Labour is currently planning to hold two challenging by-elections on the same day in late February, Sky News has been told.

The current thinking of the party leadership is to hold the contests in Stoke-on-Trent Central and Copelands within weeks, on 23 February, rather than hold off until May as some have suggested.

The party believes its best hope of seeing off the Conservatives and UKIP is to "get them over with", said a source familiar with the discussions.

Both seats have been vacated by the resignations of MPs critical of Jeremy Corbyn to take jobs outside politics - in areas which voted overwhelmingly for Brexit and where Labour's divisions on immigration will be exploited.

Jamie Reed, the Labour MP for Copeland, said he was "heartbroken" to quit after 12 years as an MP just before Christmas to take a job at the Sellafield nuclear plant in the constituency.


He kept the seat in 2015 with a majority of 2,564 over the Tories, who are already handing out leaflets to voters - many of them Sellafield staff - highlighting Mr Corbyn's opposition to nuclear power.

Last night the local party selected councillor Gillian Troughton as its candidate, defeating the pro-Corbyn favourite Rachel Holliday.

Image: Jamie Reed resigned as Labour MP for Copeland

Tristram Hunt, the former shadow education secretary, will become director of the V&A Museum after just six years as an MP for Stoke-on-Trent Central, he announced last week.

His seat - held by Labour since its creation in 1950 - will be a major electoral test for UKIP, whose leader Paul Nuttall is rumoured to be announcing his candidacy this weekend.

The seat - which used to be an industrial powerhouse but has seen traditional industries decline - saw a strong showing from UKIP in May 2015, finishing just over 5,000 votes behind Labour.

It will be a three-way fight between UKIP, Labour and the Conservatives, who finished a close third in the General Election.

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But the result could be decided by how hard the Conservatives choose to campaign.

Recent by-elections in Richmond Park and Sleaford in Lincolnshire have seen the Labour vote splinter between Remainers turning to the pro-European Lib Dems and Leave voters backing UKIP.

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Some Labour MPs believe Copeland is the more winnable seat for the party, given Mr Reed's long record as a local campaigner and concern about cuts to NHS services.

Mr Hunt warned about the challenge of Brexit on Wednesday in his farewell speech to the House of Commons, saying: "I represent a constituency that voted 70-30 to Leave the European Union.

"This division of opinion between the official Labour Party position and many of our heartland voters has served only to highlight some of the deep-seated challenges which centre-left parties are facing.

"What Brexit has done is exacerbate the divergence of priorities between what the Labour voters of Cambridge want, and those in Redcar, Grimsby or Stoke-on-Trent. Keeping a metropolitan and post-industrial coalition together is no easy task."

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Parliamentary convention says the chief whip of the party to which the departing MP belongs moves the writ that calls a by-election.

A Labour spokesperson said: "The writ has not yet been moved so this is speculation".