Could the North Shropshire by-election result mark the end of Boris Johnson's tenure in No. 10?

 Readers, the result of the North Shropshire by-election, caused by the resignation of Owen Paterson during the sleaze/second jobs scandal, was as follows:

Suzie Akers-Smith, Independent, 95 (0.3%)

Andrea Allen, UKIP, 378 (1.0%)

Boris Been-Bunged, Rejoin EU, 58 (0.2%)

Martin Daubney, Reclaim Party, 375 (1.0%)

Russell Dean, Party Party, 19 (0.0%)

James Elliot, Heritage Party, 79 (0.2%)

Alan "Howling Laud" Hope, OMRLP, 118 (0.3%)

Earl Jesse, Freedom Alliance, 57 (0.2%)

Yolande Kenward, 3 (0.0%)

Duncan Kerr, Green Party, 1,738 (4.6%, +1.4%)

Helen Morgan, Liberal Democrats, 17,957 (47.2%, +37.2%)

Neil Shastri-Hurst, Conservative, 12,032 (31.6%, -31.1%)

Kirsty Walmsley, Reform UK, 1,427 (3.8%)

Ben Wood, Labour, 3,686 (9.7%, -12.4%)

Liberal Democrat GAIN from Conservative.

The swing of 34.2% from Conservative to the Liberal Democrats that Helen Morgan managed is only 1.1% lower than the Liberal Democrats' record of a 35.3% swing in the Christchurch by-election of 1993, and this is made more astonishing from the fact that unlike in Christchurch, they started in third place and only polled 10% in North Shropshire in 2019. Their gain is only the second time this seat has changed hands since the Great Reform Act of 1832 (having last done so in a 1904 by-election), counting both North Shropshire and Oswestry, which replaced it from 1885 to 1983 (and the seat has always contained Oswestry, Market Drayton and Whitchurch). And it happened in a constituency whose Brexit vote was 60.3%.

So how did this happen, you ask?

The Conservative campaign in this supposedly ultra-safe seat was a disaster from start to finish. They confused Wem with Oswestry at one point, Eddie Hughes (Conservative MP for Walsall North since 2017) mistakenly labelled the constituency "North Staffordshire" in a Tweet, and in a by-election interview Boris Johnson managed to wrongly name the Conservative candidate as Neil Shastri-Hughes when he was Neil Shastri-Hurst. The timely defection of two Conservative town councillors, one to Reform UK and one to Reclaim, who represented towns within the constituency, capped it off. The revelations of Christmas parties that took place last year in Downing Street whilst the rest of the UK was under lockdown or severe COVID-19 related restrictions, in addition to poor handling of the Omicron variant of coronavirus, was the final straw for many voters. The only trouble the Liberal Democrat campaign encountered, meanwhile, was when Ms Morgan had to apologise for an insensitive Tweet relating to comments made by Priti Patel (Home Secretary and Conservative MP for Witham since 2010) about migrant crossings of the English Channel.

Unsurprisingly in the midst of this, Labour felt a significant tactical squeeze but like in Witney there was a noticeable lower limit to which the Labour vote could be squeezed by the Liberal Democrats, even considering the largely rural nature of North Shropshire. The Greens, whilst not quite saving their deposit, did manage to retain most of their 2019 vote which shows that the Green vote is arguably firmer than that of the "Liberal Democrat/Labour switcher vote", as also seen in Chesham & Amersham and Old Bexley & Sidcup, and boosted by increased awareness of the need to tackle man-made climate change. 

The splintering of the "right of the Conservatives" vote amongst Reform UK, UKIP, Reclaim, and the Heritage Party (who between them polled 6%) is also a clear sign of dissatisfaction with Boris Johnson's leadership as well as a lack of clear principles; Reform UK's Kirsty Walmsley nevertheless only got a respectable vote because of her and her family's local roots in the constituency, something Birmingham-based Dr Shastri-Hurst lacked; Reform UK's appeal is the most limited of the five largest UK-wide political parties. Reclaim, who had backed the Reform UK list in the 2021 London Assembly election in return for Reform UK endorsing their leader, Laurence Fox, in the 2021 London Mayoral election, stood in a parliamentary by-election for the first time and got nowhere, being easily eclipsed by Reform UK despite acquiring a town councillor during the campaign. Strangely enough, Suzie Akers-Smith managed to poll as many as 95 votes despite having no connection to the constituency at all (she is an Independent councillor in Congleton, Cheshire) and furthermore her pro-cycling platform would never appeal much to a constituency still substantially reliant on car use (most of North Shropshire has no railway station). Yet again, Rejoin EU's abject failure shows that voters have clearly moved on from the Brexit issue, and indeed, if they had not, the Liberal Democrats would never have been able to win this by-election. The wooden spoon of this by-election goes to Yolande Kenward, who also set a new record low for a by-election vote-she polled 3 votes, 2 fewer than even Bill Boaks' infamous low of 5 in the Glasgow Hillhead by-election of 1982, which was equalled by three candidates: Kailash Trivedi in the 1988 Kensington by-election, Smiley Smilie in the 2016 Tooting by-election, and Bobby "Give Me Back Elmo" Smith in the 2019 Peterborough by-election. This is made even worse by the fact this represents 3 votes out of 38,022, compared to 5 votes out of 30,289 in the Glasgow Hillhead case.

Even before this by-election, there were talks of a Conservative leadership election happening in 2022. This by-election result, combined with other recent events, likely is the beginning of the end for Boris Johnson's tenure as Prime Minister in the same way the Mid Staffordshire by-election of 1990, amidst public anger at the Poll Tax (the swing from Conservative to Labour in that by-election was an impressive 21%, and only four parliamentary by-elections have featured larger swings to Labour than this), marked the beginning of the end of Margaret Thatcher's tenure as Prime Minister. It is worth noting that the Mid Staffordshire by-election took place only eight months before Mrs Thatcher resigned as PM.