Sunak in trouble, opposition’s enthusiasm high, Conservative party won only 1 out of three seats

Rishi Sunak’s party has faced defeat in the by-elections in Britain. His party has won only 1 out of three seats. The opposition has termed this victory as historic. Britain’s ruling Conservative Party suffered two resounding defeats in special elections on Friday. It managed to retain the Uxbridge and South Ruislip seats vacated by the resignation of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, but lost two other seats. However, the main opposition Labor Party and the smaller centrist Liberal Democrats won one seat each.

The by-elections in Uxbridge and South Ruislip were won by the Conservative Party’s candidate, Steve Tuckwell, by a small margin. Sunak, however, avoided becoming the first British prime minister in 55 years to lose three by-elections on the same day after the results were out. Nevertheless, if the results of the polls are repeated in a possible general election next year, Labor would almost certainly emerge as the single largest party, possibly with a large overall majority. Despite Johnson holding on to his former seat by only 495 votes, by-election results in the three seats showed the Conservatives trailing across a wide range of voters.

Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats took Somerton and Froome away from the Conservatives in South West England on an equally large scale. Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey said the people of Somerton and Frome spoke for the rest of the country who are fed up with Rishi Sunak’s out-of-touch Conservative government. What is clear about those two elections was that voters in both opposition parties clearly supported the party that defeated the Conservative candidate.