POLLSTERS and politicians were left with egg on their faces yesterday after Labour stormed to victory in its first electoral test under Jeremy Corbyn.

YouGov’s Peter Kellner, Ukip leader Nigel Farage and Labour rightwinger Simon Danczuk were among naysayers who predicted disaster for the party in Thursday’s Oldham West & Royton by-election.

But their prophecies of doom were blown apart by a 7 per cent swing to Labour that left Ukip trailing by over 10,000.

Popular local candidate Jim McMahon, who led Oldham Council, increased his party’s share of the vote to 62 per cent.

The Tory vote collapsed by 9 per cent on May’s general election, while the Lib Dems lost their deposit for the ninth time in a by-election since 2010.

Speaking at yesterday’s celebration rally, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said: “This campaign shows just how strong our party is, not just here in Oldham but all over the country.

“It shows the way we have driven the Tories back on tax credits, police cuts, on their whole austerity agenda.

“It shows just how strong, how deep-rooted and how broad our party, the Labour Party, is for the whole of Britain.”

The result discredited Corbyn’s internal critics, who had hoped a weak showing would help spark a leadership coup.

An unnamed Labour MP from north-west England told the Telegraph his leader was “absolutely toxic in terms of winning.”

That echoes comments made yesterday by Rochdale MP Simon Danczuk, who told Sky News that Mr Corbyn’s “name came up not in a very good way when I was knocking on doors.”

Another anonymous briefing given by a Labour MP to the right-wing Express newspaper warned Labour was “haemorrhaging” support.

Ukip targeted the apparent split in its campaign and Mr Farage said the poll “could well be within a few hundred votes.”

Mr Kellner, YouGov’s top pollster, predicted on the eve of the vote that Labour would “retain the seat with a sharply reduced majority, of 5,000 or so.”

“If that is the outcome, it will provoke a short, fierce dispute inside the party,” he warned.

Mr Kellner rowed back on his comments yesterday, admitting: “Jeremy Corbyn has every reason to be delighted.

Some of the most downcast people today will be his Labour critics.”

Labour shadow Treasury minister Richard Burgon told the Morning Star: “It’s wonderful that their predictions have been proved so wrong.

“A minority of Labour MPs were forecasting electoral disaster in the right-wing press.

“It’s time for them to join with members and take the fight to the Tories with the anti-austerity politics that Jeremy Corbyn was elected to take forward.”

Deputy leader Tom Watson told the BBC it was time for MPs to end “deeply unhelpful” press briefings and “swing together.”

“I hope our MPs will see that if you stand up for working people, they respond by supporting you at elections,” he said.

Speaking in the wake of his election victory, Mr McMahon was also stressed the need to turn fire on the Tories.

He paid tribute to Michael Meacher, the left-wing stalwart whose death sparked the by-election, as a “close friend” who was “admired by people across the country as someone who worked tirelessly for the causes he believed in.”

And he said: “The sooner we kick the Tories out and get a Labour government back in the better for all of us. The hard work starts now.”