Wakefield is an absolute must-win for both SKS and BOJO
Today is the first day back at work for MPs after the Easter vacation and one of the things that might come up is moving the writ for the Wakefield by-election. What we know is that Boris Johnson’s government tends to move these pretty quickly after the vacancy occurs.
The tradition at Westminster is for the party that held the seat at the general election to actually initiate the process to replace MP who is no longer there.
The reason why Wakefield is so important for the PM and the LOTO is that it was gained from LAB at GE2019 and was one of those red wall seats that so defined Johnson’s apparent electoral appeal in very non-traditional seats for the CON party. Retaining it would be a huge boost for the prime minister and kill off all the speculation about Johnson not being the leader of his party at the next general election.
A LAB victory would send out a very powerful message about how the political environment has changed in the past two and a half years and could cast doubts in the minds of many CON MPs minds about their leader and the growing LAB poll leads.
One of the things that has characterised LAB over the past decade has been its very poor performance in parliamentary by-elections. The last time the party gained a seat from the Tories was in 2012 when Copeland was flipped.
In my view as well both SKS and BOJO have got to be seen by their parties as working hard to achieve victory in Wakefield.
On Smarkets LAB is currently rated as having an 89% chance of taking the seat.