The Tories were able to defend Boris Johnson’s constituency in the by-election thanks to Labor’s insensitive environmental measures.
Did this voter follow the populist chants of the Tories? Photo: Danny Lawson/ap/dpa
Now that came as a bit of a surprise. A year after Boris Johnson’s departure, Britain’s Conservatives are stuck in a seemingly permanent low, their government seems unimaginative and powerless – and yet they hold Boris Johnson’s old constituency, for which a new MP had to be elected last Thursday. This is all the more remarkable given that they lost the other two by-elections on the same day.
The Labor opposition, who seemed very certain of their victory in Uxbridge & South Ruislip, now have to take a look at themselves. The number one problem is quickly identified: London’s Labor city government is planning to expand the ULEZ (Ultra Low Emission Zone) from the city center to the whole of London, including the outskirts. ULEZ means: Anyone who has a car that is not low enough in emissions will have to pay 12.50 pounds sterling (a good 14 euros) a day from the end of August to be allowed to drive it. It’s easy to imagine what low-income people displaced by gentrification on the outskirts of London might think. The ULEZ daily driving charge, not socially graded, is as politically insensitive as Margaret Thatcher’s poll tax once was, its extension by London’s Labor city government just ahead of Britain’s likely 2024 election year is a godsend for the Tories.
The previous style of Tory Prime Minister Rishi Sunak – working competently and unspectacularly in the hope that someone will notice – has achieved little politically so far. But now some conservatives are confronted with a tempting alternative, just in time for the 2024 elections: social populism against climate policy. In 2016, Brexit prevailed with the pattern “the left behind against the elite”, and the Tories won a high election victory in the last elections in 2019 under Boris Johnson. And now? Boris Johnson may have retired from British politics for the time being, but his political legacy lives on.
2023-07-23 14:18:36
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