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      Blackpool Shows Challenges for New U.K. Leader Liz Truss

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      Blackpool contains one of the most deprived areas to turn to the Conservatives in Britain’s last general election. But with costs rising, there are already signs of cracks in that support.BLACKPOOL, England — The famed annual light show still illuminates the sky each night in the seaside town of Blackpool in England’s northwest, having survived the nationwide effort to conserve energy. But beneath the glitter, the evidence of decades of decline is everywhere.The signs on the small hotels that line long stretches of the coastline have faded, and “vacancy” notices flash in their front windows. Shuttered storefronts‌ dot‌ the roads in the center of town. The doorways of defunct nightclubs are crowded with those sleeping rough.Liz Truss, who took over as Britain’s prime minister on Tuesday, will have no shortage of issues to address in a country facing grave economic crises. On Thursday, Ms. Truss is set to announce a plan to limit the sharp rise in energy costs.But the most daunting challenges will come in towns like Blackpool, already one of the most deprived in England, according to government statistics.Blackpool South, where the popular Pleasure Beach amusement park stands, long supported the Labour Party but switched to backing the Conservative Party in the 2019 election that brought Boris Johnson to power. It was one of the poorest areas of England to switch parties.But with costs for nearly everything rising, and worries that energy bills could skyrocket to thousands of pounds a year for the average household, there are already indications of cracks in the Conservative coalition.Liz Truss after winning the Conservative Party leadership in London on Monday. She has promised relief for struggling towns like Blackpool.Frank Augstein/Associated Press“I do not think that having Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak would have made any difference to the economy of Blackpool,” said Ava Makepeace, a resident, referring to Ms. Truss’s opponent in the leadership race that ended this week in her victory.Ms. Makepeace, 51, was critical of Conservative policies, and said that Brexit, which Blackpool overwhelmingly favored in a 2016 referendum, had also had a negative effect on the town.“No one can get decent staff anymore,” she said of the restaurants and hotels that had relied on overseas workers. “And poverty in certain areas of central Blackpool are the worst they have ever been.”The Fall of Boris Johnson, ExplainedCard 1 of 5The Fall of Boris Johnson, ExplainedTurmoil at Downing Street. More

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      Jonathan Pie on Liz Truss, Britain’s Next Prime Minister

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      As Britain Prepares for a New Leader, Tensions With Allies Loom

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      Comments from the front-runner for prime minister, Liz Truss, suggest bumpier relations with Europe and the U.S. if she wins, with Northern Ireland getting in the way of the “special relationship.”LONDON — Three weeks after Liz Truss became Britain’s top diplomat in 2021, she told a Conservative Party conference that her country need not compete for the affection of the United States. Britons, she said, should not worry “like some teenage girl at a party if we’re not considered to be good enough.”Her line drew laughs, but little more than that, at a meeting dominated by the flamboyant figure of Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Now, though, Mr. Johnson is on his way out and Ms. Truss is the front-runner in the contest to replace him, making such provocative comments a potential clue to future policy.Should Ms. Truss emerge victorious in a party vote that will be announced on Monday, she will have a chance to flesh out the vision of a Global Britain that Mr. Johnson unveiled after the country left the European Union two years ago. Based on her record as foreign secretary, diplomats and analysts in London and Washington said, relations could get bumpier with the United States and, even more so, with Europe.Tensions between London and Brussels have already flared over legislation introduced by Ms. Truss that would upend the post-Brexit trade arrangements in Northern Ireland. She has vowed to push the new law through Parliament, stoking fears that it could trigger a trade war across the English Channel.The Biden administration is keeping close watch, anxious that the dispute could threaten a quarter-century of peace in Northern Ireland secured by the Good Friday Agreement. President Biden has asked aides to pass along his concern about the negotiations between Britain and the European Union over the trade rules.Rishi Sunak met supporters last month in Birmingham, England. During the campaign, he has promoted his credentials as a Brexiteer.Rui Vieira/Associated Press“We’re going to trundle along in a pretty bad place” in part because “she’s going to keep playing to the peanut gallery of those who are deeply committed to Brexit,” said Leslie Vinjamuri, the director of the U.S. and Americas program at Chatham House, the British research institution.