Huge defeat for Tories in two by-elections

On Friday night, the British ruling party lost two of its safest seats to Labor in a by-election to the House of Commons. The Conservatives lost 25.7 percent of their vote in the Tamworth constituency and 28.6 percent in Mid-Bedfordshire. Labor celebrated a “political earthquake” and opposition leader Keir Starmer can claim his party is “redrawing the political map”.

General elections are expected to take place in Great Britain at the end of 2024. If the Tamworth and Mid-Bedfordshire result is repeated nationally, the Conservatives face, as publicist Harry Zeffman put it, “not just defeat but annihilation”.

Men sexually harassed

The by-election was necessary because two Tory MPs resigned. Chris Pincher was forced to resign in Tamworth after it emerged he sexually harassed two men at London’s Carlton Club. Ex-Culture Minister Nadine Dorries resigned from her seat in Mid-Bedfordshire in protest against Prime Minister Rishi Sunak: She was outraged that she was not knighted and was not allowed to enter the Upper House.

Dorries won her constituency in the 2019 general election by a huge margin of 24,664 votes. Now voters were deserting the Conservatives in droves, and especially to Labour, which now holds the seat with a majority of 1,192 votes: it was the largest numerical swing in a House of Commons by-election.

Tories exhausted and divided

Labour’s victory in Tamworth was even more emphatic. There the Workers’ Party achieved 22.1 percent. The reason for this huge defeat for the Tories is also the cost of living crisis and the mortgage interest crisis caused by inflation. Middle-class voters who took out significant mortgages years ago when interest rates were low and are now struggling to service their loans feel abandoned by the government.

After 13 years in power, the Conservative Party is exhausted and divided. Prime Minister Sunak is struggling to hold his group together because there are sub-factions of center-right representatives, libertarians, Boris Johnson fans and politicians who are on the far right. They all cook their own soup. Voters still remember how the chaotic governance of Boris Johnson and his successor Liz Truss brought the country to the brink of financial collapse. Therefore, there is a strong mood of change in the kingdom.

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