British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak leaves 10 Downing Street to attend Prime Minister’s Questions in Parliament in London, Britain, October 18, 2023. Portal/Clodagh Kilcoyne/File Photo Acquire License Rights
- The opposition Labor Party overthrows two large majorities
- Defeat the pressure on Prime Minister Sunak
- Polls are seen as a test of public support ahead of national elections
LONDON, Oct 20 (Portal) – Britain’s Labor Party dealt a major blow to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives on Friday, winning two previously safe parliamentary seats. Leader Keir Starmer said the victories showed voters wanted change at the next national election.
The double defeat showed a sharp drop in support for the ruling Conservatives, who have won the last four national votes, and suggests Labor is on track to return to power for the first time since 2010 in elections expected next year to get.
While so-called by-elections are often lost by the ruling party, the scale of the Conservative defeat in two parliamentary seats has for years increased pressure on Sunak, who took office almost a year ago after his party was embroiled in scandals and chaos under previous leaders.
Starmer, who has moved his Labor party closer to the centre, said the votes showed Labor was the “party of the future”.
“It is clear that voters here have turned their backs on a failed Conservative Tory government. They’ve had enough of the decline of the last 13 years and are crying out for change,” he said as he shared the stage in Mid-Bedfordshire, an area about 50 miles (80 km) north of London, with his new lawmaker.
Labor won Mid-Bedfordshire by overturning a majority of almost 25,000 votes – the biggest deficit the party has overcome in a by-election since 1945.
She also toppled a large majority in another former Conservative stronghold, Tamworth, a predominantly rural constituency in central England, with the party recording its second-highest swing from the Conservatives since the Second World War.
Many conservatives had already resigned themselves to losing the two votes. But several said Sunak still had time to regain the significant lead Starmer’s party enjoys in the opinion polls.
The Conservative Party has won just one of the last 12 by-elections in this Parliament, with half of the contests due to politicians resigning over misconduct.
Greg Hands, the Conservatives’ campaign manager, pointed to the low turnout and said the Conservatives needed to find a way to encourage their traditional supporters to vote.
“I didn’t see any enthusiasm for Labour,” he said.
SUNAK’S FIGHT
Sunak, a 43-year-old former investment banker, has sought to portray himself as a bold reformer rather than a cautious technocrat who restored some of Britain’s credibility after scandals and chaos forced his two predecessors from office.
But with voters angered by high inflation, economic stagnation and long waits to use the state health service, Sunak is running out of time to close the gap with Labor, which has enjoyed a double-digit poll lead over the Conservatives a year.
In a speech at the party conference this month, Sunak sought to portray himself as a tough policymaker focused on reviving the economy while heeding public calls to water down steps to meet climate targets and tackle illegal immigration.
The domestic policies have not changed the polls so far, but Sunak is hoping he can establish himself as a statesman ahead of the next election. He is now in the Middle East, where he is encouraging countries to avoid escalation in the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
A Conservative MP said Sunak and his finance minister Jeremy Hunt needed a “radical rethink” and called on the government to offer tax cuts to win over voters.
The clashes in Mid-Bedfordshire and Tamworth followed the resignation of politicians close to former Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
Former minister Nadine Dorries resigned one after the other over her failure to secure a place in the upper house of parliament, while Chris Pincher resigned in Tamworth after being suspended from parliament for groping men in a London club .
Labor won the seat of Dorries, which the Conservatives had held since 1931, with a majority of over 1,100. In Tamworth, Labor candidate Sarah Edwards won with a majority of over 1,300.
Reporting by Andrew MacAskill and Elizabeth Piper, additional reporting by Farouq Suleiman; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Angus MacSwan
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