Boris Johnson lost London Fort in the local elections

LONDON, May 6 – British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party has lost control of London’s traditional strongholds and suffered setbacks in local elections, with voters punishing his government with a series of scandals.

Johnson, the former mayor of London, said on early Friday that his supporters were moving quickly and that it was not time to oust a leader who said they could still “do things” to help the economy, as early results suggested he was losing support in the south-east.

Johnson’s party has been ousted since 1978 in the conservative stronghold of Wandsworth, part of a trend in the British capital, where voters used the election to express anger over the cost-of-living crisis and fined the prime minister. Own COVID-19 locking rules.

For the first time, the opposition Labor Party has won in Westminster Council, where most government institutions are located. The Conservatives also lost control of Barnett’s metropolis, which had been run by the party since 1964 in all but two elections.

“Fantastic result, absolutely wonderful. Trust me, this will be a major turning point for us from the depths of the 2019 general election,” Labor leader Khair Stormer told party supporters in London.

With Johnson winning the Conservative Party’s overwhelming majority of more than 30 years in the 2019 national referendum, the overall turnout coming late Friday will provide the most important snapshot of public opinion.

The ballot is an election test for Johnson, the first British leader to break the law while in office. He was fined last month for attending a birthday party in his office in 2020, violating social space rules to prevent the spread of the cove. read more

The loss of key councilors in London, where the Conservatives have almost been wiped out, will increase pressure on Johnson, who has been fighting for his political survival for months, and faces the possibility of higher police fines for attending other lock-breaking meetings.

But with signs of support for his party in parts of central and northern England that backed its withdrawal from the EU in 2016, some conservatives said Johnson’s critics were unlikely to have the numbers to trigger a coup now.

Elections on Thursday will determine nearly 7,000 council seats, including all in London, Scotland and Wales, and one-third of most seats in the UK.

Johnson won the 2019 general election by elevating conventional British politics by promising to improve living standards in the former industrial areas of central and northern England.

But since then, he has been embroiled in corruption and facing a rising cost of living crisis, with millions of people coping with rising energy and food prices. The Bank of England warned on Thursday that Britain could be hit hard by a recession of more than 10% and inflation. read more

This has further reduced support for the prime minister in London, where his support for Brexit contradicts many voters who have voted to remain in the EU.

Outside the capital, the Conservatives lost overall control of the councils in Southampton, Worcester and West Oxfordshire.

But the party did not do as badly as some polls predicted. A pre-election poll suggested that the Conservative Party could lose about 800 council seats.

John Curtis, a political professor at Strathclyde University, said early trends suggest the Conservatives could lose about 250 seats. He said the results suggest that Labor may not emerge as a major party in the next election.

A few weeks after he described the Conservatives’ leader, Oliver Dowd, as “challenging headlines,” he said the party had “made some difficult decisions” but was not on track to win the next general election.

“What you see in a prime minister is someone who does things, who makes a difference,” Dowden said. “We need precisely such courageous leadership at a time when we are facing these great challenges, whether it is the cost of living, the economic situation in Ukraine or the global situation.”

Some local Conservative council leaders called for Johnson to resign.

John Malinson, the Conservative chairman of Carlisle City Council, told the BBC “it is difficult to drag the debate into local issues.”

“I do not think people can trust the Prime Minister to tell the truth anymore.”

Reported by Andrew McSkill and Elizabeth Piper; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell, Stephen Coates and Andrew Heavens

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