Beleaguered British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Friday urged voters, and his restless party, to stick with him after two English districts elected opposition-party lawmakers in seats that Sunak's Conservatives had held for years.
The results will worsen fears among Conservatives that, after 14 years in power, the party is heading for a drubbing when a national election is held in less than a year. The Tories consistently lag between 10 and 20 points behind the left-of-centre Labour Party in nationwide opinion polls.
Labour candidate Damien Egan won the House of Commons seat of Kingswood in southwest England, and Labour's Gen Kitchen took Wellingborough in the country's centre, results announced Friday showed. The Conservatives won both by large margins at the last national election in 2019 but saw support collapse in Thursday's special elections.
Reform U.K. -- formerly known as the Brexit Party -- came third, leaving the Conservatives facing pressure from the right as well as the left.
Labour leader Keir Starmer said the results "show people want change."
But Sunak implored voters to "stick with our plan, because it is starting to deliver the change that the country wants and needs."
"We've clearly been through a lot over the past couple of years as a country, but I genuinely believe at the start of this year we're pointing in the right direction," he told reporters.
Thursday's elections replaced one lawmaker who quit to protest Sunak's lack of commitment to green energy, and another who was ousted over allegations of bullying and sexual misconduct.
The Conservatives have now lost 10 by-elections since the last general election, more than any administration since the 1960s. That includes six defeats -- and one win -- since Sunak took office in October 2022. He replaced Liz Truss, who rocked the economy with a plan for unfunded tax cuts and lasted just seven weeks in office.
Sunak, the fifth Conservative leader since 2016, has restored a measure of stability, but failed to revive the governing party's popularity.
The Conservatives have been in power nationally since 2010, years that saw austerity following the world banking crisis, Britain's divisive decision to leave the European Union, a global pandemic and a European war that triggered the worst cost-of-living crisis in decades.
Polls show the Conservatives are losing support across the country, from affluent southern voters turned off by Brexit to working-class northern voters who switched from Labour for the 2019 election, when then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson promised to spread prosperity to long-neglected areas.
Those promises remain largely unmet, and Britain's economic growth has come to a virtual standstill, with the country slipping into recession at the end of 2023 for the first time since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. That limits the government's scope for wooing voters with pre-election tax cuts.
Victorious Kingswood candidate Egan said that "14 years of Conservative government have sucked the hope out of our country with a feeling that no matter how hard you work, you just can't move forward."
"It doesn't have to be this way -- you know it, I know it, we all know it," he said.
Conservative Party chairman Richard Holden called the results "very disappointing," though the party said the low turnout -- less than 40 per cent of eligible voters cast ballots -- was a sign British electors are not enthusiastic about Labour.
But University of Strathclyde polling expert John Curtice said the results confirmed that the Conservatives are in "very, very considerable electoral trouble."
"The Conservatives are going to have to defeat the historical record to come back from where they are," he told the BBC.
Sunak must call an election this year, though the exact date is up to him.
The Conservative losses may embolden Sunak's many rivals in the fractious party, who are already positioning themselves for the leadership contest that would likely follow an election defeat. Some even want to oust Sunak sooner, replacing him with a hardliner who might win back voters from Reform, which wants to curb migration, cut taxes and scrap green-energy measures.
David Frost, a former Conservative Brexit minister, wrote on X: "To get voters back we need a shift to more conservative policy, on tax and spend, immigration, net zero, public sector reform, and more. It's late, but not -- yet -- too late."
As well as grappling with a stuttering economy, Sunak is trying to overcome a U.K. Supreme Court ban on his signature migration policy, a plan to send asylum-seekers who reach Britain across the English Channel on a one-way trip to Rwanda. The plan was announced almost two years ago, but no flights have taken off amid political and legal opposition.
Sunak's only consolation is that Labour is also experiencing turbulence. Last week the party watered down a key green investment pledge, saying the Conservatives had left the economy too weak to honour the commitment.
Starmer also is struggling to stamp out allegations of antisemitism within the party. This week the party disowned its candidate for another special election after a newspaper published remarks he had made during a local party meeting claiming that Israel allowed Hamas' Oct. 7 attack to happen as a pretext to invade Gaza.
