Updated 06:30 | Published at 05:57
The Conservative Party retains ex-prime minister Boris Johnson’s seat in Parliament after by-elections in three constituencies in Great Britain – but loses two other seats.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak appeared in advance to risk a triple defeat as a result of popular discontent which, among other things, has to do with increased living costs.
But the election result after Thursday’s by-election shows that the ruling Conservative Party narrowly won in Johnson’s constituency of Uxbridge and South Ruislip with 13,965 to Labour’s 13,470, which means that candidate Steve Tuckwell now takes his seat in Westminster.
It was worse for the governing party in the Somerton and Frome district, where it went from winning by 19,000 votes in the last election to losing by 11,000. The seat is now being taken over by the Liberal Democrats’ Sarah Dyke.
Nor did it go the way of Sunak’s party in the Selby and Ainsty constituency, which lost the seat to Labour’s Keir Mather, who at 25 becomes Britain’s youngest member of parliament.
Britain’s parliament voted in June to support the committee investigation which found that the country’s former prime minister deliberately misled parliament about his knowledge of “partygate” and Boris Johnson was thus removed from parliament.
One of his allies chose to leave at the same time, while a third Conservative MP left his seat following allegations of drug use and sexual harassment. As a result of these three defections, by-elections were called in the three constituencies.