea of doing something different this time to get the change” at October’s by-election. The constituency had been held by the Conservatives since 1931.

Sarah Dyke, who won for the Liberal Democrats in