Pressure on PM Johnson after UK Tories suffer election upset

London, December 17 (BNA) British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party suffered a stunning defeat in the parliamentary by-election that was considered a referendum on his government amid weeks of scandal and increasing infections with the Corona virus.

According to the Associated Press (AP), Liberal Democrat Helen Morgan overturned a Conservative majority by nearly 23,000 votes from the last election to win Thursday’s contest in North Shropshire, a rural area in northwest England that the Conservative Party has represented almost continuously since 1832. The election was called After the resignation of a former Conservative Party member of Parliament amid a corruption scandal.

The result will increase pressure on Johnson just two years after he was re-elected with an apparently 80-seat majority in Parliament. But his authority has been dented in recent weeks by allegations that he and his crew attended Christmas parties last year while the country was in lockdown, efforts to protect his ally from allegations of illegal lobbying and suggestions that he improperly accepted donations to fund the lavish renovation. from his official residence.

Against this background, supporters and opponents question Johnson’s handling of the pandemic after coronavirus infections soared to records this week as a transmissible omicron variant swept across the UK.

“The people of North Shropshire tonight have spoken on behalf of the British people,” Morgan said in her victory speech. “Boris Johnson, the party is over,” said they loud and clear. “Your government, which operates on lies and strife, will be held accountable. It will be examined, it will be challenged, it can be defeated and it will be defeated.”

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Thursday’s result was the Conservatives’ second defeat in a by-election this year. In June, Liberal Democrat Sarah Green won by-elections in Chesham and Amersham, an electoral district northwest of London that has been a traditional Conservative stronghold.

Johnson has been prime minister for nearly two and a half years, building on his support for Brexit and his carefully orchestrated image as a humble but likable politician.

He strengthened his position by calling for early elections only five months after parliament rejected the withdrawal agreement he negotiated with the European Union. The Conservatives won 365 seats in the election, 80 more than all other parties combined.

But Brexit is no longer the central issue in British politics.

Many voters are frustrated two years after the pandemic that has killed more than 145,000 people, triggered a series of lockdowns and hurt the economy.

Conservative lawmakers rebelled earlier this week, with 99 members of Johnson’s party voting against his proposal to require proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test to enter nightclubs and big events. This measure was only passed because the opposition Labor Party endorsed it.

Then there are the scandals and missteps that have made Johnson look more like someone who has lost control of his favorite character of a slightly disheveled boss and too busy to even bother combing his hair.

He was forced to apologize last month after trying to change parliamentary rules to avoid blaming Conservative MP Owen Patterson, who lobbied government agencies on behalf of the companies he worked for. Patterson eventually resigned, which led to a by-election in North Shropshire.

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Since then, Johnson has been hit by a series of news reports alleging that he and his staff attended Christmas parties this past November and December at a time when COVID-19 restrictions prevented anyone else from visiting friends or even comforting dying relatives in hospital.

Johnson was initially suspended, saying there were no parties and no rules were broken. After a video emerged in which employees were shown highlighting abuses, Johnson was forced to call for an investigation.

Even some members of Johnson’s party have had enough now.

Roger Gill, a Conservative MP since 1983, said the result in North Shropshire was a clear signal that the public was unhappy with the way Johnson was running government.

Gill told the BBC: “I think this has to be seen as a referendum on the performance of the prime minister, and I think the prime minister is now at last.” He has “two hits already. One earlier this week in the House of Commons vote, and now this. Another hit and he’s out.”

But Charles Walker, another Conservative MP, said the outcome was more about the anger and exhaustion people feel two years into the pandemic.

While he acknowledged there were errors, Walker emphasized that it was not unusual for a ruling party to suffer defeats in by-elections.

“Every time there’s an outcome like this people say it’s seismic, people say it’s a shock wave, it’s a tsunami of change, sometimes it is and sometimes it isn’t,” he told the BBC. “I don’t think we can read much into this.”

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