ULEZ won Uxbridge, not the Conservatives

Rishi Sunak welcomed the unexpected news by meeting Uxbridge’s successful Tory candidate Steve Tuckwell for a cuppa in the local greasy spoon (they say politics changes a man…) But, with postmortems beginning, what did the Tory hold really mean?

Uxbridge is Sunak’s first by-election victory and the Tories’ first since they held Southend West after the murder of Sir David Amess, an election uncontested by the major parties. Today, the state of play is certainly a far cry from their Hartlepool gain from Labour in May 2021 by a 23% swing. 

Ultimately, their Uxbridge win was about Ulez – or “Uloss”, as one Labour insider has ruefully called it. By the end of August, the Ultra Low Emission Zone is expanding to cover the whole of London and the flagship clean-air policy from Labour’s Sadiq Khan was a substantial – if not sole – reason for the Tory win. 

Both Tuckwell and Labour candidate Danny Beales opposed the expansion, with Tuckwell arguing it would add to the financial strain residents were already facing and Beales similarly claiming it would worsen the cost-of-living crisis. It became a one-issue race where Beales had to base a campaign attacking a Labour mayoral decision. Ironically, while Labour lost the seat by 495 votes, the results saw the Green Party secure 893. Had those Green voters gone for Labour and endorsed Ulez, Beales would have won and Sunak would have been facing a major crisis this weekend.

Ulez is a local issue, making it a prime target for a by-election but an unsuitable yardstick to predict the result of the next general election. More concerningly, as temperatures across Europe soar, it proved how opposition to environmental policies can prove a winning tactic and one that the Tories may keep in their back pocket. 

What’s more, we’ve seen it before. In 2018, Emmanuel Macron’s attempts to “make the planet green again” with his carbon tax, and mock Donald Trump in the process, backfired as the regressive policy hit the poorest the most. It’s hard for the environment to be a vote winner if it targets the wrong households. 

Greg Hands, however, has an analysis of his own on the three by-election results. The Conservative party chairman told Reuters this morning that the government needed more time to deliver its five priorities, which include halving inflation and restoring economic growth. “Rishi Sunak has been prime minister for only nine months,” he said, perhaps forgetting that the Conservatives had been in government for 13 years prior to Sunak’s premiership. 

The other widely contested debate of the day revolves around another B-word; Barbenheimer. After a much-anticipated wait and franchise fever, Greta Gerwig’s Barbie and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer arrive in cinemas today and the social media ether has been consumed by discussion of which to watch first. 

If the prime minister would feel so inclined, the former followed by the latter may be his best bet. Sunak’s unexpected win this morning left him wearing rose-tinted glasses well suited to a Barbie world but it feels more than likely that something monstrous lurks on the horizon.