LONDON (AP) – British Prime Minister Boris Johnson suffered a double blow when voters rejected his Conservative Party in two special parliamentary elections dominated by questions about his leadership and ethics.
He was further hurt when the party president resigned after the results were released early Friday, saying conservatives “cannot continue business as usual,” and a former party leader said the country needed “new leadership”.
The center-right Liberal Democrats overturned a large Conservative majority to win the rural seat of south-west England from Tiverton and Honiton, while the main opposition Labor Party recaptured Wakefield in northern England from the Conservatives. of Johnson.
The contests, triggered by the resignations of conservative lawmakers affected by sex scandals, offered voters a chance to pronounce their verdict on the prime minister just weeks after 41% of their own MPs voted to remove him.
“The people of Tiverton and Honiton have spoken out for Britain,” said Richard Foord, the area’s newly elected Liberal Democrat MP. “They sent a strong and clear message: it’s time for Boris Johnson to leave and leave now.”
Defeat in any district would have been a setback for the Prime Minister’s party. The loss of both increases nervousness among restless conservatives who already care about the exclamatory but erratic and divisive Johnson is no longer an electoral asset.
Party President Oliver Dowden resigned and said “our fans are distressed and disappointed by recent events, and I share their feelings.”
“We can’t get on with business as usual,” said Dowden, who was previously a staunch supporter of Johnson.
“As always, I will remain loyal to the Conservative Party,” he said, without offering support to Johnson.
Former Conservative leader Michael Howard, who like Johnson was a strong supporter of the UK’s exit from the European Union, urged the party to remove him as leader.
“The party, and most importantly the country, would be better off under new leadership,” Howard told the BBC.
The prime minister was 4,000 miles (6,400 kilometers) away at a Commonwealth summit in Rwanda as the drama unfolded.
Electoral tests came as the UK faces the worst cost-of-living crisis in a generation, with Russia’s war in Ukraine compressing energy supplies and staple food at a time of rising consumer demand as the coronavirus pandemic recedes.
Speaking in Kigali, Johnson acknowledged that the results had been “tough” and said he would “listen to what people say, particularly the difficulties people face at the cost of living.”
Johnson won a large majority in the 2019 general election keeping traditional voters from the Conservatives, rich, large and concentrated in the south of England, and winning new ones in the poorest and most post-industrial cities in the north where many residents left. feel ignored by governments for decades.
Thursday’s election meant defeat on both fronts. Rural Tiverton and Honiton have voted as Conservatives for generations, while Wakefield is a northern district that Conservatives won in 2019 over Labor.
The long-awaited victory for Labor in Wakefield, whose former Conservative lawmaker resigned after being convicted of sexual assault, is a boost for a party that has been out of office nationwide since 2010.
Labor leader Keir Starmer said he was showing the party “is back on the side of the workers, winning seats where we lost before and ready for government”.
Pollsters had said the race between Tiverton and Honiton was tight, but the Liberal Democrats annulled a Conservative majority of 24,000 votes to win by more than 6,000 votes. Elections were called when the district’s Conservative lawmaker resigned after being caught watching pornography in the House of Commons.
Even with defeats, which erode his already unstable authority among his own lawmakers, his Johnson party has a large majority in Parliament. But conservatives are increasingly concerned that the qualities that led them to make Johnson their leader, including the populist ability to bend the rules and get away with it, may now be an issue.
Ethical allegations have hit the prime minister for months, culminating in a scandal over parties held in government buildings while millions of others were banned from meeting with friends and family during coronavirus blockades.
Johnson was one of 83 people fined by police for attending parties, making him the first prime minister to break the law while in office. An official’s report on the “partygate” scandal said Johnson must take responsibility for the “leadership and trial failures” that created a culture of rule-breaking in government.
He survived a censorship vote by his own party this month, but was weakened after 41% of Conservative lawmakers voted to remove him.
By party rules, Johnson may not face another such vote for a year, but Friday’s defeats will increase pressure to change that.
“These are pretty disastrous results,” said Conservative lawmaker Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, a senior member of the committee that oversees party censorship votes.
“In the coming days and weeks they will have serious discussions and then we will all have to make difficult decisions,” he said.
Johnson also faces a parliamentary ethical investigation that could conclude that he deliberately misled Parliament about “partygate,” traditionally a waiver offense.
Conservative lawmaker Roger Gale, a longtime critic of Johnson, reiterated his call for the prime minister to resign now.
“The soul of our party is at stake,” he said.