UK Ruling Party Loses Two Out of Three in Special Election, Narrowly Holds Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Seat

Britain’s ruling Conservative Party lost two important electoral bastions in a special parliamentary election Friday but managed to hold onto scandal-scarred former prime minister Boris Johnson’s seat by a slim 495 votes.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was quick to celebrate the narrow win in Johnson’s former constituency as proof that a Conservative defeat in the next national election wasn’t a sure thing, even as the country reels under high inflation, skyrocketing mortgage rates, waves of strikes, and a crumbling health system.

"The message I take away is that we have to double down, stick to our plan and deliver for people," Sunak said. 

Johnson resigned his seat in Uxbridge after an official inquiry found that, as prime minister, he had lied to parliament about parties held at his official residence during the UK’s tight Covid-19 lockdown. A Conservative ally quit along with him in protest, and a third member of his party stepped down over a cocaine and sexual harassment scandal–setting the stage for Friday’s by-elections. 

The main opposition Labour party won the Selby and Ainsty seat in Yorkshire by 4,000 votes, reversing a 2019 Conservative margin of 20,137. Labour’s Keir Mather, 25, will become the youngest member of parliament. 

In Somerton and Frome in southwest England, which the Conservatives won in 2019 by more than 19,000 votes, the centrist Liberal Democrats romped to victory with a margin of 11,008. 

A date hasn’t been set for the UK’s next general election. Recent polls put Labour 20% ahead of Sunak’s party.

“The Uxbridge result might caution us against expecting too many Labour advances into new territory in 2024, but Selby and Ainsty suggests Labour is on course to rebuild the electoral coalition that previously brought it victory,” elections expert Lewis Baston wrote in the Guardian.

“Somerton and Frome was part of a swathe of rural and small-town former Lib Dem seats in the south-west that seemed like extinct volcanoes…If these seats are in flux, the Conservatives face a daunting task if they are to retain an overall majority.”