British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party has lost control of traditional strongholds in London and has suffered setbacks in other local elections, where voters have punished his government for a string of scandals.
After early results showed that Johnson, the former mayor of London, had lost support in the south-east of England, his supporters acted quickly on Friday to say it was not time to topple a leader they said they could still “do something about”. help the economy.
Johnson’s party has lagged behind in Wandsworth, a conservative stronghold since 1978, as part of a trend that voters use to express anger against a cost of living crisis in the election and fines handed over to the prime minister for breaking his own rules. Covid19 quarantine.
For the first time, the opposition Labor Party won the council of Westminster, the district where most government institutions are located. The Conservatives also lost control of the Barnet neighborhood, which had been held by the party in nearly every election since 1964.
“Fantastic result, absolutely fantastic. Believe me, this is a huge turning point for us deep down in the 2019 general election,” Labor leader Keir Starmer told party supporters in London.
Friday’s census will provide the most important snapshot of public opinion since the Conservative Party won its largest parliamentary majority in more than 30 years in Johnson’s 2019 national vote.
The local election has been an electoral test for Johnson since he became the first British leader to break the law while in office. Last month, he was fined for attending a birthday meeting in his office in 2020 and violating social distancing rules to curb the spread of Covid at the time.
The loss of key councils in London, where the Conservatives have almost completely disappeared, will increase the pressure on Johnson, who has been fighting for political survival for months, and faces the possibility of further police fines for his participation in other lockdown meetings. .
But with signs of growing support for his party in central and northern England regions that supported leaving the European Union in 2016, some Conservatives said his critics probably didn’t have the numbers to challenge his leadership. duration.
Elections on Thursday will decide around 7,000 council seats, including all of London, Scotland and Wales, and a third of the seats in most of the rest of England.
source: Noticias
