Trouble for Sunak as Tories Eye Defeat in Three UK Bypolls

London: Apna Punjab Media: Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives braced for defeat in three by-elections across England on Thursday, as the ruling party looked set to suffer an electoral backlash over the UK’s ailing economy.
The Tories are defending hefty majorities in the seats in London, Yorkshire in northern England and Somerset in the southwest, but appear to be haemorrhaging support as the scandals of recent years and decades-high inflation take their toll.
Polls opened at 7:00 am (0600 GMT) and closed at 10:00 pm, with results not expected until early Friday — just as MPs start a six-week recess.
That could ease the fallout from a rare triple loss within his often-fractious parliamentary party, but nonetheless leave Sunak increasingly vulnerable politically.
The contests come ahead of a general election due next year, with the main opposition Labour party enjoying double-digit poll leads and poised to retake power for the first time in over a decade.
Labour, under its leader Keir Starmer, won local council elections in early May across swathes of England, as Sunak’s Conservatives suffered steep losses in his first major electoral test since taking power last October.
The opposition has won five by-elections since March last year, but only one of those seats — Wakefield, in Yorkshire — was captured from the Tories.
Labour is now aiming to emulate that June 2022 feat in nearby Selby and Ainsty, where Nigel Adams quit as Conservative MP last month after failing to be nominated for a peerage by ex-prime minister Boris Johnson.