More problems for PM Boris Johnson in UK by-elections

• The votes come just weeks after Boris Johnson narrowly avoided being removed as PM.
• Inflation is at 40-year highs and there is a crisis in the cost of living.
• Labour needs to win Wakefield if it wants to win the seat in 2024 general election.

On Thursday, voters in two carefully watched UK by-elections go to the polls, potentially intensifying pressure on the embattled Prime Minister Boris Johnson after months of scandals and setbacks.

After both Tory MPs resigned in disgrace, his ruling Conservatives are expected to lose both elections for the parliamentary seats of Tiverton and Honiton in southwest England and Wakefield in the north.

While Wakefield’s Imran Ahmad Khan was imprisoned for sexually assaulting a juvenile boy, Tiverton and Honiton’s Neil Parish resigned from the House of Commons after admitting to watching porn on his phone there.

The votes occur just a few weeks after Johnson narrowly avoided being removed as party leader and prime minister by his own lawmakers.

More than 40% of the Conservative parliamentary party voted against him on June 6, seriously weakening him and making it difficult for him to restart his tumultuous term in office.

Following a string of scandals, including the “Partygate” story, which caused many Tories to wonder whether Johnson should continue serving as leader, Johnson has spent months battling for his life.

According to a number of polls, the general public believes he should resign because he lied about events in Downing Street that broke the Covid lockdown.

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The 58-year-old architect of Brexit saw the loss of two formerly secure seats in by-elections last year even before the scandal broke out in December.

He then fared poorly in the local elections held in May.

Failure in the very conservative Tory strongholds of Tiverton and Honiton, as well as Wakefield, which Johnson wrested from the major opposition Labour party in 2019 for the first time since the 1930s, might lead to further challenges to his authority.

‘Madness’

In Tiverton and Honiton, Parish won with a majority of more than 24,000 votes un 2019. He characterised his conduct as a “indefensible moment of absolute craziness.”

After defeating huge majorities in two other usually secure Tory seats in 2021, the small opposition Liberal Democrats there are optimistic about winning the seat in rural Devon.

One of the several so-called Labour “red wall” seats that Johnson won in 2019 on a pledge to “get Brexit done” and solve obvious regional economic disparities was Wakefield, which is close to Leeds.

But given Johnson’s dwindling popularity, it might now reverse.

Longtime Labour supporter Stephen, a 61-year-old hotel worker, told AFP last week: “Anything is better than the Tory Party, as far as I’m concerned — especially Boris Johnson.”

Prices and “Partygate”

The polls are being conducted while inflation in Britain reaches 40-year highs and there is a crisis in the cost of living, which has caused prices for basic necessities like food, fuel, and energy to skyrocket.

The sense of crisis has been exacerbated by the railway workers’ strikes this week, some of the worst to hit Britain in decades.

Some in Wakefield predicted that would have an equal impact on voters’ minds as the Downing Street parties controversy.

David, a former medical consultant, stated, “I think ‘Partygate’ will have an impact on individuals.

“But I believe that the primary factor that will have an impact on us is being hit by inflation and the rising cost of living from the perspective of heating, electricity, and the rippling effects on food costs and transportation.”

For Labour, which needs to win seats like Wakefield if it wants to win the upcoming general election in 2024, the contest there carries risks as well.

Keir Starmer, the leader of Labour and a sober-minded former lawyer who has been working to rebuild the centre-left party following the devastating defeat in 2019, has come under fire for failing to engage supporters, especially in its historic heartlands.

Anything less than a strong victory in Wakefield is likely to be used as fresh proof by his detractors of his failure to finish the rebuild and bring the party back into power after 12 years in opposition.

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