 Labour never expected to win in the Cheshireman-Amisham by-election. However, the scale of their defeat has raised questions about the health of the party under Starmer's leadership. They won only 622 votes, which represents a 1.6% vote share. This was Labour's worst ever performance in the constituency. So you can see here they've never done particularly well in the constituency, and they have done very badly. Their previous low was 6% in 2010, their previous high 21% in 2017. Historically, it looks very bad. However, speaking to Sky this morning, Jesse Lips suggested Labour's poor result needn't worry the party, as this time it was the result of tactical voting. Why do you think that you didn't do better in the Cheshireman-Amisham by-election? I mean, I don't think that anyone was necessarily expecting the result we got, but I think even fewer people would have been expecting the Labour Party to take Cheshireman-Amisham. And I think that what's happened there is that voters aren't stupid. Often, I think in public commentary, we talk about voters in a manner as if they don't know what they're doing. And it seems very clear that the vote in Cheshireman-Amisham was a vote against the government, and the voters decided that the best way to do that was to corral around the most likely winner. And in this case, it was the Lib Dems. It's a classic Lib Dem squeeze message. I beat the Lib Dems, so I'm no stranger to it. Jesse Lips says some unreasonable things. That probably wasn't one of them. People are more likely to vote tactically in by-elections. That's because as we talked about, you get to hit the government cost-free, risk-free. Also, in a by-election, you normally have the opposition parties campaigning a bit harder than they normally would in a general election. So we know that the Lib Dems were campaigning incredibly heavily in this constituency. Also, I want to show you one more graphic because we compared this vote to Labour's previous performance in that constituency. It's probably also just as good a comparison, potentially a better comparison, to look at Richmond Park in 2016. Then you can see likewise the Labour vote really fell as people realised it was a two-horse. Christian Walmart was the Labour candidate. He only got 1,515 votes, which was 3.6% of the vote down 8.7 from previous. So again, we see that the Labour Party was squeezed, though it was to less of a significant degree than it was this time around. Owen Jones, what's your take here? Do you think that Jesse Lips is right that essentially this was just the result of tactical voting? Or do you think the fact it was so low that only 622 people voted for the Labour Party suggests that there is also something else going on here? I think it's a bit from column A, a bit from column B, to be honest. I mean, look, Labour never going to obviously be competitive in that seat. In 2017, which of course, the high watermark of Corbynism, Labour came second, but a distant second. This is true blue country. And realistically, only the Liberal Democrats have a good chance in a constituency, which as I say for the Conservatives is that particular one in the South with that kind of social composition. Clearly vast numbers of people who would prefer to vote for Labour if they had that choice voted for the Liberal Democrats, because they knew that was the best possible way of getting rid of a Conservative Member of Parliament. But equally, the brutal reality is that there is no motivating reason for anyone to vote for the Labour Party in 2020, the year our law 2021. Nothing, no reason at all. I don't know why. I vote Labour because to the evitations and times of people on the left, you know, I'm a Labour right of a left persuasion. So I'm loyally going vote for that. I don't know why other people are voting for the Labour Party at the moment. I don't know how you answer the question. I really want to vote for the Labour Party because to stop the Tories, fine. But as we've seen in this particular case, people just concluded there was a different way of stopping that. People aren't voting for something. You don't vote for the Labour Party at the moment because you think here's a great inspiring vision that resonates with me, which will transform the life of me, my family, my community, my country, or indeed the world if we look at the climate emergency. Of course no one's doing that. So I mean, the fact that the Labour vote is essentially the same as the Labour membership in that, and I would presume some Labour members vote for the Liberal Democrats. It's not exactly an exact then diagram there. The fact is, you know, the Labour Party has got the sort of vote you'd expect from the Monster Raving Looney Party, which is humiliating. You know, there's been many by-elections in the past where people have tactically voted for the Liberal Democrats, but the Labour Party still retain a core vote. No Labour core vote existed at all in this seat. It just vanished. It evaporated. And I think that's the problem that sums up for the Labour Party. Normally a political party, one of the two major parties in any significant constituency where it's had a significant vote in the past, should have a die-hard, I'm going to vote for my party to the bitter end. I don't care what the stakes are. And that didn't exist in this constituency because there's nothing to drive people to vote for the Labour Party. But I do think it was overwhelmingly tactical voting. What should worry the Labour Party is their excuse about a so-called