Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer was joined today by musician Feargal Sharkey earlier for canvassing in the Wellingborough and Kingswood by-elections.

Sharkey, the former lead singer for punk band The Undertones, is a Labour supporter and has become known in recent years as a campaigner against the pollution of Britain's waterways.

Votes are now being counted for the two constituencies with results expected early this morning.

Image source, PA Media

Image source, PA Media

Reform's vote share in Wellingborough will be watched closelypublished at 00:25 Greenwich Mean Time 16 February

00:25 GMT 16 February

Harry Farley
Political correspondent

Away from the straight Labour vs Conservative battle in Wellingborough, the added interest at this count is how well Reform UK do.

This is a seat that voted strongly to leave the European Union. And Reform UK – formerly called the Brexit Party – is hoping to get a share of the vote that at least matches its recent polling of around 10%.

If they do achieve that, it will give the jitters to many Conservative MPs in leave-voting areas who fear Reform could damage their chances in the general election. This is because they worry that people who might otherwise vote Conservative could be tempted by Reform’s strong message on immigration.

Aside from who wins, how well Reform do could well be the story of the night here.

Pete Simson
Political reporter, Bristol, reporting from Thornbury

There have been just shy of 25,000 votes cast in Kingswood - a turnout of 37%.

By-elections tend to see lower numbers vote, but that’s still way down on the 50,000 who voted in here in the 2019 General Election, a turnout of over 70%.

Now the votes have been verified, we are onto the full counting stage.

Shadow environment minister Toby Perkins, who has led Labour's campaign in Wellingborough, says the turmoil of recent days hasn't featured on the doorstep.

Labour was forced to suspend two parliamentary candidates this week for comments allegedly made about Israel.

“In terms of my experience on the doorstep, people were not talking about the events of the last two days, they were talking about the events of the last 14 years,” Perkins tells BBC News.

“But we’ll get a result in a few hours’ time and I think we’ll be able to put this week’s events into context at that point.”

Asked whether the party would be disappointed not to win tonight, he says: “You’re always disappointed if you don’t win any by-election.

“But I think the very fact that we’re asking that question when we’re talking historically large majorities… a mark of the progress we’ve made under Keir Starmer.

“We’re really hopeful… but it would be a historic result if we did it.”

Laura Coffey
Political reporter, Northampton, reporting from Kettering

Image source, PA Media

The count for Wellingborough by-election is taking place at Kettering Conference Centre, which is outside of the constituency.

I’m told there are about 90 counters here - they are verifying the ballot papers.

I’ve seen a few of the 11 candidates here already including the Liberal Democrat, the Greens, and an independent candidate.

We should see a result in the early hours of Friday morning.

Pete Simson
Political reporter, Bristol, reporting from Thornbury

Liberal Democrat candidate Andrew Brown is at the Kingswood by-election count centre, which is taking place outside of the constituency in Thornbury (more on that here).

“I don’t like to make predictions but it will be very hard [to win],” Brown says.

The Lib Dems have never won in Kingswood since the constituency was created in 1974.

Luke Hall, deputy chair of the Conservative Party, says he is "optimistic" about what the result might be in Kingswood.

Asked if optimistic means confident, he tells BBC News that the party had a "very positive campaign" and a "good response" on the doorstep.

"We'll see what the result is in a few hours' time," he adds.

Asked what it would mean if Labour wins, he says by-elections are "always difficult for governing parties" and that "we should be careful about reading too much into any specific by-election result because lots of different factors are at play".

Paul Barltrop
Political editor, West of England, reporting from Thornbury

I have been walking the floor of the count talking to party activists as they watch the ballot boxes being opened.

Labour are trying not to look over-confident, but other parties are telling me they expect Labour to win.

Polling expert Sir John Curtice says the Conservatives need some good news from tonight's by-elections, and that two losses would suggest they are not on course to overturn Labour's polling lead ahead of the next election.

