LONDON, Oct. 20 (Xinhua) -- British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak faced more misery Friday after his governing Conservative Party lost two seats in parliamentary by-elections.
The main opposition Labour Party won Tamworth in Staffordshire and Mid Bedfordshire, a House of Commons seat held by the Conservatives since 1931.
Political commentators described it as a political earthquake for the Conservatives. With the Conservatives trailing well behind Labour in most opinion polls, Labour leader Keir Starmer will see the latest victories as a sign he is on course to win control in next year's general election.
Both seats had large Conservative majorities in the 2019 general election, Mid Bedfordshire a seemingly unassailable 24,664 and Tamworth an almost 20,000 majority.
Labour won Tamworth with a majority of 1,136 votes, a 23.9 percent swing to Labour. In her victory speech, Labour's Sarah Edwards, who had 11,719 votes, urged the Conservatives to call a general election.
In Mid Bedfordshire, Labour's Alistair Strathern gained 13,872 votes and the defeated Conservatives got 12,680 votes, giving Labour a majority of 1,192. The seat had been held by former culture secretary Nadine Dorries.
In a statement after the results were declared Starmer said: "This is a phenomenal result that shows Labour is back in the service of working people and redrawing the political map."
"To those who have given us their trust, and those considering doing so, Labour will spend every day acting in your interests and focused on your priorities. Labour will give Britain its future back," Starmer said.
Professor Jon Tonge from the Department of Politics at the University of Liverpool told Xinhua: "The Conservatives are facing electoral humiliation at the general election. The swings from Conservative to Labour in these by elections are similar to those in 1996 -- even repeated in the same constituency of Tamworth yesterday. They were portents of what happened the following year (in 1997) when the Conservatives were swept from office at the general election. We are in similar territory."
Political expert Professor John Bryson of the University of Birmingham told Xinhua that for the Conservative Party, the outcome of these by-elections will have been no surprise.
"The key problem facing the Conservatives is that there are too many competing factions within the party. This needs to be combined with an appreciation that it is difficult, even impossible, for the Conservative Party to make significant gains in Scotland, but it is perfectly possible for the Scottish Labour Party to take seats from the Scottish National Party," Bryson said.
"The outcome of the next UK general election will be determined north of the Scottish border rather than in places like Tamworth and Mid Bedfordshire," he added. ■