“There is a swath of Britain that doesn’t like being dependent on the United States or the European Union,” Ms. Vinjamuri said. “She is completely aligned with a vision of Britain being global, strong, sovereign and, most of all, independent.”That Brexit-inflected message has helped Ms. Truss pile up a commanding lead in the polls over her opponent, Rishi Sunak, even if he performed well in the final debates of the campaign. But some of the pressures will mount regardless of which candidate is victorious. Mr. Sunak, too, has pledged to push through the Northern Ireland bill, and he promotes his credentials as a Brexiteer. (Ms. Truss opposed Brexit before becoming a fervent proponent of it after the 2016 referendum.)Britain’s role in the world is shaped by forces larger than the next occupant of 10 Downing Street. Having cast itself off from the European Union, Britain can act as more of a free agent, seeking its own relations with great powers like China. But it has lost its role as a bridge between the United States and Europe, becoming a less influential player on global issues like Russia’s war in Ukraine.In that crisis and others, including Iran’s nuclear program, Britain is likely to keep aligning itself with the United States. Mr. Johnson has acted as a kind of wingman to Mr. Biden on Ukraine, encouraging him to impose harsher sanctions on Russia and ship heavier weapons to the Ukrainian army.Loyalists marching last year in Portadown, Northern Ireland, to protest trade rules that require border checks on goods flowing from mainland Britain to the North, as part of a Brexit deal with the European Union.Paulo Nunes dos Santos for The New York TimesMs. Truss would most likely double down on Mr. Johnson’s backing of Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky. She has presented herself as a hawk on Russia, using language that at times goes further than that of American officials. But her most memorable diplomatic encounter, with the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, in February, was marred when Russian officials claimed to reporters that she was ignorant of Russian geography in a private exchange with Mr. Lavrov.While Ms. Truss lived with her family in Canada for a year as a child, she is not a globe-trotting figure like Mr. Sunak, who has an M.B.A. from Stanford, owns a home in Santa Monica, Calif., and until recently held a U.S. green card. Mr. Johnson was born in New York City and renounced his American citizenship only in 2016.For all of his Brexit bluster, which appealed to former President Donald J. Trump but grated on Mr. Biden, Mr. Johnson regularly expressed his affinity for the United States. In his last appearance as prime minister in the House of Commons in July, Mr. Johnson offered his successor some parting advice, borrowed from his hero, Winston Churchill: “Stay close to the Americans.”Ms. Truss, by contrast, shows little reverence for the “special relationship” between Britain and the United States. “It’s special, but not exclusive,” she said at the party conference last year, noting that Britain had other important allies like Australia, India and European countries, notably the Baltic States.“Words matter,” Ms. Vinjamuri said, “and they matter especially when the U.S. is in a period of elections and political upheaval.”Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain with President Biden in June during a NATO meeting in Spain. In the final moments of his last appearance as prime minister in the House of Commons in July, Mr. Johnson offered his successor some advice: “Stay close to the Americans.”Jonathan Ernst/ReutersMs. Truss’s most ambitious outreach to Washington came during the Trump years and ended in frustration. As trade secretary, she led negotiations for a trans-Atlantic trade agreement with Mr. Trump’s trade representative, Robert E. Lighthizer. He recalled her as an energetic, well-briefed free trader.The talks, however, petered out with Mr. Trump’s defeat in 2020, and Mr. Biden has shown little interest in reviving them. That means Ms. Truss will have to find other common ground with him, beyond Ukraine.