“The opinion polls are suggesting that still the Conservatives are making no more than minimal progress since Sunak first became prime minister,” he tells BBC News.

“They’re averaging 26% in the opinion polls. It was 25% when he became prime minister. And it’s been bouncing around that level, more or less, throughout the whole of the last 15 months.

“The Conservatives badly need to be able to show they can start to climb the electoral mountain they face.

“If they were to lose both by-elections, [that would] suggest that they’ve not.”

Image source, PA Media

The Conservatives have lost four out of five by-elections in the past year.

In July, the Tories managed to cling on to Boris Johnson's former seat of Uxbridge and South Ruislip.

But on the same day, the Conservatives lost the Somerton and Frome constituency to the Lib Dems, while Labour took the previously Conservative seat of Selby and Ainsty in Yorkshire.

Then, in October, Labour overturned a Tory majority of more than 24,000 in Nadine Dorries's Mid Bedfordshire seat. It also lost another seat in Tamworth to Labour.

So, tonight Sir Keir Starmer will see these two latest by-elections as an opportunity to show Labour is as popular as the polls suggest.

In summary: tonight poses another unwelcome test for Rishi Sunak’s premiership.

Pete Simson
Political reporter, Bristol, reporting from Thornbury

Tonight’s count is taking place outside of the constituency in the salubrious surrounds of Thornbury Leisure Centre, about 13 miles (20km) north of Kingswood.

The Council deemed there wasn’t a suitable location in Kingswood itself, but I’m told there are 80 counters at the centre primed and ready to go.

No candidates have arrived just yet, but plenty of agents are here wearing rosettes. In my experience, nothing happens here quickly. We should expect a result in the small hours of Friday.

Peter Saull
Political correspondent

The results in Kingswood and Wellingborough aren’t expected until around 04:00 GMT.

But already the two main parties have put statements out offering hints as to how they think they’ve fared.

This is also what’s commonly known in the business as “expectation management”.

The Conservative Party appears to be getting its excuses in early.

“These by-elections were always going to be hard”, the party said in a statement, adding that “the government of the day rarely win by-elections”.

The Labour Party, though, are stressing the “large Conservative majorities in both seats, which are both beyond our target list for a general election".

So the Tories are attempting to play down the significance of two potential losses, while Labour is suggesting that it would be a massive victory.

The truth, as ever, is probably somewhere in between.

Image source, Getty Images

The Conservative Party says it "fought robust campaigns on the ground" in both Kingswood and Wellingborough with their local candidates but adds that "these by-elections were always going to be hard".

"The Government of the day rarely win by-elections," the Tories said in a statement released at the close of polls.

"Both of these seats have been Labour recently and they require smaller swings than were seen in recent by-elections."

The Labour Party last held the Wellingborough seat between 1997 and 2005 and Kingswood from 1992 to 2010.

Image source, Reuters

The Labour Party says it is "proud of the positive campaigns" it has run in Kingswood and Wellingborough.

The party's national campaign co-ordinator Pat McFadden made the comments after polls closed, saying Labour is aware of the scale of the challenge in overturning large Conservative majorities in both constituencies.

He confirms that both are "beyond our target list for a general election".

McFadden says that their campaigns focused "relentlessly on the cost of living and delivering for working people", adding that people in Kingswood and Wellingborough "deserve better" than what the Tories had been providing for them.

A fascinating by-election in Wellingboroughpublished at 22:20 Greenwich Mean Time 15 February

22:20 GMT 15 February

Andrew Sinclair
BBC Look East political editor

The Wellingborough election is taking place in a politically fascinating area of the country at a politically fascinating time.

Wellingborough lies in the middle of the M1/A1 corridor. Home to a group of voters, who are sometimes referred to as “aspirational, middle England”: people who have worked hard to better themselves and their families, they probably own their own home, they may have moved out of London, or one of the large cities (where they may still work) for a better way of life.

