Khushboo Singh
On Friday, scandals and high inflation took a toll on Britain’s ruling Conservatives, but they were able to keep the seat of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson. A narrow victory in the west London constituency of Uxbridge and South Ruislip prevented Rishi Sunak from becoming the first prime minister to lose three parliamentary seats in a single day.
This may have been good news for Sunak, but the loss of his party’s majority in Somerton and Frome (19,000) and Selby and Ainsty (20,000) will be devastating as we approach towards what is likely to be a general election in the United Kingdom next year.
By a vote of 16,456 to 12,295, Labour won the northern England seat of Selby and Ainsty in a by-election, erasing its largest deficit since World War II.
In his acceptance speech, 25-year-old Keir Mather said, “for too long Conservatives here and in Westminster have failed us,” blaming the government’s “negligence and complacency.”
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Sarah Dyke, the Liberal Democrat candidate who won the seat of Somerton and Frome in southwestern England, called it a “stunning and historic victory” and criticised the “woeful government” after the election.
We feel betrayed and taken advantage of. She exclaimed, “Enough is enough; this government is too busy being a circus of chaos.”
Johnson’s previous seat of Uxbridge and South Ruislip went to the Conservatives, who were widely predicted to lose it. Instead, they won it by a margin of 1,395 votes (13,965 to 13,470), dealing a serious blow to Labour leader Keir Starmer and London Mayor Sadiq Khan.
Steve Tuckwell, the victorious candidate, cited Khan’s extension of a levy on polluting vehicles to outlying London boroughs as the “number one” concern.
He predicted that Labour MPs in comparable seats “will now be panicking” and that the result would lead to talks between Starmer and Khan.
