These by-elections were not a revolt against Brexit

The optics this morning could not look any worse for the Conservative party. They have been defeated by Labour in a red wall constituency – demonstrating how vulnerable they are to losing seats newly won in 2019. And they have suffered a crushing defeat against the Lib Dems in a formerly (very) safe seat. The Tories appear to be in danger of leaking seats in several different directions at the next general election. There are clearly lessons to be learned and things the party can do to turn this around. The problem is the Tories don’t have any solutions at the moment.

There are some who are saying that these two by-election losses look worse than they actually are. That Labour should be doing better than what we witnessed in Wakefield and that the result there was mostly due to Conservative voters staying at home, as opposed to some newfound love for the Labour party amongst the denizens of West Yorkshire.