Tories lose Blackpool South by-election with just 100 votes more than Reform

The Conservatives have lost the Blackpool South by-election to Labour, beating Reform UK to second place with just over 100 votes.

The swing from the Conservatives to Labour in the Blackpool South by-election was just over 26 per cent, the third-largest since the Second World War.

Keir Starmer hailed a “seismic win” as Labour took the seat from the Tories with a 7,607 vote landslide majority, winning 58.9 per cent of the vote.

Reform’s 16.9 per cent vote share was the largest in its history as Richard Tice’s party came just 117 votes behind the Conservatives.

He told The Telegraph that it was “onwards and upwards” for his party, which has steadily gained in the polls over the last year.

“We are delighted with our best Reform vote to date, way above our national polling average. We are rapidly becoming the real opposition to Labour in the north and Midlands as the socialist Tories sink in the polls. Onwards and upwards,” he said.

Mark Butcher, Reform’s candidate, said his vote share was “incredible” and he would run again in a bid to win the seat at the next general election.

“We’ve done more than give the Conservatives a bloody nose,” he said. “I think we’ve made a massive statement, nobody can doubt that at all.”

David Jones, the Tory candidate, declined to answer questions as he left the Blackpool Sports Centre after the result was announced at 4.50am.

On a turnout of just 32.5 per cent, Labour have returned to power in a heartland seat they previously held from 1997 to 2019.

Sir Keir said in a statement: “This seismic win in Blackpool South is the most important result today.

“This is the one contest where voters had the chance to send a message to Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives directly, and that message is an overwhelming vote for change.”

Mr Webb, who will succeed Scott Benton, the seat’s former Tory MP who resigned earlier this year after a lobbying scandal, said in his victory speech that “the people of Blackpool South had spoken for Britain”.

“They have said to Rishi Sunak and to the Conservatives they’ve had enough,” he said to cheers and applause from party activists.

“They’ve had enough of 14 years of the Conservatives being in power, they have lost the trust of the British people and Blackpool South has had enough of this failed government.”

He added: “People no longer trust the Conservatives. Prime Minister, do the decent thing. Admit you’ve failed and call a general election.”

The swing from the Conservatives to Labour in the Blackpool South by-election was just over 26 per cent, the third-largest since the Second World War.

Labour sources said this was much larger than what the party would need to win a general election, with that swing figure set at 12.5 per cent.

At the start of the night, Reform had only been cautiously optimistic that they had a chance of even nearing the Conservative share of the vote.

Both parties initially claimed they had definitely pipped the other to second, with Mr Jones saying he was “absolutely confident” and Mr Butcher saying he had beaten not just the Conservatives but also Labour.

Reform has never finished second in an election or by-election and had never – until today – won more than 13 per cent of the vote, which they achieved in the Wellingborough by-election in February.

At 3am, Mr Tice declared that his party had won “our best result by a considerable margin” and that it was now the “real opposition to Labour”.

Reform sources started to claim just 100 votes were separating the two parties and rumours of a potential recount began to swirl.

Yet although the Tories managed to get over the line, the disquiet that has been bubbling in discontented parts of the party will be in no way abated by a 117-vote margin of victory.

As the count was ongoing, David Campbell Bannerman, a leading figure on the Conservative Right, warned that Mr Sunak’s time as leader would be over if Reform beat the Conservatives to second.

“With the right Conservative leader and true Tory policies, Conservatives can be transformed,” he wrote on X. “Watch this space.”

Prof Sir John Curtice, the elections expert, said: “The only thing that’s stopped this result from being basically an unmitigated disaster for the Conservatives was the fact they just narrowly squeaked ahead of Reform.”

He added: “Basically the project that Rishi Sunak is meant to be there to achieve, which is to narrow the gap on Labour, that project still has yet to provide any visible benefit.”