Tories lose two by-elections in one night in double blow for Boris Johnson

The Conservative Party faces a double blow this morning after they lost two by-elections in one night.

In bad news for Boris Johnson – who is currently in Rwanda – the Tories lost by-elections in Wakefield and Tiverton and Honiton, causing Conservative party chair Oliver Dowden to resign.

Over the Pennines in Wakefield, Labour retook the seat with a 4,925 majority for Simon Lightwood against the Conservatives’ Nadeem Ahmed, the Guardian reports.

Labour had previously held the seat consistently prior to the 2019 election, and the result is a boost to Keir Starmer’s battle to regain the ‘red wall’ constituencies lost three years ago.

Down in Tiverton and Honiton, the Liberal Democrats overturned a 24,000 majority to take the seat, with Lib Dem candidate Richard Foord beating Tory Helen Hurford by 6,144 votes.

That constituency has been Conservative-held in its various forms for more than a century, and according to reports this morning, the result is thought to be the largest numerical majority ever overturned in a by-election.

The prime minister is currently out of the country in Rwanda for the Commonwealth heads of government summit, and when that is finished he will travel to the G7 and Nato summits in Germany and Spain – meaning he’ll be absent from Downing Street for the next week.

However, the double loss pushed Dowden to say the by-elections were ‘the latest in a run of very poor results for our party’. He continued: “Our supporters are distressed and disappointed by recent events, and I share their feelings.

“We cannot carry on with business as usual. Somebody must take responsibility and I have concluded that, in these circumstances, it would not be right for me to remain in office.”

Meanwhile Tory MP Sir Roger Gale, a longtime critic of Johnson, said voters ‘have sent a very clear message of no confidence in the prime minister, and we have to recognise that’.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Gale said: “An honourable prime minister, even at this stage, would now reconsider his position.”