LONDON: Britain’s Labour Party dealt a crushing blow to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives on Friday, winning two previously safe parliamentary seats in victories leader Keir Starmer said showed voters wanted change at the next national election.

The double defeat showed a dramatic slump in support for the governing Conservatives, who have won the last four national votes, and suggests Labour is on course to win power for the first time since 2010 at an election expected next year.

While so-called by-elections are often lost by the governing party, the scale of the defeat in two parliamentary seats the Conser­vatives have held for years piles pressure on Sunak, who took over almost a year ago after the governing party became embroi­led in scandals and chaos under previous leaders.

Starmer, who has moved his Labour Party closer to the centre, said the two votes showed “Labour is back in the service of working people and redrawing the political map”.

“Winning in these Tory (Conservative) strongholds shows that people overwhelmingly want change and they’re ready to put their faith in our changed Labour Party to deliver it,” he said in a statement.

Labour won the seat of Mid-Bedfordshire, an area about 80 km north of London, overturning a majority of almost 25,000, making it the biggest deficit the party has overcome in a by-election since 1945.

Labour also overturned a large majority in another former Conservative stronghold, Tamworth, a largely rural constituency in central England, with the party enjoying the second-highest swing from Conservatives since World War II.

Published in Dawn, October 21st, 2023