“Brits expect their prime minister to have a good personal relationship with the American president,” said Kim Darroch, a former British ambassador to Washington. “If they’re not getting on, that will get picked up and commented on, probably critically.”Perhaps stung by her previous statements about foreign leaders, Ms. Truss has steered clear of American politics. Asked by a journalist last week if she viewed Mr. Trump as a friend or foe, she said, “I’m not going to comment on future potential presidential runners,” adding, “We have to work with whoever is in the White House.”She was less diplomatic when it came to continental Europe, particularly France. “The jury is out,” she said, when she was asked the friend-or-foe question about President Emmanuel Macron of France. That drew a backhanded reply from Mr. Macron, who said Britain was a friend, regardless of its leader.Peter Westmacott, another former British envoy to Washington, likened Ms. Truss’s remarks to those of a candidate in an American primary — in this case, aimed at the 160,000 or so members of the Conservative Party who are voting for a new leader. If she wins, he predicted, she will pivot back to the center.Still, he said her campaign messaging had done damage that went beyond France. She floated the idea of Britain sending asylum seekers to Turkey in addition to Rwanda, a proposal swiftly shot down by the Turkish government.President Emmanuel Macron of France last month in Paris. He said Britain was a friend of France, regardless of its leader.Yoan Valat/EPA, via Shutterstock“I hope she will also conclude before too long that the U.K. has every interest in finding allies in Europe to help limit the damage caused by Brexit, energy prices and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” Mr. Westmacott said.A trade war with the European Union is far from inevitable. European officials may choose to hold off on major retaliation until the Northern Ireland legislation gets through Parliament. That process could drag on for months, given the fierce resistance the bill is likely to face in the House of Lords, where many members view it as a breach of international law and a power grab by cabinet ministers.The dilemma for Ms. Truss, if she wins, is that her political ascent has been powered by her cultivation of the party’s Brexiteer wing. That will make it hard for her to give ground in the dispute with Brussels. And Britain’s relations with the European Union are increasingly inseparable from its relations with the United States.“The U.K.-E.U. relationship looks more destructive in the short term,” said Mujtaba Rahman, an analyst at the political risk consultancy, Eurasia Group. “It’s going to subtract from the level of credibility she’ll enjoy in Washington.”“All roads run through Europe,” he said. More

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      Prime Minister Race in Britain Remains Unsettled in Wake of Johnson’s Downfall

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      Rishi Sunak, the former chancellor of the Exchequer, is the current front-runner, but Penny Mordaunt, a junior trade minister, is making a surprisingly strong run for the leadership position.LONDON — The last time Britain’s Conservative Party elected a new leader, Boris Johnson dominated the contest from wire to wire, a political celebrity so famous that many voters just called him Boris.Three years later, the oddsmakers’ favorite is Penny Mordaunt, a junior trade minister so obscure that some voters have told pollsters that they confuse her with another single-name English star: the singer Adele.Ms. Mordaunt’s sudden surge in popularity reflects the wide-open, topsy-turvy nature of the race. And it reveals the shadow that Mr. Johnson still casts over British politics. Ms. Mordaunt’s lack of association with the recently deposed prime minister is one of her calling cards: She promotes herself as a fresh start after the ceaseless drama of the past three years. Weary Tory lawmakers are responding.Strictly speaking, Ms. Mordaunt, 49, is not the current front-runner: That status belongs to Rishi Sunak, the former chancellor of the Exchequer, who won the backing of 101 lawmakers in the second round of voting on Thursday. Ms. Mordaunt was second, with 83 votes. Conservative legislators will hold additional ballots early this week, before advancing two candidates to a vote of the party’s rank-and-file membership, the results of which will be announced in early September.Provided she makes the shortlist of two, however, Ms. Mordaunt looms as a formidable contender. In a poll of members last week, she finished far ahead of Mr. Sunak in a head-to-head matchup. She also easily outpolled the No. 3 candidate, Liz Truss, who is Mr. Johnson’s foreign secretary and has refused to disavow him. Ms. Mordaunt, by contrast, is neither a Johnson loyalist nor an insurgent figure.