Boris Johnson’s slippery slope

Whatever reassurance Boris Johnson felt that surviving the Conservative Party’s June 6 confidence vote would end his political woes has been short-lived. The results of last Thursday’s by-elections could hardly have been worse for the British Prime Minister. He copped a mighty electoral comeuppance.

Tiverton and Honiton, in southwest England, had been held by the Conservatives for almost a century. They won 60 per cent of the vote in 2019 when Mr Johnson led them to a landslide general election victory. On Thursday, the seat was captured by the centrist Liberal Democrats, with the Tories reduced to 39 per cent. In Wakefield, in Yorkshire, a Red Wall seat the Conservatives won in 2019 after Mr Johnson wooed blue-collar, culturally conservative Labour voters, the Prime Minister’s party was trounced by Labour. Replicated in a general election, falls in the Conservatives’ vote would have seen them lose up to 300 of their 359 MPs in the House of Commons. Restive MPs are now looking at potential ways around the rule that bars another leadership challenge for 12 months.

At the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Rwanda, Mr Johnson insisted he will bat on. But he is out of touch with voters and losing his base. Partygate has taken a toll, compounded by reports he and his wife planned to build a $265,000 cubby house for their two-year-old son at the Prime Minister’s country estate, Chequers. It’s a bad look when inflation in the UK is 9.1 per cent, the highest since 1982. Mr Johnson’s main challenge is to deal with rising prices and slow growth.

Opposition Leader Sir Keir Starmer’s failure to elicit much enthusiasm among voters, and getting himself into a mess over the rail strikes crippling the UK, may give Mr Johnson hope of survival. But Tory MPs may have other ideas, as the resignation of Conservative Party chairman and cabinet minister Oliver Dowden after the by-elections showed. He was formerly one of Mr Johnson’s closest supporters.