A Reform Labour showdown looms in the Runcorn by-election

The polls are fractured, but Farage’s party fancies its chances.

A van makes its way along the Mersey to the industrial town of Runcorn near Liverpool. It lights up with a black and white image of Nigel Farage, the font below it reading “FIGHTING FOR PUTIN”. This is Runcorn and Helsby, the possible site of an impending by-election and a constituency divided between Reform and Labour.

Labour MP Mike Amesbury had been sentenced in February to ten weeks in prison for punching a constituent. A few days later the sentence was suspended. But yesterday he told the BBC he will begin the “statutory process” of winding up his office before resigning as an MP “as soon as possible”. His resignation will trigger the first by-election of Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour government.

It is expected to happen on the same day as the May local elections. So, who should win?

This is a new constituency. The town of Runcorn makes up two-thirds of the seat and the rest is comprised of commuter villages stretching south to Chester. It’s really two constituencies – one that leans Conservative vs Labour and another that leans Reform vs Labour. On paper, that makes it a two-horse race between Labour and Reform. Labour won convincingly in 2024 with a 35-point majority. But now, Labour’s chances are not set in stone.

It is not a particularly affluent place, and it is suffering the consequences of deindustrialisation. In Germany it was places like this that saw sizeable swings, both in turnout and votes for the far-right in the recent German election. Meanwhile, council by-elections in Britain have seen Reform win or come close to winning in similar places. For the past few decades, much of Runcorn has voted in Labour candidates. But now, in a parliamentary election, we could see some serious ruptures.

Britain Predicts modelling finds that of the wards which make up constituency, Reform would top the poll in a majority of them – 7 out of a possible 13. But not all wards are equal (some have bigger electorates), so Reform isn’t necessarily topping the poll. The Britain Predicts central estimate is that if an election was held today, Labour would hold the seat with 33 per cent to Reform’s 30 per cent. The Conservatives would languish on third on 20 per cent.

This would represent a 20-point fall in the Labour vote, and a 12 point rise in Reform’s. Voters tend to turn out at lower rates in by-elections, so this contest could only have a few hundred votes in it.

There is an obvious geographic divide, too. Reform’s wins are confined to Runcorn, the town. Across Cheshire West they come a distant third. In Helsby, Labour edge the Conservatives for first place whereas Reform dwindles on 20 per cent. The Greens poll at just 8 per cent across the constituency.

Labour are an error margin from defeat. If we were to apply a typical probability measure to these numbers, Labour have a six-in-ten chance of holding on here, whereas Reform have a four-in-ten chance of gaining it. No rest for either side – not least me, who lives a twenty minutes’ walk from the constituency’s edge.

Labour are selecting their candidate this week even though a by-election has not yet been called. The gossip on the ground is that as many as 20 people have put their names forward, including councillors from Widnes, Manchester, and Cheshire. I’ve yet to hear of any Runcorn councillors putting their name forward.

This could – nay, will – become the site of the first big by-election battle between Labour and Reform in this new era. I’ve had multiple reports of Reform flooding the seat (or rather, just Runcorn) with activists. They were making moves as early as November. They are taking this seriously. And so should we. Safe on paper, it’s nothing short of marginal on the ground.

According to the polls, no party commands the confidence of more than a quarter of us nationally. It is in Runcorn, and County Cheshire, where we will see a few of these theories put to the field: Labour is down and the Greens and Lib Dems are up. Progressive apathy is widespread. The Tories are down and Reform is up. Right-wing enthusiasm for the new Conservative leader is sorely lacking, and the jump to Farage is not quite yet wholesale.

In a Labour vs Reform weigh-in, will things stay that fractured? Or will progressives be rallied to stymie Nigel Farage, and Tories brought to bear in support of Reform UK? There’s a large Green vote to squeeze in Helsby, for instance. Will they go Labour to stop Reform? Right now, everything is theory. But in Runcorn and Helsby (and Frodsham, and Sandstone, and the Gowy villages, etc, etc), time will shortly tell.