Labour calls for general election after humbling Conservatives in Chester

Rishi Sunak suffered the first electoral defeat of his premiership after Labour held on to its Chester seat in the north-west of England with an increased majority.

Samantha Dixon, a local councillor, gained 17,309 votes in Thursday’s by-election. She received 61.2 per cent of the vote, an increase of 11.58 per cent compared with the 2019 general election result.

Liz Wardlaw, the Conservative candidate and NHS nurse, received 6,335 votes as the Tory vote share dropped from 38.3 per cent to 22.4 per cent. The Liberal Democrats’ Rob Herd came third with 2,368 votes.

The by-election, which attracted a voter turnout of 41.2 per cent and resulted in a 13.8 per cent swing from the Conservatives to Labour, marked the first electoral test for Sunak following his appointment as prime minister in October.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said the public were “fed up of 12 years of Tory rule”, adding: “It’s time for a Labour government.”

Speaking after the result was declared, Dixon, who increased the party’s majority from 6,164 in 2019 to 10,974, said Sunak’s Conservative government was living “on borrowed time” and accused the Tories of wrecking the economy.

“His government has no ideas, no plan to address the big issues facing our country,” she said. “It’s time for a general election and it’s time for a Labour government.”

The vote was triggered by the resignation of Chris Matheson in October after a parliamentary bullying and harassment watchdog upheld two allegations of sexual misconduct against him by a former member of his staff.

The constituency had been regarded as a Conservative safe seat for much of the 20th century until it was picked up by Labour’s Christine Russell in the 1997 election. She held on to the seat until 2010, when Stephen Mosley won it for the Conservatives.

Matheson regained the constituency for Labour in the 2015 general election with a majority of 93. He boosted the party’s majority in 2017, winning the seat by 9,176 votes.

While Labour had been expected to retain the seat, polling expert Sir John Curtice said that Thursday’s result meant that the opposition party was in its “strongest position” for more than a decade.

“I think the crucial point is if we compare this by-election performance with comparable previous by-elections it is consistent with the claim that A. Labour are in a stronger position than they have ever been in the last 12 years,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “And B. That the performance is consistent with what happened the last time we had a parliament which ended in a defeat of a Conservative government.”

In recent weeks, Labour frontbenchers, including shadow levelling-up secretary Lisa Nandy and shadow transport secretary Louise Haigh, appeared on the campaign trail with Dixon, who pledged to stand up for residents during the cost of living crisis, make the city a “world-class retail, culture and heritage destination” and crack down on antisocial behaviour.