Following the accumulation of scandals in recent weeks surrounding the prime minister, whose legitimacy is increasingly being called into question by accusations of corruption and violation of anticovid rules Last Christmas, more than a quarter of the conservative caucus (99 out of 361 deputies) rebelled against the government on Tuesday over the new restrictions against the Omicron variant.
These were approved thanks to the support of the Labor opposition, but it is the biggest conservative revolt suffered by Boris Johnson, whose resignation wants a majority of British according to several polls.
In this context, the election to replace the seat by the rural constituency of North Shropshire, in central England, where polling stations opened at 07:00 (04:00 Argentine time), acquires the character of a plebiscite on his leadership.
This constituency with just over 80,000 voters has been voting faithfully for decades for conservative candidatesThe latest, Owen Paterson, who has held the seat since 1997, won a majority of 23,000 voters in 2019.
But he was recently forced to resign after being accused of pressuring members of the Johnson government to defend the interests of two companies that paid him.
To this is added that the prime minister tried to modify the parliamentary rules to protect him, stirring the anger of a good part of deputies and voters.
“This only confirms what I, my family and many other people have thought for a long time: this man is not fit to be prime minister“Garry Churchill, a 71-year-old from North Shropshire, told AFP that he” can’t imagine “people voting Conservative again on Thursday.
He is by no means the only one to think so, and the press began to predict a conservative defeat.
If so, it would threaten to precipitate the sending of letters of no confidence from party members against Boris Johnson, a necessary procedure to trigger an internal vote with the aim of taking away the reins of the formation.
According to the conservative daily The Daily Telegraph, “some MPs have privately suggested that the loss of North Shropshire would be the final nail in the coffin of Johnson’s leadership.”
And if he lost the leadership of the party, Johnson would also have to leave the reins of Downing Street, as already happened to his predecessor Theresa May in 2019.
The Liberal Democratic Party he is best placed to seize the North Shropshire seat, aided by the tactical vote of Labor who allied with them seeking to inflict a setback on the prime minister.
The situation is diametrically opposite to last May, when the Conservatives, whose popularity soared thanks to a successful vaccination campaign against Covid-19, seized from the Labor opposition their historic stronghold of Hartlepool, in the northeast of England.
Now the coronavirus is once again a great concern among the British, who a few days before the Christmas holidays see more and more events canceled and are called to limit interactions between an unprecedented spike in infections.
The United Kingdom, one of the countries hardest hit by the pandemic in Europe, with 146,791 deaths to date, registered a record 78,610 new infections in 24 hours on Wednesday.
The previous daily maximum was 68,053 and dated back to January 8, in full advance of the alpha variant, before the delta, currently dominant in Europe.
To prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed again, Johnson has set himself a titanic goal of offering a booster shot to all adults before the end of the year.
This logistical challenge involves a million daily injections, for which more vaccination centers were opened for more hours. But nothing guarantees that, even if it is achieved, it will be enough to restore the lost popularity to the leader.
Source From: Ambito
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