The Battle of the Lightweights: Who will win the Runcorn and Helsby by-election?
Plus: the challenges facing Labour and Reform
The exclusive figures by the Britain Elects-built model Britain Predicts have been published in the New Statesman, which you can read all about here. They tell you who would win if an election was held today.
Incumbent MP Mike Amesbury has given indication of his intention to stand down. His resignation - and the subsequent triggering of a by-election - appears imminent.
Labour has rushed to install a fresh candidate - the selection meeting is Thursday night. According to Chief Gossip Girl Michael Crick, there are two contenders being put to the local party membership: Karen Share, a West Cheshire councillor; and Akhtar Zaman, a Bolton councillor. I understand this is a shortlist of two from a longlist of… upwards of 20? Note the absence of anyone from Runcorn.
Whoever is selected will have a fight on their hands. My first1 forecast for the seat puts things at less than a thousand votes between Labour and Reform. It’s not a coin-flip forecast. Labour are odds on here. But at a six-in-ten chance, a probability lower than 538’s for Hillary Clinton in 2016, no one should be sitting pretty.
Runcorn itself is expecting to edge Reform - the first time the town has voted anything but Labour in decades; whereas country Cheshire should err on the side of Labour, with Reform a disappointing third. In aggregate, these projections would give Labour the seat. But it’s a race I wouldn’t put money on.
Runcorn and Helsby is two seats. Helsby and Frodsham form part of what I’d call Commuter County Cheshire, a railway line of small towns and villages running from Chester through to Runcorn and, depending on the service, veering westwards to Liverpool, or northwards to make stop in Warrington on the way to Manchester. Frodsham itself was one of those commuter-heavy locales which swung Labour by an outsized margin in the 2023 locals - a surge of 20 percentage points.
But it’s Runcorn which forms the lion’s share of this seat (two thirds of the electors). The Britain Predicts breakdown as seen in the NS shows if an election was held now, Runcorn itself would vote Reform. It’s in the commuter areas of Frodsham and Helsby where Labour would retain, and where Labour would need to squeeze most.
When Amesbury was first arrested for punching a constituent, Reform seized the initiative, flooding the town on infrequent Saturdays with activists from across the region. Voters hadn’t heard from Labour in some parts since before the General Election.
Upon Amesbury’s sentencing, Reform came again, but this time with message accuracy. Leaflets blazened with ResignMike.com were delivered to voters’ doors. Ad-vans took to the town. And sympathetic grafitti was found on the sides of shops, though quickly removed. Only in the past few weeks have we started to see the Labour machine respond.
And the by-election hasn’t even been called.
But when it is called - and assuming it is soon - the likelihood is it will be held on the same day as the May local elections. Labour have more resources than Reform. And so splitting resources for the locals will hurt Reform more than it will Labour. It’s a sound strategy, if indeed it is a strategy.
Labour’s challenge is to rally its apathetic base and squeeze enough progressives to keep Reform out. There’s enough Green voters in Helsby to decide a Reform win or defeat here.
And Reform’s challenge is to squeeze the Conservatives and turn out enough of its low-propensity supporters in a “send a message” campaign of kicking Labour out. It will be a battle of the lightweights. Least unpopular party wins.
You read that right skipper! This is the first BE-NS forecast for Runcorn and Helsby. We’ll have some updates closer to polling day.