Early this Friday morning, the British Conservative Party suffered two electoral defeats that strengthen the chances of a landslide victory for Labor in the 2024 general elections and could further weaken the leadership of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
Even taking into account the by-elections at stake — “by-election”The Conservatives’ defeats in the Mid Bedfordshire and Tamworth constituencies are seen as a political earthquake for the Conservatives – originally held to fill vacant seats in the British Parliament between regular elections.
In In Mid Bedfordshire, where the Conservatives have not lost an election since 1931 – and Labor has never won since the constituency was created in 1918 – Labor candidate Alistair Strathern swept the Conservatives’ 24,664-vote lead in 2019. A huge success by-election [Since1945[1945முதல்
In addition to the achievement, the victory of the Labor Party Mid Bedfordshire is notable because it displaced the Conservatives (their direct rivals in the 2024 elections) from power, and because it did so despite a strong nomination by the Liberal Democrats, which according to many analysts could help the party retain the Conservative seat.
According to John Curtice, a professor of politics at the Scottish University of Strathclyde and one of the UK’s most influential experts on elections, Friday’s results – which joined Labor’s path to victory in last year’s by-elections – are indicative. Labor will have a bigger victory in 2024 than Tony Blair’s first election in 1997.
“There have been spectacular victories in the past for the Scottish National Party or the Liberal Democrats, but what is so special about these? by-election Gained by the main opposition. It doesn’t happen very often,” Curtis told the BBC.
“These are exceptional gains on the part of the opposition,” noted the expert. “The last time this happened, the government failed miserably.”
In Tamworth, held by Conservative Chris Fincher MP since 2010, Labour’s Sarah Edwards defeated her main opponent Andrew Cooper by 1316 votes – Fincher was elected in 2019 with 20 thousand more votes than his Labor counterpart. At that time the enemy.
“There is now hope that this new Labor party can win elections across the country where we have never won before,” party leader Keir Starmer said in a statement in Tamworth and Mid Bedfordshire.
On the Conservative side, the party’s leader, Greg Hands, admitted the results were “disappointing” but insisted they had to be framed within the specifics of by-elections. .
In Tamworth’s case, the election was held after Chris Fincher resigned in September. A Conservative politician was at the center of a wave of resignations in the British government in the summer of 2022, which would lead to the departure of then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson; Around this time, it was revealed that Johnson was aware of the sexual harassment allegations against Fincher and had appointed him as deputy head of the parliamentary bench.
A place called Mid Bedfordshire was vacated in August following the resignation of Conservative Nadine Dorries, who had held the seat since 2005, and was unhappy that her entry into the House of Lords, proposed by Johnson, was not secured by Sunak.
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