The Conservative Party, led by British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, suffered new defeats after losing two seats in the House of Commons to the Labor Party, the largest opposition force, in the by-elections held on Thursday. Dan Egan won the House of Commons seat for the Kingswood constituency, southwest of England, and Gene Kitchen won in Wellingborough, in the center of the country, overturning the large margins obtained by the Conservatives in the last legislative elections, in 2019.
Labor received 44.9% of the vote in Kingswood and 45.9% in Wellingborough, compared to 34.9% and 24.6% for the Conservatives respectively. Four years ago Conservatives They won Kingswood by 56.2%-33.4% and Wellingborough by 62.2%-26.5%, which gives a good account of the electoral turnaround.
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The biggest surprise was the performance of the far-right Reform Party, which came in third place in both constituencies (10.4% in Kingswood, 13% in Wellingborough), which increased pressure on the Conservatives. This formation descends from the Brexit Party, which was once led by Nigel Farage, and today is led by Richard Tice.
Relief for labor
Labor leader Keir Starmer said the results “show people want change” because the Conservatives “failed”, and blamed the economic recession on Rishi Sunak’s administration. “That’s why we’ve seen so many former Conservative voters switching straight to this transformed Labor Party.”
The results contribute to exacerbating fears among conservatives that the party, after 14 years in power, is heading towards defeat when the legislative elections scheduled for the end of the year are held. You Conservatives They remain 10 to 20 percentage points behind Labor in opinion polls, and have already lost 10 by-elections since the last legislative election, in 2019, more than any government since the 1960s. However, they retain an absolute majority in the House of Commons, discharging themselves from the British Parliament.
Thursday’s election result represents a relief for Starmer, after a difficult week in which he was forced to withdraw his support for a candidate in another parliamentary by-election, due to be held in Rochdale on the 29th of this month, and Azhar Ali no longer represents the Labor Party for making anti-Semitic comments, which… It means the party will not be on the ballot. When Starmer decided to cut off contact with Ali, it was too late to offer an alternative.
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