These are typical “swing voters” who often reflect the political mood of the country. The area is full of constituencies, which swung to Labour in 1997, and then slowly move back to the Conservatives. Places like Kettering, Corby, Northampton and Milton Keynes.

Wellingborough is only 30 miles (48km) away from Mid Bedfordshire where Labour recently overturned a 24,600 Conservative majority. If they can do the same tonight, it will be seen as further evidence that aspirational England is on the move.

If the Conservatives can hold on, it will give them hope in a general election year.

Image source, PA Media

Tory MP Peter Bone held the Wellingborough seat from May 2005 until December last year when he was forced to stand down.

It followed a watchdog report which found he had subjected a staff member to bullying and sexual misconduct over a three-month period in 2012.

As a result, voters in Wellingborough backed a petition just before Christmas to recall Bone - it was signed by 13.2% of eligible voters in the constituency, above the 10% threshold required for Bone to lose his seat.

He has continued to deny the report’s findings, responding at the time: “None of the misconduct allegations against me ever took place. They are false and untrue claims.”

In 2019, he had a majority of 18,540 in the constituency.

Image source, PA Media

The Kingswood by-election is being held due to the resignation of Chris Skidmore - a former energy minister who was unhappy with the government's recent energy policies.

At the start of last month, Skidmore announced his decision to quit the House of Commons in protest ahead of a vote on a bill to guarantee annual oil and gas licensing rounds.

Skidmore previously announced in October 2022 he would not stand at the next general election.

But, with a majority of around 11,000, it could prove to be an easier target for Labour.

Chris Mason
Political editor, reporting from Wellingborough

I am bashing these words into my phone from Wellingborough in Northamptonshire where people are picking a new MP after the last one, Conservative Peter Bone, was thrown out by his electorate amid scandal in a so-called recall petition.

And there’s another in Kingswood in Gloucestershire, triggered by the former MP, Conservative Chris Skidmore, packing it in over the government’s attitude to net zero.

The Conservatives are on something of a losing streak in by-elections, while it has been the opposite for Labour - and that trend is what sets the mood for the night ahead.

In the small hours, or when you wake up if you’re not as nerdy as me, we’ll have the results and you can catch all the analysis here in the morning.

But a final thought for now. The political news of the last few days actually gets to the crux of arguably the two biggest issues of both the by-elections and the general election campaign to come.

The pound in your pocket, and the extent to which you blame the government for this extended squeeze on how you feel economically.

And the extent to which you conclude the Labour Party has changed, or not, since the last general election.

The reason the rows over antisemitism matter within Labour is sorting that out was meant to be pillar number one of Sir Keir’s fix it job on the Labour Party. What does this week say about his success or otherwise in doing that?

And the reason the economy matters doesn’t need explaining to you - and nor does it to Rishi Sunak, who will be keenly aware that governing parties so often get punished, fairly or otherwise, if the economy is in a mess on their watch.

Chris Mason
Political editor, reporting from Wellingborough

Half-term holidays often mean politics calms down a bit.

The Commons isn’t sitting, plenty of children have the week off school, and others are free to take a breather too. Whisper it, even reporters.

But this half term: blimey. It’s been kicking off in all directions.

The Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has had one of the toughest weeks of his time in job.

Firstly binning one of his key investment pledges — or at least its headline number, £28bn.

Then, an almighty row as allegations of antisemitism fly again and two Labour candidates are suspended.

Then, throw in the UK going into recession and the questions get sharp for the Prime Minister.

That gets us to right now, Thursday night, and now we are waiting for two by-election results.

Emily McGarvey
Live reporter

The time is now 22:00 GMT and the polls have closed in the two by-elections which have been held today in Wellingborough and Kingswood.

We'll be up all night bringing you coverage with correspondents at both counts, and results are expected early tomorrow morning.

We have our coffees in hand in the BBC newsroom and I'm joined by Christy Cooney and Becky Morton, who will be bringing you the results, reaction and analysis.

Stay with us for the latest, and watch our live coverage by pressing 'play' at the top of this page.