The Conservative Party loses two seats but retains the one that belonged to Boris Johnson
The Conservative Party has lost two seats in its traditional electoral strongholds but has managed to retain the constituency vacated by Boris Johnson in Uxbridge and South Ruislip in a special election on Thursday. A 2-1 defeat is a mediocre result in the second electoral test for “premier” Rishi Sunak, who has nevertheless managed to avoid a 3-0 debacle that could have even precipitated a government crisis.
“When people face a real and substantial choice, they choose to vote Conservative,” Sunak said, clinging to the lifeline of Johnson's former seat, saved “in extremis” thanks to voter rejection of Labor mayor Sadiq Kahn's ultra-low emission zone (ULEZ) expansion.
“This will also be the case in the general elections, when the issues that make a difference are voted on,” predicted the “premier”, drawing a veil over the two great defeats in the north and south of England. “Conservative voters have mostly stayed at home,” was the diagnosis of the president of the “Tories”, Greg Hands, who stressed the need to “listen to the concerns of the people.”
The analyst John Curtice, considered the oracle of British politics, has warned, however, that the results have exposed “the great hole” of the Conservatives in their electoral strongholds.
The 'Benjamin' of the House of Commons
The great protagonist of the night was the new Labor deputy Keir Mather, 25, who will be the “youngest” of the House of Commons. Mather was able to turn around the polls in Selby and Ainsty and prevail over his Conservative rival Claire Holmes, despite the 20,000-vote lead that the “Tories” achieved in 2019.
“We have rewritten the rules of where Labor can win,” Mather declared after his victory by more than 4,000 votes.. “In recent months I have seen the serious economic difficulties that people have, the result of 13 years of complacency and negligence of the” Tories “. I plan to be a voice that makes a difference in Parliament for young people.”
The Labor leader, his namesake Keir Starmer, celebrated the “historic victory” of the young deputy and assured that “our party's ability to change and meet the priorities of working people with a practical and ambitious plan” has been demonstrated.
The second major defeat for the Conservatives came in Somerton and Frome, where the Liberal-Democrat Sarah Dyke also managed to overcome the Conservatives' 19,000-vote lead. The leader of the Liberal Democrats Ed Davey predicted that the victory will serve to cement the recovery of the third party in the southwest of England.
The Conservatives, however, managed to retain Boris Johnson's symbolic seat by the minimum, who resigned as a deputy after the devastating parliamentary report on Partygate. Labor Danny Beales was eight points ahead of his rival Steve Tuckell in the polls in Uxbrige and Ruislip, but the Conservatives managed to turn the election into a “de facto” referendum on Labor mayor Sadiq Khan's controversial expansion of the Ultra-Low Emissions zone.
Beales, 34, twice homeless due to his single mother's financial hardship, came to the fore as the anti-Johnson politician in the remote north-west London suburb who once voted for Brexit.. The acrimony of the neighbors against the ULEZ was stronger in the end than the resentment against the “Tories” due to the cost of living crisis.