Critics say it's evidence Labour has not rooted out the antisemitism that festered under previous leader Jeremy Corbyn, a staunch supporter of the Palestinians and a critic of Israel. It's unclear whether the controversy has hurt Labour in opinion polls.
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The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah announced that it fired a barrage of missiles at a military base deep inside Israel early Sunday following an Israeli airstrike more than a day earlier that killed at least 37 people, including one of the militant group’s senior leaders as well as women and children.
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The British Columbia election campaign is set to officially start today, with Lt.-Gov. Janet Austin issuing the writ for the Oct. 19 vote.
A sea lion swam free after a rescue team disentangled it near Vancouver Island earlier this week.
A northern Ontario man is facing a $12,000 fine after illegally shooting a moose near the Batchawan River.
A body has been found in the vicinity where a woman went missing on the Ottawa River near Pembroke, Ont. while kayaking Tuesday night, according to the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP).
Donald Trump returned to North Carolina on Saturday, stumping in the southern battleground state with direct appeals to women, claiming he would be a better champion for them than U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, who is vying to become the first female president.
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The more Chelsea Walsh talked to the eccentric fellow American who seemed to pop up in every square and cobblestone street of Ukraine's capital, the more she got creeped out.
Specialist divers surveying the wreckage of the US$40 million superyacht that sank off Sicily in August, killing seven people including British tech tycoon Mike Lynch, have asked for heightened security to guard the vessel, over concerns that sensitive data locked in its safes may interest foreign governments, multiple sources told CNN.
The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah announced that it fired a barrage of missiles at a military base deep inside Israel early Sunday following an Israeli airstrike more than a day earlier that killed at least 37 people, including one of the militant group’s senior leaders as well as women and children.
A $2.14-billion federal loan for an Ottawa-based satellite operator has Canadian politicians arguing about whether American billionaire Elon Musk poses a national security risk.
Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly says close to 45,000 Canadians are in Lebanon, months after warning there is no guarantee Ottawa can evacuate them if the situation deteriorates further.
The federal firearm buyback program has cost taxpayers nearly $67.2 million since it was announced in 2020, but it still hasn't collected a single gun.
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The owner of the shuttered Three Mile Island nuclear power plant said Friday that it plans to restart the reactor under a 20-year agreement that calls for tech giant Microsoft to buy the power to supply its data centers with carbon-free energy.
Lebanese authorities on Thursday banned walkie-talkies and pagers from being taken on flights from Beirut airport, the National News Agency reported, after thousands of such devices exploded during a deadly attack on Hezbollah this week.
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Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has accused Tesla CEO Elon Musk of 'remotely disabling' his Cybertruck, which had been sent to the frontline of Russia's war in Ukraine.
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The search for a missing ancient 28-year-old chocolate donkey ended with a tragic discovery Wednesday.
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Volunteers and staff members gathered along Vancouver’s Stanley Park Seawall Saturday to pick up litter as part of International Coastal Cleanup Day.
A heritage home in Vancouver suffered "extensive damage" in a fire that broke out late Saturday morning, according to firefighters.
Toronto police are investigating a shooting in Scarborough that left one person injured Saturday night.
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The Edmonton Police Service is looking for a person of interest in connection with a suspicious fire that destroyed a multi-unit building and damaged several townhomes earlier this week.
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Halifax Regional Police warned the public of a series of high-value thefts targeting retail stores Friday.
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The St. Clair College golf teams were successful at the Niagara Knights Invitational tournament on Friday.
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Despite the heavy rain, plenty of muscle turned up for United Way’s annual Pull the Bus fundraiser in Lethbridge Friday.
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The Lethbridge Hurricanes kicked off the 2024-25 season on a winning note Friday night, defeating the Edmonton Oil Kings 3-1 in a game played at VisitLethbridge.com Arena.
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Jim Lester’s farm hopped on the cow-cuddling trend in early August, and his time slots have been pretty well sold out ever since.
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