Fresh blow to Boris in UK polls
Crediton, United Kingdom, June 24: Beleaguered British Prime Minister Boris Johnson suffered two crushing parliamentary by-election defeats on Friday, including in a southwest English seat previously held by his ruling Conservatives for over a century.
The Tories lost the Tiverton and Honiton seat to the centrist Liberal Democrats while the main opposition Labour party regained the Wakefield constituency in northern England, in stunning twin results set to pile new pressure on Johnson.
The votes were held Thursday after the two
areas' former Tory MPs both resigned in disgrace in recent months.
Tiverton and Honiton's ex-lawmaker Neil Parish quit after admitting watching pornography on his phone in the House of Commons, while Wakefield's Imran Ahmad Khan was jailed for sexually assaulting a teenage boy.
The by-elections also follow months of scandals and setbacks that have severely dented the popularity of Johnson and his party, and come just weeks after he narrowly survived an attempt by his own lawmakers to oust him as Tory leader and prime minister.
The Conservatives had been tipped to lose both by-elections and Johnson vowed on Thursday — while in Rwanda for a Commonwealth summit — not to resign if that occurred.
But the manner of the defeats will undoubtedly renew calls for the embattled leader to stand down as the highly damaging “Partygate” scandal centred on lockdown-breaching gatherings in Downing Street continues to dog him.
The Liberal Democrats overturned a Tory majority of more than 24,000 to win Tiverton and Honiton — which had voted Conservative in every general election since the 1880s — by more than 6,000 votes, according to officials at a count centre in nearby town Crediton.