Labour voters in Runcorn feel they’re taken for granted. Reform is welcoming them with open arms

Dear readers — Nearly 30 years ago, political strategist Jon Egan spoke with Peter Mandelson, then the Labour party's director of communications, and a part of their conversation has stayed with him ever since. There was a by-election in Wirral South at the time, and Egan was concerned that the party's communication efforts were too focused on ex-Tory and Liberal Democrat voters. When Egan asked Mandelson whether they were in danger of failing to mobilise core supporters, he answered flippantly that the Labour base "had nowhere else to go".

“Three decades on,” Egan writes in today’s story, the “glib cynicism” of Mandelson’s response “has also been exposed as a short-sighted fallacy. From Brexit, to the collapse of the Red Wall and the rise of Reform UK, voters who feel taken for granted by Labour have been finding and voting for alternatives.” Now that a by-election in Runcorn seems all but assured following MP Mike Amesbury’s arrest, could Reform attract enough former Labour voters to pull off a major upset? That’s all below — but first, your Post Briefing.

Your Post Briefing

The mother of Olivia Pratt-Korbel met Prime Minister Keir Starmer this week to discuss the creation of a new law to force criminals to attend their sentencing hearings. Since the murder of her nine-year-old daughter Olivia in 2022, Cheryl Korbel has been campaigning tirelessly to create new legislation that would make attending sentencing a legal requirement. Her campaign was provoked by the 2023 trial of Thomas Cashman — the man found guilty of shooting and killing Olivia — after he refused to show up in court to receive his life sentence. Starmer has now agreed to create the law, telling Ms Korbel it is a "promise" he intends to keep. "Cheryl Korbel's courageous campaign highlights a vital gap in our justice system,” MP for Knowsley, Anneliese Midgley, told the BBC. "While nothing can undo the loss of Olivia, this law would ensure dignity and justice for victims and their families."

And great news for Liverpool restaurant Manifest, who have made it onto independent restaurant guide SquareMeal’s top 100 restaurants for the third year in a row. Manifest, owned by husband and wife team Charlotte Jones and head chef Paul Durand, are one of only two restaurants in the North West to make the top 100. “As a team we all work so hard to help put Liverpool on the culinary map, and accolades like this really make all the difference,” Paul says. Heavily inspired by his travels across Europe, Manifest brings together a mixture of cuisines, all while showcasing the best local produce native to Merseyside. Since opening in 2022, Manifest has also appeared in the Michelin Guide and has been included in the National Restaurant Awards Top 100 twice.

When grainy footage of MP Mike Amesbury's late night altercation with a constituent at a Frodsham taxi rank began to emerge on social media, feelings of disquiet and foreboding quickly began to circulate within the high command of the Labour Party. Before facts, eventualities and consequences could even be given cursory consideration, the dread word "by-election" was beginning to echo in the recesses of their troubled minds.

Following Amesbury's guilty plea at court last week on a charge of common assault, the potential for a by-election may well be settled on February 24th if, as seems highly possible, he receives a custodial or suspended custodial sentence. But even before Amesbury’s court appearance, it appeared as though the political parties were well advanced in their preparations for the looming electoral contest. Within days of Amesbury being charged, Reform UK had begun to distribute a leaflet and letter from its leader, Nigel Farage, to every house within the constituency. As a party source explained to The Observer:

“The Labour majority is massive, but when you look at the demographics in all areas, it is everything you would want for a Reform seat. If you wanted to win somewhere with such a large majority, you’d probably need an unpopular government, a bad economy and a scandal. Obviously, you’ve got all three.”

Of course, it isn't just Reform UK who are planning for the possible eventuality. This past weekend, metro mayor Steve Rotheram was part of a team of campaigners dispatched to the constituency by Labour North West’s Regional Office. Insiders are suggesting that the party has already identified its preferred candidate in the shape of former Shadow Minister Jonathan Ashworth — the man who carelessly mislaid his former safe seat in Leicester Central at the last General Election. Ashworth, in the words of one long-standing local member and councillor, would be the kind of "big-hitter" who would see off a challenge from the insurgent Reform UK. Dismissing the prospect of a Reform threat, the councillor was keen to stress that Runcorn and Helsby is the 16th safest Labour seat in the country. So sizable is its majority that the returning officer bizarrely declared the result in July's General Election without actually counting the Labour vote — shortening proceedings by merely subtracting opposition votes from the total poll.

But is this a commonsense corrective to media speculation or a misplaced sense of complacency? By-elections are to politics what quantum mechanics is to physics: weirdly unpredictable events that confound common sense assumptions and defy the normal laws of electoral gravity. Dreaded by governments, opposition parties crave these opportunities to inflict demoralising damage and nurture that precious and ineffable political elixir — momentum. Until Nigel Farage's recent spat with Elon Musk, and the choreographed resignation of a handful of Reform UK councillors, the party's trajectory seemed to be in an inevitable ascent, leading some right wing commentators to even contemplate the once derided prospect of Farage as our next PM.

Putting aside this counter-intuitive prospect, there are many seasoned political activists in Runcorn and Helsby who feel that Labour would be extremely vulnerable in the event of a by-election. One former Labour member (who, like many of my sources for this story, wished to retain anonymity), points to Labour's dismal showing in a spate of council by-elections across the country, showing an average 30% reduction in its vote share, including the loss of a once safe seat in St Helens to Reform. "Starmer doesn't listen," she says, "whether it's the two child benefit cap, winter fuel allowances for pensioners or Angela Rayner riding roughshod over local democracy, people are pissed off!"