UK PM Boris Johnson suffers heavy losses in London in local elections

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party lost control of traditional strongholds in London and suffered losses elsewhere in local elections, early results on Friday showed, as voters punished his government over a raft of scandals.

Johnson’s party was defeated in Wandsworth, a low-tax Conservative stronghold since 1978, part of a trend in the British capital where voters used the elections to vent their frustrations over a rising cost of living and fines imposed on the prime minister for violating his own COVID-19 lockdown rules.

The Conservatives lost control of the London borough of Barnet, which they had held since 1964 in all but two elections. Labour also believes it has gained the Westminster council for the first time, which houses most government institutions.

“This is a warning shot from Conservative voters,” said Daniel Thomas, the Conservative leader of Barnet council.

The final result, which will be released later on Friday, will provide the most important snapshot of public opinion since Johnson secured the Conservative Party’s largest majority in over 30 years in the 2019 general election.

Johnson is facing his first election since becoming the first British politician in living memory to break the law while in office. He was fined last month for attending a birthday party in his office in 2020, in violation of social distancing restrictions in force at the time to prevent the spread of COVID.

According to preliminary statistics, the Conservative Party has lost 92 council seats. The main opposition Labour Party won 23 seats, while the Liberal Democrats won 42.

The loss of key London councils, where the Conservatives were nearly wiped out, will add to the pressure on Johnson, who has been fighting for his political career for months and faces the possibility of more police fines for his presence at other lockdown-breaking gatherings.

Nearly 7,000 council seats will be decided in Thursday’s elections, including all of those in London, Scotland, and Wales, as well as a third of those in the rest of England.

In the 2019 general election, Johnson defied conventional British politics by winning and vowing to improve living standards in former industrial areas of central and northern England.

But the loss of Wandsworth, Barnet and potentially Westminster symbolises the way that Johnson, who won two terms as mayor of London, has lost his appeal in the capital. His support for Brexit has cost him support in London, where a majority of voters supported staying in the European Union in the 2016 Brexit referendum.

The outcome outside the capital is likely to be less clear-cut. The Conservatives lost overall control of councils in Southampton, Worcester and West Oxfordshire.