Greg Hands has said he will not resign as Conservative Party chair despite the government suffering another two by-election defeats in safe Tory seats.
Mr Hands said the results in Tamworth and Mid Bedfordshire – where the Labour Party overturned substantial Tory majorities – were “clearly disappointing”, but blamed low turnout among traditional Conservative voters.
He sought to deflect blame away from Rishi Sunak, saying the defeats – which came on the back of two by-election losses in July – were the result of “legacy issues” that pre-dated Mr Sunak’s time in office.
Asked whether he would consider his position as party chair in light of the defeats, Mr Hands replied: “No.”
Mr Hands, who was appointed Tory party chair in February, said “clearly there’s unhappiness with the Conservative Party” as he admitted the party needed to “reflect” on why its voters did not go to the polls.
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“I might say that the big problem we have is still Conservative voters staying at home,” Mr Hands told Sky News.
“The Labour vote hardly went up at all, in fact it went down slightly in Mid Bedfordshire, no breakthrough for the Liberal Democrats.
“But clearly disappointing for us and we’ll have to reflect on the fact that a large number of Conservative voters stayed at home.”
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Double by-election defeat for Tories
However, he said the Tories will be “very hopeful of regaining those two seats” at the next election.
Mr Hands’s decision to stay in post comes in contrast to his predecessor, Oliver Dowden, who quit as party chair following two by-election defeats in Tiverton and Honiton and Wakefield last year.
The Labour Party is celebrating after it claimed two by-election victories in Tamworth, Staffordshire, and in Mid Bedfordshire.
The by-elections had been called following the resignations of the previous MPs Chris Pincher and Nadine Dorries.
Mr Pincher resigned in September after he lost an appeal against an eight-week suspension from the Commons following the groping allegations that precipitated the downfall of Boris Johnson as prime minister.
Former cabinet minister Ms Dorries officially resigned in August – 81 days after she announced she would quit the Commons with “immediate effect”.
In Tamworth, the Conservatives were defending a 19,600 majority, but a 23.9 percentage point swing to Labour saw that eradicated.
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‘Country is so desperate for change’
The historic result, declared shortly before 3am, was the second-highest-ever by-election swing to Labour.
Mid Bedfordshire saw the largest numeric Tory majority ever overturned by Labour at a by-election since 1945.
The Conservatives have held the rural seat since 1931, winning with a 24,664 majority in 2019.
Mr Hands stressed there were “very specific circumstances” surrounding the by-elections in Tamworth and Mid Bedfordshire and that he believed they were not a “good indicator” of how the general election will turn out.
The party’s defeats have been criticised by its own MPs, with Dame Andrea Jenkyns saying the Tories needed to make “far-reaching major changes now”.
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Writing on social media, Dame Andrea said: “Voter apathy is evident yet again in both the #ByElections, low turnout -20k failed to turnout in Tamworth, 24k failed to turnout in Mid Beds since the last election.
“We need to make far-reaching major changes now to instil confidence in the Conservative voters.”
David Frost, the UK’s former chief Brexit negotiator, said the results were “extremely bad for my party”.
“I don’t think it helps to suggest otherwise, as some party figures have done this morning,” he posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.
“The current national polls are dreadful for us but these results are even worse.
“Yes, things are different at by-elections and there were probably special factors. But these results show that the national polls are broadly correct and that a strategy of denial is unlikely to work.”
But Labour’s national campaign co-ordinator Pat McFadden said the results overnight were “not normal” for the Tories.
“These were not constituencies that were even on our target list, so really big, important results, indicating change in politics,” he told Sky News.
“We’re absolutely delighted with our victories last night but of course conscious as well that we’ve still got a lot of work to do between now and a general election.”