“She has the best of both worlds,” said Tim Bale, a professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London. “She can’t be accused of disloyalty on the one hand, and on the other, she has sufficient distance from Johnson because she played such a minor role in government that she’s not tainted by association.”Rishi Sunak, the former chancellor of the Exechequer, has faced attacks from allies of Boris Johnson for resigning his position two weeks ago.Alberto Pezzali/Associated PressVernon Bogdanor, a professor of government at King’s College London, said Ms. Mordaunt’s low profile makes her an attractive blank slate. “No one knows what her views are, and so one can attribute one’s own views to her,” he said. “The same happens in spades, in regard to the queen.”But Ms. Mordaunt’s swift rise has alarmed some critics, who say she is untested and thinly qualified for prime minister. A paratrooper’s daughter who serves in the Royal Naval Reserve, Ms. Mordaunt was defense secretary for two and a half months in 2019 and held a lesser cabinet post in charge of international development.People who have worked with her describe her as charming and sincere, but not interested in the complexities of policy. She also has very little economic experience, at a time when Britain faces a once-in-a-generation cost-of-living crisis.“She was honest and straightforward, and I thought she did care about international development,” said Alistair Burt, who was a minister in the international development department when she was there. “But it is a surprise — I wouldn’t have thought that she would be where she is.”Whether she was equipped to be prime minister, Mr. Burt said he “genuinely wouldn’t know because she hasn’t been significantly tested.”As Ms. Mordaunt’s profile has risen, the attacks on her have sharpened. David Frost, who resigned as Mr. Johnson’s Brexit negotiator last year, gave a scathing account of Ms. Mordaunt, who served as his deputy. He accused her of a poor grasp of detail and absence from her government department, and of being such a problem that he had asked the prime minister to move her to another job.Like other hard-line Brexiteers, Mr. Frost has thrown his support behind Ms. Truss, who campaigned against leaving the European Union in the 2016 referendum, but who has since converted to the cause with zeal. Ms. Mordaunt voted to leave, as did Mr. Sunak.Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, remained loyal to Mr. Johnson, which could hurt her in the leadership race.Peter Nicholls/ReutersIt is one of the paradoxes of this race that Brexiteers are opposing the two candidates who backed Brexit and are supporting the one who opposed it.Not only did Ms. Mordaunt urge Britons to vote for Brexit, but she also played a minor, though memorable, part in the campaign by warning that Turkish migrants would flock to Britain when their own country joined the European Union, something she claimed Britain would be unable to block. The statement was erroneous: Britain, like other members, had a right to veto Turkey’s membership.Brexit supporters regard her with suspicion for another reason: She voted for an ill-fated withdrawal agreement with the European Union negotiated by Prime Minister Theresa May.Ms. Mordaunt combines an interest in security and a military background with views on social issues that are mildly progressive by Tory party standards. She has spoken up in favor of the rights of transgender people, for example, a position that has gotten her into trouble with the culture warriors on the party’s right.Seeking to defuse the issue, Ms. Mordaunt said last week that transgender women “are not biological women like me, but the law recognizes them in their new gender and that’s very simple and straightforward.”In the cut-and-thrust of Tory politics, of course, it is neither.During a televised debate on Friday evening, Mr. Mordaunt came under renewed pressure on the issue, with one of her opponents, Kemi Badenoch, questioning whether she had backtracked on her earlier position. Critics said Ms. Mordaunt’s performance was wobbly and unfocused.Analysts said the unsettled nature of the contest had made it especially vicious. Mr. Sunak, the early front-runner, has come under attack by Mr. Johnson’s allies, who view his resignation less than two weeks ago, which set the stage for the prime minister’s downfall, as a betrayal. Mr. Sunak’s tax policy as chancellor was criticized by Jacob Rees-Mogg, with whom he sat in cabinet just days ago. Mr. Rees-Mogg refused to deny reports that he had described the policy, which included tax increases, as “socialist.”The Conservative Party Conference last year in Manchester, England.Neil Hall/EPA, via Shutterstock“Rishi Sunak was always going to get it in the neck,” Professor Bale said.Ms. Truss, who did not resign from Mr. Johnson’s cabinet, faces the danger of being the most closely associated with him. Critics said her campaign had gotten off to a less-than-stirring start. She is not viewed as a charismatic campaigner, despite her solid credentials. One Liberal Democratic lawmaker likened her to Hillary Clinton, while Ms. Mordaunt, the lawmaker said, more resembled Bill Clinton.Unlike Ms. Mordaunt, Ms. Truss has significant economic experience. Yet Ms. Mordaunt’s weakness in that area has yet to hurt her campaign, despite the soaring inflation and specter of a recession that haunts Britain. A lack of focus on the future, analysts said, was another legacy of Mr. Johnson’s distracting tenure.“He’s left the Conservative Party deeply confused because he was trying to hold together an electoral coalition that isn’t a particularly natural one,” Professor Bale said, referring to traditional Conservative voters in the south and working-class supporters in the north of England that Mr. Johnson won over from the Labour Party in 2019.“It was always going to be a case of ‘après moi, le deluge,’” he added. “When Boris Johnson eventually was forced out, there was almost inevitably going to be chaos and bad feeling because of who he was and how he acted.” More

