The ruling Conservative Party was hit hard in two key by-elections on Friday, with Rishi Sunak taking a major political blow
Post Date – 23rd Friday 21st July 11:15pm
London: British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak suffered a major political blow on Friday as the ruling Conservative Party suffered heavy losses in two key by-elections, but avoided an outright whitewash as the party retained former boss Boris Johnson’s seat in London.
Thursday’s three-way by-election is widely seen as the report card for the 43-year-old leader of British India’s handling of the economy and his wider prospects as party leader in a general election expected in the second half of 2024.
The Tories narrowly won the Uxbridge suburban seat by 495 votes, sparing Sunak the humiliation of becoming the first prime minister in 55 years to lose three by-elections overnight.
Conservative Steve Tuckwell, who had just held on to Uxbridge and Johnson’s South Ruislip seat until he resigned last month following a parliamentary inquiry into partygate, was the only good news for the party.
Visiting Uxbridge shortly after the results were announced on Friday morning, Sunak said the victory there showed the next general election was not yet “a sure thing”.
Asked what the defeat would mean for his party, Sunak replied: “The message I got was that we have to redouble our efforts and stick to our plan to deliver for the people.” The opposition Labor Party overturned a Conservative majority of more than 20,000 votes to decisively win the northern England constituencies of Selby and Anstey in a by-election sparked by the resignation of Nigel Adams, a close ally of Boris Johnson.
Labor leader Keir Starmer said: “This is a historic result and shows that people are paying attention to Labor and seeing a transformed party fully focused on working people’s priorities with an ambitious and pragmatic plan.”
With this huge victory, 25-year-old namesake Keir Mather (Keir Mather) surpassed Indian-born Labor MP Nadia Whittome (Nadia Whittome) as the so-called “House Baby” and became the youngest MP. It will be a long wait, though, for him to sit in the Commons, which is currently in summer recess and will not resume until early September.
The Liberal Democrats swept the Sunak-led Conservatives for a second time in by-elections in southwest England. Somerset councilor Sarah Dyke, who has a farming background, won a dramatic victory with 21,187 votes, with Conservative MP Faye Purbrick a distant second with 10,179 votes.
In his victory speech, Dyke thanked “lifetime Conservative voters” who voted for the Liberal Democrats for the first time, as well as Labor and Green supporters who had “lend” their votes. She said the public had been “disappointed and taken for granted for too long” by the Conservatives, while the government was “busy being a circus of chaos”.
The by-election was triggered by the resignation of former Conservative MP David Warburton amid allegations of drug use and sexual misconduct.
Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey, who campaigned heavily in Somerset, hailed the party’s “amazing victory”, which he said showed it was making a comeback in the region and that the country was “tired of Rishi Sunak’s out-of-touch Conservative government”.
In London, the Conservative Party’s only victory was largely due to anger over Labour’s Mayor Sadiq Khan’s plans to extend the Ultra Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ) to areas outside the British capital. The policy proved deeply divisive, meaning the Conservative candidates kept Uxbridge and South Leslip by just 495 votes.
In his victory speech, new MP Tuckwell said Khan’s “destructive and costly ultra-low emission zone policy” had cost Labor his seat.
Opinion pollster John Curtis said the Conservatives’ numbers in the three by-elections showed the party “was in the midst of the electoral dilemma indicated by the polls”.
He added that two Conservative defeats in Somerset and Yorkshire, both leading to tactical local votes that drove the Conservatives out, were “bad news” for the ruling party.
