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A short thread with a few thoughts on the Peterborough by-election: Labour have zero room for complacency. Nine years into a Tory-led Government their voteshare plummeted from 48% to just 31%, escaping defeat to the Brexit Party by only 683 votes. 1/x
For the 2-month-old Brexit Party to come so close without any local infrastructure or historic voting intention data was a feat in itself. I reckon Labour were saved from defeat for 2 reasons. 1. Enough voters felt they’d ‘sent a message’ so recently at the European election 2/x
And 2. The Tories had an extremely strong local Brexit-backing candidate in @paulbristow79 who had been working the patch tirelessly since last year, and actually came closer to victory than the bookies and commentariat would have had us believe. 3/x
It was nonetheless a horrific result for the Tories, underlining that failure to deliver Brexit has cost them public trust and electoral success against a dire official Opposition. Non-delivery of Brexit by Oct 31st threatens the Tories’ very existence as a political force. 4/4
