U.K. Conservatives defeated in two votes
LONDON — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson suffered a double blow as voters rejected his Conservative Party in two special parliamentary elections dominated by questions about his leadership and ethics.
He was further wounded when the party's chairman quit after the results came out early Friday.
The centrist Liberal Democrats overturned a Conservative majority to win the rural southwest England seat of Tiverton and Honiton, while the main opposition Labour Party reclaimed Wakefield in northern England from Johnson's Tories.
The contests were triggered by the resignations of Conservative lawmakers hit by sex scandals.
“The people of Tiverton and Honiton have spoken for Britain,” said Richard Foord, the area's newly elected Liberal Democrat lawmaker. “They sent a loud and clear message: It's time for Boris Johnson to go.”
Party chairman Oliver Dowden resigned, saying “our supporters are distressed and disappointed by recent events, and I share their feelings.”
“We cannot carry on with business as usual,” said Dowden, previously a staunch Johnson loyalist.
“I will, as always, remain loyal to the Conservative Party,” he said, without offering an endorsement of Johnson.
The prime minister was 4,000 miles away at a Commonwealth summit in Rwanda as the events unfolded.
Thursday's elections brought defeat on both fronts. Rural Tiverton and Honiton has voted Conservative for generations, while Wakefield is a northern district that the Tories won in 2019 from Labour.
Labour's victory in Wakefield — whose previous Conservative legislator resigned after being convicted of sexual assault — is a boost to a party that has been out of office nationally since 2010.
Labour leader Keir Starmer said it showed the party “is back on the side of working people, winning seats where we lost before and ready for government.”
Pollsters said the Tiverton and Honiton race was tight, but the Liberal Democrats overturned a 24,000-vote Conservative majority to win by more than 6,000 votes. The election was called when the district's Conservative lawmaker resigned after being caught looking at pornography in the House of Commons chamber.
Even with the defeats, Johnson's party holds a large majority in Parliament. But Conservatives are increasingly concerned that the qualities that led them to make Johnson their leader — including a populist ability to bend the rules and get away with it — may now be a liability.
Ethics allegations have buffeted the prime minister for months. He survived a no-confidence vote by his own party this month but was left weakened after 41% of Conservative lawmakers voted to remove him.