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The United Kingdom's Conservative party, led by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, has lost two by-elections in one day, with one seeing a 24,000 vote majority overturned.
Two by-elections were called in the UK due to two Conservative Members of Parliament resigning due to misconduct, one in Tiverton and Honiton and the other in Wakefield.
The result will speak to the fears of Conservative party members that Boris Johnson is now an electoral liability for the party, and that not removing him will cost them the next general election, expected before the end of 2024.
By-Election blues
The constituency of Tiverton and Honiton is in Devon, the South West of England.
According to The Guardian, it is considered a very safe Conservative seat, having returned a Conservative MP for the past 25 years.
Former Member of Parliament (MP) Niel Parish won 60.2 per cent of the vote in the 2019 general election, with a majority of 24,239 votes.
However, Tiverton and Honiton's by-election came about when Parish was made to resign in April, after having been seen watching pornographic material twice around female colleagues.
When explaining his actions in May this year in an interview with the BBC, he explained that he had accidentally stumbled upon the illicit website when "looking for tractors", but admitted that he had intentionally returned to the site the second time.
The resulting by-election saw a swing of nearly 30 per cent towards the Liberal Democrat candidate, former Army major Richard Foord. Foord received 52.9 per cent of the vote against the Conservative candidate Helen Hurford, who received 38.5 per cent, for a majority of 6144.
This loss is believed to be the biggest ever overturn of a majority in a by-election.
Another loss in Wakefield
Parish was not the only Conservative MP to have resigned in disgrace and triggered a by-election.
Wakefield, in the North of England, also saw a Conservative seat comfortably overturned. There, the by-election was called due to Conservative MP Imran Ahmad Khan having been convicted and sentenced to jail for sexually assaulting a 15 year old.
The BBC reported that the Labour candidate, Simon Lightwood, won 47.9 per cent of the vote for a majority of 4925 votes. Wakefield is also potentially significant because prior to 2019, it had been considered a safe Labour seat, part of its “red wall”.
Wakefield's loss to the Conservatives had been seen as an opportunity for the Conservatives to make inroads into traditionally Labour heartlands.
In 2019, Johnson and his party won these seats on the way to securing a clear majority in Parliament, with Khan having gained 47.3 per cent of the vote.
The BBC's politics analyst Chris Mason said the losses would be seen like a "pincer movement" between the two opposition parties of Labour and the Liberal Democrats.
Conservative incumbents, he said, will be think "blimey, what could happen to me at the next election?"
“Someone must take responsibility”
Within hours of the double loss, MP Oliver Dowden resigned as one of the co-chairs of the Conservative party.
Dowden is also a minister without portfolio in the Prime Minister's Office.
Saying that the two by-election losses were the latest in a run of “very poor results”, and that the party could not “carry on business as usual”. “Someone must take responsibility,” he added, saying that he could not thus remain in his position, although he did not specify that he alone should "take responsibility".
Dowden was likely referring to yet another by-election loss for the Conservatives.
In December 2021, the Conservatives lost the North Shropshire seat, also to the Liberal Democrats, which had a majority of almost 23,000, according to the BBC.
Before that, the Conservatives lost the seat of Chesham and Amersham to the Liberal Democrats in June 2021.
Added to that were stunning losses during local elections May 2022, when the Conservatives lost local councils in parts of London like Westminster and Wandsworth, some of the wealthiest and most staunchly Conservative parts of the city.
Partygate's prickly postscript
The backlash against the Conservative party likely has several sources, but the most likely one is the reaction to the Partygate scandal.
Late in 2021, it was revealed that while Johnson’s government was enforcing a harsh Covid-19 lockdown throughout 2020, handing out fines and preventing people from visiting ill and dying family members in hospital, members of Johnson’s government had been throwing parties in government offices.
Johnson has been pictured attending several of them, and has subsequently been issued a fixed-penalty fine by the police for it.
His ethics advisor, Lord Geidt, has resigned after saying that the fine might mean that Johnson broke the ministerial code, according to the Telegraph.
Johnson survived a vote of no-confidence earlier in June. Although he gained 60 per cent of the vote amongst Conservative party MPs, an overwhelming majority of backbenchers voted against him.
Scandal, strikes, and soaring prices
Johnson, who is currently in Rwanda attending the Commonwealth summit, has said that he will "keep going".
As quoted by The Independent, he said that the high cost of living is the most prominent issue that people of the UK are facing.
But as losses mount, his ability to deal with real issues is being called into question.
The UK is also in the midst of a severe transport strike, with accusations from the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers that government meddling caused negotiations to break down, according to the BBC.
Meanwhile the UK is facing 9.1 per cent inflation, the highest in 40 years, a rate that is predicated to reach 11 per cent later in the year according to Reuters.
This might be a long, sticky summer for Johnson and the Conservatives.
Top image via UK Prime Minister's Office/Twitter