British Prime Minister Boris Johnson took a further blow to his legitimacy on Friday but again refused to resign after his Conservative Party’s defeat in a by-election prompted the sudden resignation of the party’s chairman.
The Conservatives lost the two seats at stake in Tiverton-Honiton, a historically right-wing constituency in south-west England, and Wakefield, a traditional left-wing stronghold in the so-called “red wall” in the north of the country, which they had seized from Labor in the legislative of 2019.
In a by-election whose results were known on Friday morning, Tiverton-Honiton elected a MP from the centrist Liberal Democrat Party and Wakefield returned to the hands of the Labor Party.
These elections take place less than three weeks after Johnson survived a confidence motion launched by rebel deputies from his party in an attempt to bring him down.
And its result further weakens a rapidly losing popularity prime minister, considered a “liar” by a majority of Britons and facing social unrest over runaway inflation, 9.1% in May and 11% forecast for October.
From Rwanda, where he is participating in a Commonwealth summit, Johnson acknowledged that the election result is “difficult” for his party, but promised to “listen” to voters and “go ahead” with his work on the reins of government.
“We have to recognize that we must do more and we will, we will continue, responding to people’s concerns,” he said.
Triumphant victor of the 2019 legislative elections thanks to the promise to carry out Brexit, Johnson, who had lost two other partial legislative elections last year and suffered an electoral setback in the local elections in May, is no longer considered an electoral steamroller by many in his party, but an increasingly heavy burden.
The new defeats “are the latest in a series of very bad results for our party,” British Conservative Party chairman Oliver Dowden wrote in a letter to Johnson announcing his resignation.
“We cannot continue as usual,” he said, considering that “someone must take responsibility” in a harsh message to the leader of the formation.
“Clear opinion” for the conservatives
The Liberal Democrats outnumbered the Conservatives by more than 6,000 votes in the Tiverton-Honiton constituency, which had voted to the right in every general election since the 1880s.
And in Wakefield, the Labor opposition won a lead of almost 5,000 votes in one of the many fiefdoms that Johnson had seized from it three years ago with the promise of ending regional economic inequalities.
In their respective speeches, the two new deputies assured that the United Kingdom had lost its confidence in Johnson and urged him to resign after “partygate”, the scandal of the multiple parties organized in Downing Street during the 2020 and 2021 confinements due to the coronavirus.
Labor leader Keir Starmer, who is seeking to become prime minister in a general election scheduled for 2024, said his party’s victory in one of its historic strongholds shows they can win nationally for the first time in more than a decade.
“Wakefield has shown that the country has lost confidence in the Tories,” he said. “This result is a clear ruling on the Conservative Party, which has run out of energy and ideas,” she added.
For his part, the leader of the Liberal-Democratic Party, Ed Davey, celebrated that his formation made “political history with this amazing victory” and assured that the citizens of “Tiverton and Honiton spoke for the country.”
“People are tired of Boris Johnson’s lies and infractions and it’s time for Conservative MPs to finally do the right thing and kick him out.”
Following the vote of confidence won by Johnson on June 6, the Conservative Party cannot attempt another such action against its leader.
However, the prime minister will soon be the subject of a parliamentary investigation to determine whether he knowingly lied to deputies when he assured that there were no parties in Downing Street that were later sanctioned by the police with 126 fines.
Misleading Parliament is usually grounds for resignation and if Johnson resists a growing rebellion within his ranks could pressure him to do so.