vaccine bounce for the government, meaning that they lost the last by-election in Harlepool and have a very good chance of losing the next by-election in battling Spen, is because of a vaccine rollout. Well, if that's true, why is it hitting them and not the Liberal Democrats? The problem isn't so much Labour's vote share in this by-election. It says about Keir Starmer's excuses about their vote share in by-elections, which they should have won. So in Harlepool, obviously Labour didn't lose because of tactical voting, because it was a two-horse race between Labour and the Conservatives. When Labour did lose, what were Keir Starmer's allies saying? They were saying, well, Boris Johnson is now essentially indestructible because we're amid a vaccine bounce. How could anyone, however good our leader was, possibly beat this man who has just delivered vaccines to the masses? And as you say, Owen, that argument doesn't stack up because why was Ed Davy able to do it? People in this constituency also got vaccinated. And actually more of them have been vaccinated now than they had been vaccinated when Harlepool was coming along. So Keir Starmer really is going to struggle to find excuses for elections, which do matter to the Labour Party when they lose them. Obviously, Harlepool was won. Batley and Spen is coming up and we will see what happens then. Whatever we think about what this says about Keir Starmer, it does seem that there is some disquiet within the Labour Party, including in Keir Starmer's top team. Kate Ferguson from The Sun today tweeted, knives out for Keir after the Cheshire and Amisham by-election disaster, hearing that supporters of Angela Reina and Lisa Nandi quietly ringing round to sound out possible support if he goes. That claim has been disputed. Rachel Wim of The Huffington Post tweeted later, Labour source close to Angela Reina and Lisa Nandi has called reports the two have been sounding out MPs about a leadership challenge, absolute bollocks. So claims and counterclaims there. What we do know, which I saw Owen Jones tweeting about before this show, is that Ben Nunn, who is Keir Starmer's director of communications, has resigned. So there definitely is disquiet at the top of the team. It's not just a case of briefing and counter-briefing. Something is going on. Owen, can you enlighten us any more about what is happening at the top of the Labour Party right now? Well, the wheels are falling off. I'll just be blunt about that. That's very self-evident. It's been quite an open secret that Ben Nunn, the director previous, no longer the director of communication, has not been happy in that role for a long time. I think various people who have a good grip of Labour politics, who aren't necessarily on the left. There was a consensus that they don't have a political strategy of any direction. They came into the position they have, thinking that by virtue of looking competent, Keir Starmer not having any baggage, being a knight of the well, no less, having run a state bureaucracy. He could present himself as competent compared to his predecessor and competent in contrast to Boris Johnson. That was incinerated, that dividing line by the vaccine rollout, because they didn't offer a dividing line based on vision or values. They were left with literally absolutely nothing to say, which is not a great position for a directive communications to be left in. I think what we're talking about in terms of the manoeuvring though, I think it's important, I know sources close to Angela Reina's team are very adamant that they're not telephoning people around, but I also know other people who are very adamant that people linked to Angela Reina are ringing people. There was a conflict in understanding of what's happening in that particular case. I think the issue with Angela Reina is there are people close to Angela Reina who do want her to stand for leader, and I think there are others who don't at the moment. I think the worry is that old adage, the cliche, he who wields the dagger never wears the crown. If you overthrow your leader, you generally do not or you never. There's not really a direct precedent for then replacing them. Take example Michael Heseltine. Michael Heseltine mobilized in attempt to overthrow Margaret Thatcher in the coup. He didn't end up her replacement. John Major, who was the chancellor of the Exchequer and loyal to Margaret Thatcher in that episode, he instead became the successor. There's no easy route. I think the other issue I'd say is a big chunk of the right of the Labour Party, I think there's good reasons to believe, are waiting to see what the result of the Unite General Secretary election is, because the Unite is the most influential trade union in the country, the most influential union within the Labour Party. And if Gerard Coyne, the right-wing candidate, wins, that will then be used to clamp down on democracy within the Labour Party and do all sorts of very, very, very terrifying, bad things. But also to rewrite the leadership rules, probably a reversion to the Electoral College, for example. So you give a massive chunk of the votes weighted in favour of members of parliament. You change the nominations required to get a left-winger on the ballot in the first place, and that would stop a left-winger getting on the ballot paper. The issue, I think, with Keir Starmer now is dead man walking politically speaking. You can't lose tea by elections and stay on his leader in the long term. I mean, if he loses badly instead, where I was