2023-07-21 14:12:02
LONDON (AP) — Fed up with economic hardship and political scandals, British voters handed the Conservative government two resounding defeats Friday in a trio of special elections for vacant parliamentary seats, pointing to a likely defeat for the party in next year’s national election.
The Conservatives avoided total debacle by retaining former Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s seat in a London suburb.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said the results showed that the next general election, which is due to take place before the end of 2024, was not “already settled.”
Elections expert John Curtice said the Conservatives were down “a deep electoral hole” following opposition Labor and the Liberal Democratic Party each won a seat in constituencies with large Conservative majority.
All three results reveal that the Conservatives are losing ground to a wide range of voters: suburban Londoners, northern English villagers and south-west rural dwellers. If these results are repeated in a general election, the Labor Party will be the largest, possibly with an outright majority.
“We hear the cry for change away from chaos, bills rising, public services collapsing – a cry for change and we will deliver,” said Labor Party leader Keir Starmer, accompanying winning candidate Keir Mather, in the northern district of Selby and Ainsty.
“It’s the first time we’ve won here, surpassing a majority of 20,000, the largest we’ve ever surpassed in the history of the Labor Party,” Starmer said.
The Liberal Democrats won the rural seat of Somerton and Frome in south-west England with a similar blow that takes it away from the Conservatives.
Winning candidate Sarah Dyke celebrated next to a circus cannon shooting confetti and decorated with the words “throw those clowns out of Number 10”, the prime minister’s residence at 10 Downing Street.
The Conservatives won Uxbridge and South Ruislip, west London, by 495 votes, a constituency that Johnson had won by 7,000 votes. The campaign there focused on an unpopular tax decreed by London’s Labor mayor.
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