29/08/2026
Allister Heath: If you want to grasp why a bitterly divided British Right is facing an existential crisis, look no further than this week’s council by-elections, a vignette into Britain’s politics of the absurd.
The results should serve as a brutal wake-up call for both Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage – they were good news for Andy Burnham, whose strategy of studied laziness throughout the summer appears to have paid off, if only by accident.
Dover, Merseyside and Wandsworth are entirely different areas, with completely dissimilar demographics, economies and problems, but the Left’s by-election triumphs in all three are an ominous development for those of a conservative disposition. Let’s analyse each by-election in turn.
The Guston, Kingsdown & St Margaret’s-at-Cliffe (Dover) ward fell to the Greens, even though the three Right-wing parties grabbed a combined 55pc of the vote. Yet the far-Left Greens won with 28.8pc, beating Reform (on 27.5pc) by some 30 votes. The Tories lost almost half their share, falling to 17.1pc, but that wasn’t enough to save Reform, especially given that Rupert Lowe’s Restore grabbed a record 10.7pc.
A divided Right in a county troubled by migration and with a demographic make-up that should make it a safe seat for small-c conservatism ended up voting for a far-Left party that looks kindly upon open borders ideology. It was a mad, stupid, perverse outcome which will see the local majority’s views utterly disregarded. It’s bad enough when Right-wing voters split two ways; when they split three ways (with all three on 10-30pc) it’s a catastrophe.
Ultimately, it is Lowe who is to blame: he prefers to see the Left elected than one of Farage’s representatives. It is deeply selfish.
Reform also lost badly in a ward in St Helens, a Merseyside council the party won last May, highlighting three other problems for Farage’s party: it finds incumbency difficult, many of its gains in Red Wall areas were helped by a divided Left, and Northern voters in particular are keen on Burnham, if only for vibes-based reasons.
One of Reform’s councillors stood down, and Labour swept to victory in Billinge & Seneley Green (St Helen’s). Labour surged 18.8 points to 41.4pc, while Reform lost 2.6 points to 31.9pc. In this case, Reform did succeed in uniting the Right (the Tories are now down to just 3pc in this ward) but Burnham did a much better job at uniting the Left, grabbing the bulk of a much larger Green vote.
The Tories were the great losers in Wandsworth, a prosperous South London borough, a blow made all the harder to bear by the fact that every condition should have been met for them to win the Trinity ward. The Tories put a huge amount of effort into campaigning locally, with Badenoch and shadow cabinet ministers taking part. They were also gifted what ought to have been a trump card: Wandsworth is about to be forced to push through Britain’s greatest ever hike to council tax as a result of a decision by Labour to slash central funding.
Despicably, Wandsworth will probably need to raise council tax by 160pc, a mind-boggling rise which should have been enough to trigger a massive tax revolt and a national row. On top of this, the Tories could argue that a win in that ward would have given them a full majority on the council (rather than the present minority administration) and thus greater moral power to fight Labour’s class warfare.
It didn’t work. Boosted by the Burnham factor and by the fact that some local voters actually seemed to believe the tax rises were the Tories’ fault, Labour increased its share of the vote by 8.8pc to 47.5pc in Trinity, and the Conservatives rose by only nine points to 43.6pc, handing Burnham an easy win.
Reform is dead in Wandsworth, gaining just 2pc of the vote, so in this case the Right was united. The problem for the conservative movement is that swathes of London are dominated by socialists and progressives, including many who vote against their own financial self-interest. Like in a classic rotten borough, they will tolerate and vote for chaos and decline, and will back the Left unconditionally, regardless of its failures, nastiness or stupidity.
It wasn’t all bad for the Right in this latest batch of council by-elections, but even victories were caveated with warning signs: Reform easily won a seat in Sheffield, despite a strong Labour surge. Although it retained a seat in Newcastle, its vote share declined with a Lib Dem surge.
The conclusion is clear. Burnham is much more popular than Starmer, and has, for now, partly rewritten the electoral arithmetic in Labour’s favour. Reform is falling back in some areas and nationally, on average. The Tories are struggling even in areas they should be winning. Restore is continuing to grow in a few target areas, though it stands no real chance.
While not all of the Right’s woes can be attributed to division, a three-way split of the conservative electorate in the present moment would guarantee a Left-wing victory at an early general election. A lot more unity is a necessary but not sufficient condition for a Right-wing victory.
Farage is kicking off the party conference season in Birmingham next week. He cannot afford a stumble.
