Johnson hails Conservatives’ crushing win in Labour stronghold

Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson jokes with a journalist (left) as he is greeted by a supporter and her son, in Hartlepool, northeast England, yesterday, during a visit following the Conservative Party by-election victory in the constituency.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson yesterday welcomed early election results in Britain’s first major vote since Brexit and the pandemic, including a stunning by-election victory for his Conservative party in an opposition Labour stronghold. The “Super Thursday” local and regional contests could reshape the UK as pro-independence forces in Scotland, where voting for the devolved parliament was also held, bid to break away. Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon won re-election in Glasgow and said she was confident her Scottish National Party (SNP) were on track to win a fourth, consecutive election victory. “If that’s indeed the outcome of this election, I pledge today to get back to work immediately, to lead this country in recovery from Covid, and then, when the time is right, to offer this country the choice of a better future,” she said. Comprehensive results in Scotland are due today. In early returns in England yesterday, Johnson’s Tories were performing strongly, notably winning by a landslide in the northeast parliamentary seat of Hartlepool, in a bitter blow for Labour and its leader Keir Starmer. The rust-belt town constituency, which is deep in traditional Labour heartlands and had never voted Conservative since its creation in 1974, saw a 16% swing to the Tories. The Tory mayor for Tees Valley, also in northeast England, won re-election, also by a landslide, increasing his share of the vote compared to 2017. Johnson described the results as “very encouraging”. “What this election shows is that people want a party and a government that is focused on them, focused on delivering change,” he added on a whistlestop victory tour of Hartlepool. Newly-elected Tory MP Jill Mortimer called her win “truly historic” and accused Labour of taking its people “for granted for too long”. The results continue the trend from the last general election in December 2019, when Brexit was the dominant issue and Conservatives grabbed a string of seats across Labour’s so-called “Red Wall” heartlands in northern England. The vote in strongly pro-Brexit Hartlepool, held alongside local elections across much of the country, came about after its Labour incumbent quit over sexual harassment allegations.