BRITISH PM JOHNSON LOSES LONDON STRONGHOLDS AS SCANDALS BITE IN LOCAL ELECTIONS

Early election results showed that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party lost control of historic strongholds in London and suffered losses elsewhere in local elections on Friday, as voters punished his government for a series of scandals.

Johnson’s party was defeated in Wandsworth, a low-tax Conservative stronghold since 1978, part of a trend in the British capital where voters used the elections to vent their frustrations over a rising cost of living and fines imposed on the prime minister for violating his own COVID-19 lockdown rules.

The opposition Labour Party won the Westminster council for the first time, a district that houses major government institutions. The Conservatives also lost control of Barnet, which they had held in all but two of the previous elections.

“This is an absolutely great result. From the depths of the 2019 general election, believe me, this is a major turning point for us,” Labour leader Keir Starmer told party supporters in London.

The aggregate result, which will be released later on Friday, will provide the most important snapshot of public sentiment since Johnson gained the Conservative Party’s largest majority in over 30 years in the 2019 national note.

While the Conservatives struggled in sections of their historic southern heartlands, early data suggest that support for the party held up in areas of middle and northern England that voted to leave the European Union in 2016.

Since becoming the first British politician in living memory to break the law while in power, the election is a litmus test for Johnson. He was punished last month for attending a birthday party in his office in 2020, in violation of social distancing restrictions in force at the time to prevent the spread of COVID.

The loss of crucial London councils, where the Conservatives were nearly wiped out, will add to the pressure on Johnson, who has been fighting for his political life for months and faces the prospect of more police fines for his presence at other lockdown-breaking meetings.

Nearly 7,000 council seats will be decided in Thursday’s elections, including all those in London, Scotland, and Wales, as well as a third of the seats in most of the rest of the country.

In the 2019 general election, Johnson defied conventional British politics by winning and vowing to raise living standards in former industrial areas of central and northern England.