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      For Boris Johnson, a Chaotic Reign Ends With a Chaotic Exit

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      The risk-taking bravado of Britain’s colorful prime minister was not enough to compensate for his shortcomings, or overcome a catastrophic loss of party support.LONDON — The end, when it finally came, was just as chaotic, messy and jaw-dropping as every other chapter of Boris Johnson’s political career.Holed up in Downing Street on Wednesday night, the prime minister faced an open rebellion of his cabinet, a catastrophic loss of support in his Conservative Party and a wholesale exodus of ministers, which threatened to leave significant parts of the British government without functioning leadership.Yet far from surrendering, Mr. Johnson’s aides put out word that he would continue to fight. It looked like a last roll of the dice by one of the great gamblers in British politics. His brazen refusal to bow to reality invited comparisons to Donald J. Trump’s defiance in the chaotic days after he lost the 2020 presidential election.The British prime minister stepped down as Conservative Party leader after recent scandals prompted a wave of resignations from his top officials. He plans to stay on as prime minister until a successor is in place.Henry Nicholls/ReutersBy Thursday morning, however, political gravity had finally reasserted itself. For one of the few times in his career, Mr. Johnson was unable to bend the narrative to his advantage through the sheer force of his personality.At midday, the prime minister went to a lectern in front of 10 Downing Street to announce he was relinquishing the leadership of a party that no longer supported him, and giving up a job he had pursued for much of his adult life.“I want to tell you how sorry I am to be giving up the best job in the world,” Mr. Johnson said. Then, defusing the solemnity of the moment with a wry line from the pool halls of America, he added, “Them’s the breaks.”A crowd gathered outside Downing Street on Thursday morning to hear Mr. Johnson’s statement.Henry Nicholls/ReutersAs the political post-mortems on Mr. Johnson are written, the tumultuous events of the last week may come to encapsulate his career — one defined by a gleeful disregard for the rules, a shrewd instinct for public opinion, an elastic approach to ethics and a Falstaffian appetite for the cut-and-thrust of politics.“Most prime ministers would have gotten the message sooner,” said Andrew Gimson, one of Mr. Johnson’s biographers. “The element of exaggeration, of turning up the volume, is very characteristic of his style.”Mr. Gimson once likened Mr. Johnson to Admiral Nelson, the 18th-century naval hero who vanquished Napoleon in the Battle of Trafalgar. “Nelson said the boldest measures are the safest,” he said.In the end, however, Mr. Johnson’s risk-taking bravado was not enough to compensate for his shortcomings. He engaged in behavior that critics said revealed a sense of entitlement and a belief that the rules did not apply to him, his staff or his loyalists. Critics accused him of being disorganized, ideologically and administratively.After leading Britain out of the European Union in 2020, the prime minister did not have much of a plan for what to do next. He quickly became hostage to events, lurching from crisis to crisis as the coronavirus pandemic engulfed Britain. A pattern of scandals, which followed him throughout his career, soon overtook Downing Street.Mr. Johnson had long thrived by thumbing his nose at political convention. His disheveled crop of blonde hair seemed a metaphor for a messy personal and professional life, which some British voters savored while others merely tolerated it.Mr. Johnson preparing to appear on television in 2019. A journalist-turned-politician, he was able to fuse the forces of celebrity culture with an opportunistic, ideologically flexible approach to the issues.Stefan Rousseau/Press Association, via Associated PressBut Mr. Johnson’s lack of truthfulness finally caught up with him. His constantly shifting accounts of his conduct — whether in attending illicit parties at Downing Street during lockdowns, attempting to use a Tory Party donor to finance the costly refurbishment of his apartment, or promoting a Conservative lawmaker with a history of sexual misconduct allegations against him — finally exhausted the patience of his party and many voters.Mr. Johnson’s role in campaigning to leave the European Union, then carrying