The UK’s Labour Party has won its biggest-ever by-election victory by overturning a 20,000-vote Conservative majority in Selby and Ainsty, with the Liberal Democrats also unseating the Conservatives in the previously safe seat of Somerton and Frome.
However, in the one glimmer of hope for the Conservatives, they held on to the Uxbridge and South Ruislip seat formerly held by former British prime minister Boris Johnson, fending off a predicted Labour win by just 495 votes.
While British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, on a visit to Uxbridge yesterday, said the results showed a Labour victory in the general election was not “a done deal,” pollsters said the overall swing away from the Conservatives was a clear message from voters.
Photo: AP
Selby’s new MP is 25-year-old Keir Mather, a former researcher for shadow health secretary Wes Streeting, who won by 4,161 votes, a massive 23.7 percentage point swing from the Conservatives.
Nigel Adams, a Johnson ally who resigned as a Conservative MP last month, formerly held the seat with a 20,000-plus majority.
Mather, 25, is to become the “baby of the house” as the youngest MP in the Commons.
In his victory speech, he said that “thousands of votes were in Labour’s box for the first time,” adding: “In this campaign we have rewritten the rules on where Labour can win.”
The Liberal Democrats romped to victory in Somerton and Frome, in a contest triggered by the resignation of scandal-hit David Warburton. Sarah Dyke, the Cabinet member for the environment on South Somerset district council, won with a majority of 11,008 over the Conservatives.
The Green Party came a distant third in all three by-elections.
Conservative Party Chairman Greg Hands told BBC Radio 4’s Today program that the results did not necessarily spell doom for his party, given the long history of incumbent governments being punished in by-elections, pointing to the narrow win in Uxbridge.
“We’re obviously going to listen to people, we’re going to look at some of the reasons why,” he said. “But equally, by-elections are not always a good predictor of general elections.”
However, polling expert Sir John Curtice, speaking on the same program, said Hands was being unrealistic, and that the results showed the Conservatives were “in as deep an electoral hole as polling suggests.”
Labour’s delight was notably tempered by its failure to take Uxbridge, with some in the party blaming the decision of London Mayor Sadiq Khan to extend the ultra-low emission zone anti-pollution scheme to outer areas of the city, including Uxbridge, the key Conservative campaign in the area.
Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner hinted that the party thought Khan should rethink the policy.
“I think one of the things we have to reflect on today is not only the mood against the Tories, but also the decision in Uxbridge was related to Ulez,” she told BBC Breakfast.
“The Uxbridge result shows that when you don’t listen to the voters, you don’t win elections,” she added.
Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey said the party’s win in Somerton and Frome showed it was “firmly back in the West Country.”
A Chinese scientist was arrested while arriving in the US at Detroit airport, the second case in days involving the alleged smuggling of biological material, authorities said on Monday. The scientist is accused of shipping biological material months ago to staff at a laboratory at the University of Michigan. The FBI, in a court filing, described it as material related to certain worms and requires a government permit. “The guidelines for importing biological materials into the US for research purposes are stringent, but clear, and actions like this undermine the legitimate work of other visiting scholars,” said John Nowak, who leads field
Brazil, the world’s largest Roman Catholic country, saw its Catholic population decline further in 2022, while evangelical Christians and those with no religion continued to rise, census data released on Friday by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) showed. The census indicated that Brazil had 100.2 million Roman Catholics in 2022, accounting for 56.7 percent of the population, down from 65.1 percent or 105.4 million recorded in the 2010 census. Meanwhile, the share of evangelical Christians rose to 26.9 percent last year, up from 21.6 percent in 2010, adding 12 million followers to reach 47.4 million — the highest figure
Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg was deported from Israel yesterday, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, the day after the Israeli navy prevented her and a group of fellow pro-Palestinian activists from sailing to Gaza. Thunberg, 22, was put on a flight to France, the ministry said, adding that she would travel on to Sweden from there. Three other people who had been aboard the charity vessel also agreed to immediate repatriation. Eight other crew members are contesting their deportation order, Israeli rights group Adalah, which advised them, said in a statement. They are being held at a detention center ahead of a
‘THE RED LINE’: Colombian President Gustavo Petro promised a thorough probe into the attack on the senator, who had announced his presidential bid in March Colombian Senator Miguel Uribe Turbay, a possible candidate in the country’s presidential election next year, was shot and wounded at a campaign rally in Bogota on Saturday, authorities said. His conservative Democratic Center party released a statement calling it “an unacceptable act of violence.” The attack took place in a park in the Fontibon neighborhood when armed assailants shot him from behind, said the right-wing Democratic Center, which was the party of former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe. The men are not related. Images circulating on social media showed Uribe Turbay, 39, covered in blood being held by several people. The Santa Fe Foundation
RSS