Britain’s ruling Conservative Party suffered a severe defeat in two by-elections against the Labor Party on Friday, a result that bodes ill for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak ahead of elections expected next year. For Labor Party leader Keir Starmer, who hopes to enter Downing Street, this result “redraws the political map”. “Winning in these two conservative strongholds shows that people largely want change and that they are ready to put their trust in our Labor Party, which has changed, to achieve it,” he reacted.
In these two constituencies as throughout the country, voters “want a Labor government determined to keep its promises”, “with a real project to rebuild our country”, he continued, promising that Labor would “give back” to the United Kingdom “its future”. In polls, Labor has a wide lead ahead of expected UK-wide elections next year.
Large advances returned
Labor candidate Sarah Edwards won the seat of Tamworth, in central England, once secured for the Conservatives, by 1,316 votes, sweeping away a lead of almost 20,000 votes. The Conservatives lost the seat of Mid-Bedfordshire (central England) by 1,192 votes, which they had won by 24,664 votes in 2019. This is the most bitter defeat for the Conservatives in a by-election since 1945.
These two polls were held at a time when the rating of the Prime Minister, who strives to present himself as an incarnation of change although his party has been in power for thirteen years, is at its lowest since his arrival at Downing Street ago. almost a year. The Labor opposition itself described these seats as “very safe” for the Conservatives. The latter themselves recognize that these two elections are being held in a “difficult” context locally.
Scabrous affairs
The departure of outgoing MPs in these two constituencies bears the mark of the Boris Johnson era, who had no other choice but to leave power in 2022 after a succession of scandals, first and foremost that of the parties organized in Downing Street in violation of anticovid rules. In Mid-Bedfordshire, the legislative by-election was organized due to the resignation of Conservative MP Nadine Dorries, an ardent defender of the former Prime Minister. The former culture minister quit her post as an MP after being refused a seat in the House of Lords, and accused the current head of government of abandoning the “fundamental principles of conservatism”.
In the constituency of Tamworth, voters had to nominate the successor to Chris Pincher, at the heart of the affair which was fatal to Boris Johnson. The MP had grabbed the buttocks of one man and squeezed the private parts of another one drunken evening at the end of June 2022 at the very exclusive Carlton Club in London, which once hosted the British Conservative Party. Subjected last year to intense pressure to say what he knew about Chris Pincher’s past on previous incidents, Boris Johnson admitted a “mistake” in appointing him a few months earlier.