out Brexit and then seeing Britain through the pandemic, will guarantee him a place in the ranks of significant British prime ministers. Beyond that, he leaves behind a checkered policy legacy, and he never escaped suspicions that his agenda was driven not by ideological conviction but by the cynical calculation of what political advantages he could extract from it.In the end he may be most remembered for his confounding mix of strengths and weaknesses.From the start, Mr. Johnson represented something new in British politics. A journalist-turned-politician, he was able to fuse the forces of celebrity culture with an opportunistic, ideologically flexible approach to the issues. To most Britons, he was simply “Boris,” a first-name familiarity enjoyed by no other British politician.With his rumpled suits and untucked shirts, Mr. Johnson affected a louche, upper-class insouciance that somehow also connected with working-class voters. His antics as the mayor of London — he once famously dangled from a zip line above photographers, waving a pair of Union Jacks — turned him into a clown prince.But all the tomfoolery — aside from drawing attention to himself — also helped make him a serious electoral contender. With Britain caught up in an anguished debate over its future in the European Union, Mr. Johnson latched on to an issue that would propel him to the top of the Conservative Party. First, of course, he famously dithered about which side of the Brexit debate to embrace — leave or remain — drafting newspaper columns that made the case for both.With his rumpled suits and untucked shirts, Mr. Johnson affected a louche, upper-class insouciance that somehow also connected with working-class voters.Pool photo by Clemens BilanOnce he had thrown in his lot with “Vote Leave,” Mr. Johnson became an energetic campaigner. He helped win the 2016 referendum against European Union membership, used the issue to drive out the woman who became prime minister in its aftermath, Theresa May, and rode a promise to “Get Brexit Done” to a thrashing of the Labour Party in the 2019 general election.That victory, which awarded the Conservative Party its largest majority since 1987, emboldened Mr. Johnson when his standing collapsed under the weight of serial ethical scandals. He invoked his “colossal mandate” as a response to those who said he should step down, saying he owed it to his 14 million voters to go on.Unlike in the United States, however, Mr. Johnson governs in a parliamentary, not a presidential, system. Those 14 million people voted for the Conservative Party, not for Mr. Johnson, who merely served as the party’s leader, at the pleasure of its lawmakers. When they withdraw that support, the leader is replaced.At a parliamentary committee hearing on Wednesday, Mr. Johnson pointedly declined to rule out trying to call an early general election — in effect, bypassing the Conservative Party to throw his fate back to the voters.That evening, a delegation of cabinet ministers and party officials traveled to Downing Street to appeal to Mr. Johnson to step down. He rejected their entreaties and instead fired one of his most senior ministers and allies, Michael Gove, who had been among those warning him that his time was up.The palace intrigue, combined with Mr. Johnson’s initial refusal to accept his situation, drew comparisons to Mr. Trump.“We have this habit in Britain of following American politics, a couple of years later,” said Jonathan Powell, who served as chief of staff to a Labour prime minister, Tony Blair. “We have ended up with a poor man’s Trump, in the form of Johnson.”The United States, Mr. Powell said, was still living with the aftereffects of Mr. Trump’s presidency. “In Britain, because our system is different, we should be in a position to heal more quickly,” he said. More

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      Boris Johnson Risks a Sharp Rebuke in U.K. By-Elections

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      Scandals, economic pain and an uproar over lockdown parties have left Britain’s Conservatives at risk of losing both recent advances and old strongholds.WAKEFIELD, England — Prime Minister Boris Johnson has yet to campaign in the stately but faded city of Wakefield in West Yorkshire, even though his Conservative Party is at risk of losing a highly symbolic seat in a parliamentary election there on Thursday. But that doesn’t mean he’s not on people’s minds — or tongues.“Boris Johnson has been convicted of breaking the law. He held parties in the place where they make the laws. It’s massive hypocrisy,” said Jordan Rendle, 31, who was getting his hair cut by a local barber, Andrew Prust.“We’re all human — 99.9 percent of the country didn’t stick to the rules,” Mr. Prust replied, his shrug reflected in the mirror.“OK, stop the haircut now!” Mr. Rendle spluttered in mock outrage, as he realized his barber backed the prime minister.