Blackpool South by-election: Labour's Chris Webb wins huge majority in another blow to Rishi Sunak

Labour has won a resounding majority in the Blackpool South by-election, in a further blow to Rishi Sunak.

In the last year alone, the Conservatives have lost seven by-elections, with Keir Starmer’s party winning six of them. On a night, when Labour made a number of key gains in the local elections, Chris Webb added to the party’s tally for Westminster.

The 38-year-old became the new MP for Blackpool South, winning 10,825 votes to replaced disgraced Scott Benton. Tory candidate David Jones just beat Reform UK’s Mark Butcher into second place by 117 votes.

Following his election, Webb said: “The people of Blackpool South have spoken for Britain. They’ve said to Rishi Sunak’s they’ve had enough.” He accused the government of “crashing the economy” and putting “taxes up”.

Benton gave impression MPs were ‘corrupt and for sale’

The by-election, scheduled for the same day as the local polls, was called in ignominious circumstances. Conservative Scott Benton, who was stripped of the whip after the scandal, was caught in a sting offering to lobby ministers, leak government documents and table parliamentary questions on behalf of gambling investors. He was suspended from the House of Commons for 35 days, after the Standards Committee found he gave the impression MPs were “corrupt and for sale”. 

Benton quit, triggering the by-election and left local Sandgrownians furious and distrustful of politicians. Webb addressed this in his speech, saying people of Blackpool “had been left with little faith in politicians”.

In the neighbouring Fylde constituency Tory MP Mark Menzies announced he’s standing down at the next election after allegations of improper use of party funds. Claims emerged that Menzies had called up his former campaign manager in the middle of the night to demand she transfer him £5,000 to pay off “bad people” who he said were holding him captive.

‘I saw Blackpool transformed under Labour’

In an extensive interview, Webb previously told NationalWorld how Tony Blair’s government transformed his family’s lives. “I went from a portacabin in my primary school, to a state of the art high school,” he explained. “I saw my mum and dad not worrying about making ends meet, it was no longer beans on toast at the end of the month when it was stretched.

“The minimum wage gave my mum a £1.50 increase an hour instantly and lifted our family out of poverty. I saw Blackpool transformed, we were able to get a GP appointment within a day.”

Webb became the first person in his family to go to university, doing a four-year course in Hull which had a year’s placement in Parliament. He spent that working with the current Shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy and Labour’s former Blackpool South MP Gordon Marsden. Webb also volunteers as a delivery driver for a local foodbank, and his his number one pledge is to launch a community investment fund “to bring the foodbank and businesses together”.

Reform UK ‘real opposition to Labour’

Leader Richard Tice said that his party had become the “real opposition to Labour”. He commented: “From what we have seen from some of the local elections in the north-east and from this by-election in Blackpool South is that Reform UK is rapidly become the real opposition to Labour, whether it’s in the North, the Midlands, we know it’s the case in Wales.

“So, yes, we are very excited. This is a very good day for Reform UK. It’s also a good day for democracy, actually, because the Great British people have got a serious alternative to consider when they want to go and vote.”

Butcher said he thought that by engaging voters in the pubs and clubs of Blackpool during his campaign has led to his success. He said: "I think people have been able to have a much more honest debate in the pubs and clubs than they would on the doorstep."

Liberal Democrat candidate Andrew Cregan said his party had run a good campaign "with the resources we had". He added: "My priorities for Blackpool are unchanged and we will have an encore for this later in the year."

Ralph Blackburn is NationalWorld’s politics editor based in Westminster, where he gets special access to Parliament, MPs and government briefings. If you liked this article you can follow Ralph on X (Twitter) here and sign up to his free weekly newsletter Politics Uncovered, which brings you the latest analysis and gossip from Westminster every Sunday morning.