2023-07-21 12:30:45
A terrible night was predicted for the British Conservatives and finally it has only been bad. The prime minister’s party United Kingdom, Rishi Sunak, has managed to maintain one of the three seats disputed this Thursday in some elections partial calls after the dimission of three conservative deputies last June, including that of the former prime minister Boris Johnson. It has been precisely in the constituency of Johnson, Uxbridge and South Ruislip, where the ‘tories‘ have achieved a narrow victory, although the clear defeats in the other two constituencies do not bode well for the future Conservative Party.
The Conservatives had scored important victories in 2019 in Somerton and Frome (with 56% of the votes) and in Selby and Ainsty (with 60% of the votes). A majority that has vanished in both cases. In Somerton, a rural area southwest of Englandhas been the Liberal Democrat Party the one that has won the victory with a percentage of votes almost identical to that obtained by the ‘tories’ in 2019, while in Selby, in the north of the country, the victory has fallen to the candidate of the Labor PartyKeir Mather, who has become the youngest member of Parliament at 25 years old.
Mather has achieved a historical overturn in his constituency with 46% of the vote and an advantage of more than 10 points over the Conservative Party. A result that has marked what seems to be the trend for the next general elections: a resounding victory for Labor at the expense of the Conservatives, heavily penalized by the broken promises of the Brexit, the Boris Johnson scandals and the worrisome economic situation.
Victory by the minimum
Sunak has avoided being the first boss of Government to lose three partial elections in the same day since 1968. And it has done so thanks to less than 500 wishes difference from the Labor Party obtained in Uxbridge and South Ruislip, a residential area in west London. The Conservative victory, however, has been interpreted as a vote against the policies of the Labor mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, who has launched an extension of the low emission zone in the city (ULEZ, in its acronym in English) that will affect the residents of this constituency. A factor that makes it more difficult to make a national interpretation of this result.
He Prime Minister, however, has held on to this victory by the minimum to give hope to his party. “The Labor Party has been acting as if [las elecciones] won, but the people of Uxbridge have told all of them that they are not. Nobody expected us to win here,” Sunak said after visiting Uxbridge this Friday with the winning candidate, Steve Tuckwell.
polls against
He ‘premier‘ has tried to throw a dose of optimism before a party that seems less and less convinced of its options to come back in the surveys, which give him about 26% of the votes compared to 46% for the Labor Party in the next general elections. More than 40 Conservative MPs have already announced that they will not stand for re-election, while some party members, even within their own GovernmentThey are already sharpening their knives thinking about the next fight for the leadership of the formation.
Sunak, however, has been convinced of his chances of winning in the next elections, complying with the five axes on which he based his promises as head of the Executive: reducing the inflationstimulate the economyreduce the debtend waiting lists and curb the irregular arrival of immigrants through the English Channel. Some objectives that for now it is only partially fulfilling.
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