MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

By elections in England could be anticipating Labour victory next year

Labour, led by Keir Starmer, won local council elections throughout swaths of England in early May, while Sunak’s Conservatives suffered significant losses

Three by-elections are taking place this Thursday in England with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s ruling Conservatives bracing for defeat in all three as Britain’s economic difficulties bite.

The Conservatives are defending large majorities in London, Yorkshire in northern England, and Somerset in the southwest, but they look to be losing support as recent scandals and a bleak economic picture take their toll.

The races take place ahead of a general election next year, with the major opposition Labour Party boasting poll leads of about 20 per cent and prepared to seize power for the first time in more than a decade. Anticipating defeat PM Sunak through his spokesperson said he was preparing for the general election next year.

Labour, led by Keir Starmer, won local council elections throughout swaths of England in early May, while Sunak’s Conservatives suffered significant losses in his first big political test since assuming office last October.

Since March of last year, the opposition has won five by-elections, but only one of them, Wakefield in Yorkshire, has been taken from the Conservatives

Labour is now seeking to repeat that achievement in neighboring Selby and Ainsty, where Nigel Adams resigned as Conservative MP last month after being passed down for a peerage by ex-prime minister Boris Johnson.

Labour is also eyeing victory in Johnson’s northwest London constituency of Uxbridge and South Ruislip after the scandal-tarred former leader himself resigned as an MP last month and triggered the ballot.

He quit after learning a cross-party parliamentary committee had concluded he deliberately lied to lawmakers about lockdown-breaking parties during the Covid pandemic and had recommended a 90-day suspension.

The Liberal Democrats are intent on overturning a 20,000-strong Tory majority in Somerton and Frome after its Tory MP David Warburton stood down following an admission of cocaine use.

The Conservative administration of Prime Minister Sunak has been hobbled by persistently high inflation, which in recent months has spooked the markets once again.
With interest rates at their highest in 15 years, pushing mortgage and other borrowing costs ever higher, the worst cost-of-living crisis in a generation is showing few signs of abating.

Sunak kicked off the year by making five key vows to voters, including halving inflation, growing the economy and cutting waiting times within the overstretched National Health Service (NHS). He has made little headway on most of the pledges, and there are persistent fears the UK will tip into recession this year as the high-interest rates constrain spending.