earlier this week, we have to call for him to resign, no ifs, no buts. It's ludicrous position to be in. But oppositions do not lose by elections. That almost never happens. Before Hartlepool, that had happened twice in the last 50 years. You can't double the number of by-elections you have lost, or an opposition's loss to the government, in the last half-century, within the space of two months, and credibly argue you have any chance whatsoever of staying in power. I went to Batley and Spen, and what I saw were particularly Muslim Labour voters who are core Labour voters, very important point to make, by the way, because there's going to be a whole load of Islamophobic dog whistles, there already are, coming out of Batley and Spen, somehow suggesting that Muslim voters aren't legitimate voters, that this is a George Galway factor, rah, rah, rah, rah. In the last general election, an estimated quarter of the latest poll, 86% of British Muslims voted for the Labour Party in this country. There's over 3 million Muslims in this country. In many seats, British Muslims have a big, big influence over which party becomes or wins each constituency. And they are furious, furious when you talk to them. They feel completely abandoned by their party. They want to teach Labour a lesson, they want to give Labour a punch in the nose, that's how the people I spoke to, they sounded just like Scottish Labour voters before them, who've spoken just the same way, my father, my mother, my grandmother, my grandfather, ever since our family first arrived here, we always voted for the Labour Party, for the first time I'm not going to vote for the Labour Party, and I'm going to teach them a lesson. And I heard that from Scottish Labour voters. It was the same said by some voters in the so-called Red Wall as well. And the issue is, in Scotland, they didn't come across the electoral Rubicon, they didn't come back. Now in Batleon Spen, George Galloway, who I think is a cynical opportunist, to say the least, just very conservative a few weeks ago, but nonetheless, he has cut through with his messages on things like Palestine. And you know, when pundits say, oh Palestine, these are foreign policy niche issues that the average voter doesn't care about, apart from freaks in the Labour Party and all the rest of it, well they're wrong, because everyone was talking about Palestine in the doorstep or a lot of people in Batleon Spen. The reason that so many British Muslims were more attracted to Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party was his track record on fighting Islamophobia, his stance on issues like Palestine, but also Kashmir, for example, and also the fact that around half of Muslims in this country live below the poverty line and Labour's domestic policies are more likely to resonate with them as a consequence. And this idea that Keir Starmer's leadership had, which is what Peter Mandelson said about working-class voters allegedly, they have nowhere else to go. They thought 2019 voters, whether they be Muslim, whether they be young voters, that's the floor. They're not going to leave Labour Party. We don't need to listen to them anymore. We just have to go and chase these other voters and wave flags in a very patronising way in order to do so without committing to a vision of what we're going to do with the country. And guess what? It's not one of those voters on over, losing the support of those voters instead. So I think what's happening is Labour's electoral coalition is further collapsing under Keir Starmer's leadership. As things stand, things are looking very bad in badly-inspirational Labour. And privately, Labour councillors tell me that the seat is lost. They tell me on streets where 80 to 90% of local residents voted Labour in the last election. They're just telling canvases to eff off. Bitter opposition. Actually, the Labour candidate, you know, Joe Cox's sister is actually very charismatic on the doorstep. She's obviously a very good campaigner. You know, there's no political vision being offered by the Labour Party. That's the issue. That's cutting through. So I think what will happen after battle and spend is we on the left have to... If he loses battle and spend, Keir Starmer has to resign as leader of the Labour Party. And the left has to think very seriously about how we get some sort of candidate on the ballot paper in those circumstances. If people have left the Labour Party over the last few months, I strongly recommend you join so that you have a vote in any coming contest. It does underline how important the United General Secretary election is. That's why Steve Turner has to win. So for those of you who are angry that Howard Beckett's not in any more after he withdrew to support Steve Turner, that is a politically very, very important battlefield in terms of for the left in British society and within the Labour Party. But I think the right may hold their fire a lot of the parliamentary Labour Party because they fear at the moment until the leadership rules are changed, the left has a chance of clawing back some power either with a candidate who's more amenable to the left or an outright left candidate. So I think they will hold fire a lot of them. But his position will be untenable if he loses the battle and spend by election. He won't lead Labour into the next general election in my view. If that happens, the issue is will it happen a leadership contest when they rigged the rules to stop the left getting on? And that's a big, big problem for us.