Losing at the polls may lead to Tory MPs moving against the prime minister
London — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson could this week lose two parliamentary seats that once illustrated his broad appeal, showing his declining popularity that could spur his party to try to find a way to oust him.
Johnson secured the biggest Conservative majority in three decades at the 2019 national election by upending conventional British politics and winning in both the Conservatives’ traditional southern heartlands and in more industrial areas in central and northern England. In the rural market town of Tiverton, Jenny Kane, 72, a part-time yoga teacher, said she had voted Conservative, but would not do so now because of the unresolved tensions with the EU and “partygate” when Johnson attended lockdown-breaking parties during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Tiverton has voted Conservative at every election for nearly a century, and in 2019 the party won a majority of nearly 25,000 votes. While there is little reliable polling in Tiverton and Wakefield, bookmakers say the Conservatives are likely to lose both seats. Lawson said the rising cost of living meant her daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter were reducing their spending on food and were struggling to move out of their two-bedroom flat to somewhere bigger despite both parents working full-time.