It is a severe defeat for Boris Johnson’s British Conservative Party. The by-election in North Shropshire, a very rural constituency in central England long held by the Conservatives, was won by the Liberal Democrats on Thursday (December 16th).
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The candidate of the small Europhile party, Helen Morgan, won with 47% of the vote, nearly 6,000 votes ahead of her conservative rival, according to official results announced early Friday, December 17. The turnout was 46.3% (or 38,093 voters according to the final count), far from the 62.9% reached in the general elections of December 2019.
Voters expressed “Clearly” to Boris Johnson that ” the party is over “, said Helen Morgan in her speech following the announcement of her victory. “Your government, led by lies and bluster, will be held to account”, she added, “He can and will be defeated”. The new 46-year-old MP thus robs the Conservatives of the seat of Owen Paterson, in office since 1997, who had to resign over a lobbying affair. In the last legislative elections of 2019, he obtained 62.7% of the vote and a comfortable majority of almost 23,000 votes.
Boris Johnson came to Owen Paterson’s rescue last month by trying to change the disciplinary rules of Parliament, before backing down in the face of the outcry even in his own camp. This scandal, which is part of a long series of embarrassing cases, has weakened the British Prime Minister.
Boris Johnson’s credibility weakened
In particular, recent revelations regarding the holding of festive events at the end of 2020 in Downing Street go very badly with the British when asked to reduce their social interactions to the extreme. The revelation by the media was added on Thursday. The Guardian and The Independent of Boris Johnson’s brief appearance at a pot in Downing Street on May 15, 2020, despite health restrictions.
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Two years following his triumph in the general election, won on the promise of achieving Brexit, Boris Johnson now risks a serious crisis of authority among the Tories, or even a vote of no confidence to replace him at the head of the majority and therefore of the government. And this as his government faces an outbreak of coronavirus – more than 88,000 new cases Thursday, a new record for the second day in a row – due to the Omicron variant.
His credibility weakened, he struggled Tuesday in Parliament to get new anti-Covid restrictions accepted. The ultimate snub, he faced an unprecedented sling from his majority: 99 deputies voted once morest the establishment of a health pass for major events, deemed liberticidal, a measure finally adopted thanks to the votes of the Labor opposition.
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