Storm in sight for Boris Johnson. In the aftermath of a severe electoral defeat for his Conservative party, the British Prime Minister said he took “responsibility” for this failure. “I fully understand why people have felt frustrated,” he said in reference to voters who voted in favor of the competing Liberal Democrat party on Thursday in North Shropshire (central England).
“I am responsible for everything the government does and of course I take personal responsibility for it.” This election was seen as a test in which the Prime Minister, surrounded by scandals, emerges even more weakened. Two years after his triumph in the general election, won on the promise of Brexit, Boris Johnson, 57, now risks a serious crisis of authority among the Tories, or even a vote of no confidence to replace him at the head of the majority and therefore the government.
” The party is over “
The episode comes as his government grapples with an outbreak of coronavirus – more than 88,000 new cases on Thursday, a new record for the second day in a row – due to the Omicron variant. The partial legislature of North Shropshire, a very rural constituency in central England long won over by the Conservatives, was thus won by the Liberal Democrats. The candidate of the small Europhile party, Helen Morgan, won with 47% of the vote, nearly 6,000 votes ahead of her conservative rival, according to official results, announced early Friday morning.
Voters have expressed “clearly” to Boris Johnson that “the party is over,” she said in her speech after the announcement of her victory. “Your government, led by lies and swagger, will have to be held to account,” added Helen Morgan, “it can and will be defeated”. The new 46-year-old MP thus robs the Conservatives of the seat of Owen Paterson, in office since 1997, who had to resign over a lobbying affair.
Parties in Downing Street
In the last legislative elections of 2019, he obtained 62.7% of the vote and a comfortable majority of almost 23,000 votes. The participation rate in this very rural constituency of England, acquired for decades in the Tories, amounted Thursday to 46.3% (or 38,093 voters according to the final count), far from the 62.9% reached during general elections of December 2029.
Boris Johnson had come to Mr Paterson’s rescue last month by trying to change Parliament’s disciplinary rules, before backing down in the face of the outcry even in his own camp. This scandal, which is part of a long series of embarrassing cases – from accusations of corruption in his party to those of violations of health restrictions – has weakened Boris Johnson.
Long armored, the leader’s popularity collapsed and recent polls on voting intentions put the Labor opposition several points ahead of the opposition. In particular, recent revelations about the holding of festive events at the end of 2020 in Downing Street go very badly with the British when asked to reduce their social interactions to the extreme.
” Tsunami “
The revelation by the newspapers was added on Thursday. The Guardian and The Independent of a brief appearance by Boris Johnson at a pot in Downing Street on May 15, 2020, despite health restrictions. Downing Street referred to a meeting “with the then Minister of Health (Matt Hancock Editor’s note) and his team in the garden after a press conference”. These cases come at the worst for Mr Johnson, at a critical time when the UK is facing, in his words, a “tidal wave” of contamination from the Omicron variant of the coronavirus in a country that deplores nearly 147,000 dead.
His credibility weakened, he struggled Tuesday in Parliament to get new anti-Covid restrictions accepted. The ultimate snub, he faced an unprecedented sling from his majority: 99 deputies voted against the establishment of a health pass for major events, deemed liberticidal, a measure finally adopted thanks to the votes of the Labor opposition. Party-wide, only former Prime Minister Theresa May had seen worse since World War II.
