Byelection earthquakes don’t come much bigger than North Shropshire. The result – the former 23,000 Conservative majority overturned into a 6,000-vote win for the new Liberal Democrat MP Helen Morgan – is a bombshell for Boris Johnson, a wake-up call for the Conservative party and a life-enhancing triumph for the Lib Dems. It is also, perhaps, a sign that party politics is emerging from a period largely defined by the Brexit referendum of 2016, with tactical anti-Conservative voting now playing an increasingly important role.
Thursday’s 34% swing to the Lib Dems was spectacular by any yardstick. The Tory share of the vote collapsed by 31 percentage points, almost a modern record. This enabled Ed Davey’s party to come from a distant third place 10% share in 2019 to reach 47%. That surge produced the biggest Conservative to Lib Dem swing since the Christchurch byelection in 1993. Back then, the Lib Dem win was a damning verdict on a Conservative government’s economic competence. The verdict in North Shropshire is no less damning; but this one was focused squarely on the prime minister’s own abject performance and lack of integrity.
Mr Johnson campaigned early in Shropshire. But it was notable that he did not return for the business end of the contest. Even so, he was rarely out of the headlines and, in what has been an extraordinarily torrid political month for the government, none of it was flattering. There was wide anecdotal evidence in the constituency that Mr Johnson’s many recent humiliations – the Christmas party rule-breaking, the Peppa Pig speech debacle and this week’s backbench revolt among them – all fed into the defeat. Neither Mr Johnson nor the party should be in any doubt that he owns this result.
The other person whose share of responsibility should be confronted is Owen Paterson. The former MP’s financial greed and rule breaches, followed by his involvement in arrogant efforts to get the MPs’ standards rules changed for his benefit, triggered this byelection. Voters do not like to see their MPs taking advantage. Many in North Shropshire duly took it out on the new Tory candidate by staying at home. It should be unthinkable for Mr Paterson ever to be given the peerage that is sometimes rumoured. If the Tories hope to regain North Shropshire, and for the sake of politics more generally, they should make that clear.
North Shropshire confirms that the Liberal Democrats are very much back in business as an electoral force after their post-coalition eclipse. Their victory in June’s Chesham and Amersham byelection led to speculation about Conservative vulnerability in a small number of similarly remain-voting seats in which the Lib Dems are in second place. North Shropshire blows that theory wide open, since the constituency was heavily leave-voting, the Lib Dems came third in 2019, and HS2 (also sometimes blamed for the earlier defeat) was many miles away.
The implications of the slump in Mr Johnson’s personal appeal, combined with Ms Morgan’s win, may therefore go considerably further. North Shropshire suggests many more English Tory seats are vulnerable to tactical voting against the Conservatives. The swing to Labour in Old Bexley and Sidcup two weeks ago may be part of it too. Add to this the poor showing of the minor pro-Brexit parties in North Shropshire, and it begins to look as if the Brexit divide no longer shapes everything in British elections. The thought that Mr Johnson may be losing the election-winning touch that, for a lot of Tory MPs, is the only reason they support him, should send shivers down their spines this Christmas. For many, it is bound to bring to mind Oliver Cromwell’s imposing rebuke: “In the name of God, go.”
