LONDON (AP) — Voters weary of economic pain and political turmoil handed Britain’s governing Conservatives two thumping defeats Friday in a trio of special elections that point toward likely defeat for the party in the next national election.
The Conservatives avoided a wipeout by holding onto former premier Boris Johnson’s seat in suburban London — a sliver of comfort for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s party.
Sunak said the results showed that the next general election, due by the end of 2024, was not “a done deal.”
But elections expert John Curtice said the Conservatives were “in a deep electoral hole” after the main opposition Labour Party and the smaller centrist Liberal Democrats overturned huge Conservative majorities to win a seat apiece.
The three results show the Conservatives losing ground across a broad range of voters: suburban Londoners, smalltown-dwellers in the north of England and rural residents in the southwest. If replicated at a general election, the results would see Labour emerge as the biggest single party, possibly with a sizeable majority.
“This is a historic result that shows that people are looking at Labour and seeing a changed party that is focused entirely on the priorities of working people with an ambitious, practical plan to deliver,” Labour leader Keir Starmer said after the party’s 25-year-old candidate, Keir Mather, overturned a 20,000-vote majority to win the northern seat of Selby and Ainsty.
The Liberal Democrats took the rural seat of Somerton and Frome in southwest England with a similarly large swing away from the Conservatives.
“The people of Somerton and Frome have spoken for the rest of the country who are fed up with Rishi Sunak’s out-of-touch Conservative government,” said Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey, who congratulated candidate Sarah Dyke beside a sign reading “get these clowns out of No. 10,” the prime minister’s Downing Street residence.
The Conservatives won Uxbridge and South Ruislip in west London by 495 votes - down from a majority of 7,000 under Johnson — after a campaign that focused on an unpopular local green levy imposed by London’s Labour mayor.
Sunak headed straight off to the scene of his party’s sole electoral success and noted that governments often find midterm elections difficult.
“The message I take away is that we’ve got to double down, stick to our plan and deliver for people,” he said during a visit to a cafe in the constituency.
The defeats don’t mean a change of government, since the Conservatives still have a chunky majority in the House of Commons. But they confirm the trend of opinion polls, which for months have given Labour a double-digit lead - sometimes up to 20% - nationwide over the Conservatives, who have been in power since 2010.
The two defeats also showed electors voting tactically, backing the party most likely to defeat the Conservative candidate. That will leave many Conservative lawmakers rattled ahead of a national vote.
“It’s tempting, obviously, for Conservative spin doctors to emphasize Uxbridge and the result that they got there,” said Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London. “But I think really they will be deluding themselves if they think that that bodes well for the next general election.”
The right-of-center governing party has been plagued by the fallout from the tumultuous terms of Johnson and his successor as prime minister, Liz Truss, who quit within weeks after her plan for unfunded tax cuts alarmed financial markets, worsening a a cost-of-living crisis and sending mortgage costs soaring.
Johnson triggered one of the special elections when he quit as a lawmaker last month, almost a year after resigning as prime minister, when a standards watchdog concluded he’d lied to Parliament about lawbreaking parties in his office during the coronavirus pandemic. The former lawmaker in Selby, an ally of Johnson’s, followed him out the door while the member of parliament in Somerton and Frome resigned amid sex and drugs allegations.
There was speculation that Sunak could respond to the bruising defeats by shaking up his government with a Cabinet shuffle as early as Friday.
There are also questions for Starmer, who has been cautious in laying out his plans for government, to the frustration of some party supporters.
The party’s failure to secure victory in Johnson’s former seat will likely stoke some concern over London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s plan to expand an anti-pollution zone to all outer boroughs of the capital, a move that will see many older cars and diesel vehicles face a daily emissions charge.
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