Everyone has lost, and all must have wooden spoons. The Conservatives were conquered by Ukip in Rochester and Strood, but Labour also got licked. In a place it represented in parliament until recently it came third – and a frontbencher was forced to resign for mocking a local home. As for the Liberal Democrats, this was defeat on a scale to raise existential questions. A party that traditionally storms all before it in byelections sank below 1%.
The Tory defector who forced yesterday’s vote, Mark Reckless, was widely written-off as being unloved on his home turf. In the campaign, he suggested that Ukip might repatriate established residents from the EU, a remark his new party scrambled to disown. But no matter. In the end, he triumphed in this patch of Middle England, which ordinarily blows with the political wind. The only other half-decent showing of the night came from the Greens, who advanced 1,000 votes on 2010, a footnote that confirms the electorate’s determination to swim against the mainstream.
On the raw figures, the Lib Dems had the worst result, mislaying 19 of every 20 votes that they’d won last time. But the reaction always depends on the expectations, and Nick Clegg is insulated by the fact he was never in the game here. Similarly protected, too, and to a remarkable extent, were the Conservatives, whose defeat was priced into the Westminster mood. This was extraordinary because only weeks before, staring devastation in the face in Clacton-on-Sea, the party had appeared serious in vowing it would redeem itself in this second showdown with Ukip. But so far and so fast did expectations sink that by Friday morning David Cameron may have been relieved with a Reckless majority of “only” 2,920, just within what’s often classed as marginal. As such, it will not encourage any other Tories wobbling on the brink of defection to imagine that swapping to a purple rosette will guarantee safety next year.
Despite a strong candidate, Labour effectively shrank from this fight, and unlike its rivals is left with nought for its comfort. Emily Thornberry’s tweeted snap of three England flags hanging on a house, with a white van parked out the front, was adorned by the purely factual three-word comment “image from #Rochester”. For sparseness, that matches Duchamp’s signed urinal, and sadly for Ms Thornberry it produced similar shock-waves. The Islington South MP’s implicit sneer could prove the most memorable detail of the Rochester contest. It inflames the once-unthinkable current perception of Labour as a party of the metropolitan elite. It also cuts right across Ed Miliband’s careful recent attempt to steer a course between submission to the Nigel Farage agenda and lapsing into contempt for his alienated, working-class supporters.
The dire run of news for Labour thus drags on through this moment of Conservative weakness, but the deepest lessons are nonetheless for the Tories. When Mr Reckless announced his defection on the eve of the Conservative conference, Mr Cameron promised to “throw the kitchen sink” at the contest. He was true to his word. He paid no fewer than five visits. He made promises tailored to appeasing the anxieties of Ukip voters. He floated abandoning Churchill’s convention on human rights and effectively demanded a rewrite of founding EU principles, which Angela Merkel duly signalled could not be done. He pledged £7.2bn that he doesn’t have towards sweeping tax cuts, which must make surely make this the most expensive campaign in a single seat in history. Expensive, and ultimately unsuccessful.
There is nothing left in the Cameron locker to offer Ukip: imitation has failed. Labour, which produced its own half-baked proposals on immigrants’ benefits this week, needs to reflect on that too. Where Ukip dictates the debate, then it will clean up, and everybody else will indeed lose: Rochester proves that you can’t beat them by joining them. The remaining alternative strategy for 2015 is to drag Mr Farage kicking and screaming on to territory he is desperate to ignore – by proper interrogation of the chance-your-arm economics and rob-the-poor-to-pay-the-rich statecraft that he has scrawled on the back of his fag packet.
