The British political arena has been shaken by a sensation. The Conservative Party of Great Britain (the Tories) recently lost a by-election for the House of Commons constituency of North Shropshire. Why is it so astonishing? The fact is that the Conservatives have not lost a single election for almost two centuries in this constituency. The victorious one is Helen Morgan from the country's third-strongest party, the Liberal Democrats, – she beat her Tory opponent Neil Shastri-Hurst by 15.5%.
However, experts blame the defeat not so much on the Conservative candidate himself, but on the country's Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who has been only discrediting the Tories recently, getting into one scandal after another and having discord with party members. For instance, just the other day, Former Chief Brexit negotiator David Frost resigned over his disagreement with Johnson's policy on introducing tighter coronavirus restrictions in the country. Moreover, British Prime Minister's popularity has been rolling down in recent months, dropping to a record low since he came to power in 2019. In this regard, there are serious doubts that Boris Johnson will eventually lead the Tories to the next general parliamentary elections in May 2024.
It should be noted that the by-election in North Shropshire occurred after Owen Paterson, who has represented the region in the country's parliament since 1997, was found guilty of breaching lobbying rules and had to leave office. This, apparently, could also have an imprint on the voters' opinion about the Tories as a whole. Apart from fears over Covid and its new omicron strain, North Shropshire residents seem tired of constant incidents involving members of the ruling Conservative party. The election turnout was only 46.3% against the 67.9% two years ago, when the Tories won a landslide victory. That is, many voters who previously supported the Tories, chose not to vote this time at all, which predetermined the Liberal Democrats' victory.
It's fair to say that Boris Johnson has partly taken the blame for the defeat. " I hear what the voters are saying in North Shropshire and in all humility I have got to accept that verdict. Of course I take personal responsibility," the British Prime Minister told reporters.
At the same time, we have to doubt the PM's sincerity. Too often does he get into the spotlight of high-profile scandals. One of the most sensational has been the one involving the funds of Conservative Party sponsor businessmen spent to restore the Prime Minister's residence at 10 Downing Street. Now the whole of Britain is watching new details of last year's Christmas party, when Boris Johnson and his subordinates had fun during the COVID-19 lockdown. Head of the Civil Service Simon Case, who led the investigation of the incident, eventually resigned after it turned out that the party was arranged at his own office.
In turn, sources of The Guardian newspaper claim: Tory leaders have quite unequivocally stated that if Johnson does not explain his actions and fails to straighten things out, party members may force him quit as their leader next year, with a subsequent automatic resignation from the post of Prime Minister. Indeed, Boris Johnson's popularity is record low. According to the YouGov research and data analytics firm, a mere 24% of the Britons are supportive of Johnson, while 66% have no trust for him. The British cannot forgive him the Brexit-associated difficulties, especially issues with the so-called Northern Ireland Protocol.
The recent "fishing row" between Great Britain and France also had a negative impact here. Paris even threatened London to cut off Britain from energy. This could have severe consequences for the country, as 47% of electricity imports to the British Isles come through France. Before Brexit, be it noted, relations between London and Paris were not clouded in such disputes.
More importantly, voters are unhappy with controversial policies of Johnson's government when it comes to combating coronavirus. For instance, former PM adviser Dominic Cummings admitted that ex-Health Secretary Matthew Hancock deliberately delayed the spread of COVID-19 tests to later report on the high rates of their introduction and get political points at the expense of ordinary Britons' lives. It is telling that even the Conservatives themselves often vote against Boris Johnson's initiatives. For example, last week over a hundred House deputies opposed the project of introducing some form of COVID-19 passports. The bill was only approved owing to support by the opposition parties and the rest of the Tories.
Significantly, Johnson's rankings are down not only in England, but also in other parts of the United Kingdom – Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Residents of the British Isles are unhappy that Boris Johnson, who promised to compensate for the lack of funding from the European Union, postponed these projects until 2022. Their scope is unknown, either. Given this reality, it is possible that next year the Tories' internal party committee will manage to collect 55 PM letters of no confidence in Johnson, as had been the case with Theresa May in 2019 and David Cameron in 2016 following the Brexit referendum.
However, the question now arises as to the urgency of changing the country's leader in the middle of the government term. By the way, the law does not require that general parliamentary elections be held to change the head of government, as leader of the ruling party gets the post automatically. Therefore, the question is still open: should Johnson be replaced now or closer to the elections? The dilemma will be solved by the Tory Party faction. But now, judging by British media reports, Boris Johnson was given several months to somehow rectify the situation and help the Conservative party out of the dive.
Meanwhile, Britain's key opposition force, the Labor Party, is more popular with the people than the Tories. According to the latest opinion poll conducted between December 3 and December 10 by Ipsos MORI, the Labor are ahead of the Conservatives by 5% (39% vs. 34%), and their leader Keir Starmer is ahead of Boris Johnson by as much as 13 points on "most capable PM" question. And if the Labor maintain their popularity growth trend, the question may soon arise as to whether the whole ruling party should be replaced in the country.
