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LONDON — Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives suffered hefty defeats in two parliamentary by-elections — but the U.K. prime minister can breath a sigh of relief after clinging on to Boris Johnson’s former seat of Uxbridge and South Ruislip.
Conservatives woke up Friday having seen healthy majorities wiped out in the constituencies of Selby and Ainsty, where they ceded a House of Commons seat to Labour, and in Somerton and Frome, where they took a kicking from the Liberal Democrats.
But the Conservatives, who are languishing in the national polls and had been braced for a clean sweep of defeats, were given something to cheer in the outer London seat of Uxbridge, Johnson’s former turf.
Localized anger over the planned expansion of London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone under the city’s Labour mayor helped the Tories hold on to the seat by just 495 votes, despite an increase in the Labour vote. It’s a disappointment for Labour Leader Keir Starmer.
But Sunak will face fresh questions about his failure to turn around the government’s fortunes following the results in Selby and Somerton, where the opposition parties managed to overturn huge majorities the Tories won under Johnson in 2019.
In Selby — where a by-election was triggered by the sudden resignation of Johnson’s ally Nigel Adams — Labour overturned a 20,137 Tory majority with a 23.7 percent swing to Starmer’s party. It’s the largest Conservative majority Labour has overturned in a by-election since 1945.
An even bigger swing in Somerton and Frome saw the Liberal Democrats snatch the rural seat, in only the latest loss by-election loss for the Tories in one of their so-called “blue wall” heartlands.