“Boris Johnson has been convicted of breaking the law,” said Jordan Rendle, getting his hair cut, adding: “It’s massive hypocrisy.”Andrew Testa for The New York TimesEven in races where Mr. Johnson is not on the ballot, he manages to be an all-consuming, often polarizing figure. While this election, along with one in southwestern England, is to fill seats vacated by two lawmakers whose careers were ruined by their own scandals, the races are also a referendum of sorts on the scandal-scarred prime minister.How badly has he been damaged by the uproar over illicit parties held in Downing Street during the pandemic?Were the Conservatives to lose both seats, which is conceivable, it would do fresh damage to the record of electoral success that has helped Mr. Johnson survive the kind of turmoil — including a no-confidence vote by his own party — that would have sunk most politicians. A double defeat could trigger another mutiny among the 148 rebel Tory members of Parliament who voted to oust him only two weeks ago.“If those elections were to be lost quite badly, I can’t see why a good proportion of those M.P.s wouldn’t be demanding another no-confidence vote,” said Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London. “By-elections have a nasty habit of making a generalized problem acute.”For all the high stakes, campaigning in Wakefield has been muted.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesPolls suggest the Conservatives are on track to lose Wakefield to the main opposition Labour Party, less than three years after they won it in Mr. Johnson’s 2019 election landslide. That would give Labour back a seat it held for nearly 90 years and restore a brick to the party’s “red wall” — areas in England’s equivalent of the rust belt, former industrial cities and towns that were once Labour strongholds.The election in Tiverton and Honiton, in the rural Tory heartlands to the south, is more of a tossup. There, the centrist Liberal Democrats are hoping to evict the Conservatives from a seat they held since the district was created in 1997, and won with a hefty margin in 2019.The incumbent, Neil Parish, resigned in April after he admitted watching pornography on his phone while sitting in the House of Commons. In Wakefield, the Conservative, Imran Ahmad Khan, was jailed after being convicted of sexually assaulting a teenage boy.Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain speaking in 2019 during his Conservative Party’s final election campaign rally in London.Kirsty Wigglesworth/Associated PressThe lurid circumstances that required these off-year elections make the Conservative Party especially vulnerable. It adds to the perception of what critics call “Tory sleaze.” But there is deeper disillusionment with politics in Wakefield, where a strike at one of the bus companies has depressed business at shops and restaurants.“Politicians always make promises and then they always break them,” said Christine Lee, 82, a retired dress designer, as she browsed in one of Wakefield’s mostly deserted outdoor shopping malls. She said she did not plan to vote on Thursday because neither the Labour nor the Conservative candidate would make a difference.Given its high stakes, the campaign has been surprisingly muted. The Labour candidate, Simon Lightwood, who is comfortably ahead in the polls, has avoided making waves. His Tory opponent, Nadeem Ahmed, has gone quiet since he gave an ill-fated interview to The Daily Telegraph last week, in which he described his predecessor, Mr. Khan, as a “one bad apple,” who should not cause voters to turn against all Conservatives.A Labour stronghold in Wakefield. The party lost the seat in 2019, but has been ahead in polls there.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesDavid Herdson, who is running for the independent Yorkshire Party, left the Conservatives because of Mr. Johnson’s “reckless strategy” on Brexit.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesMr. Ahmed likened the case to that of Harold Shipman, a notorious English doctor and serial killer who is believed to have murdered 250 of his patients as a general practitioner before killing himself in prison in Wakefield in 2004. “Have we stopped trusting G.P.s?” Mr. Ahmed said to the Telegraph. “No, we still trust G.P.s and we know that he was one bad apple in there.”Mr. Johnson has so far kept his distance. On Friday, he skipped a conference of northern Conservative lawmakers in the nearby city of Doncaster, instead making a repeat visit to the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, where he met President Volodymyr Zelensky.To some local politicians, that was a telling sign.“Conservatives don’t think it’s worth fighting for,” said David Herdson, who is running for the seat as the candidate of the independent Yorkshire Party. “Labour thinks the election is in the bag, and they don’t want to make any mistakes.”Mr. Herdson, 48, who left the Conservative Party because of what he called Mr. Johnson’s “reckless strategy” in leaving the European Union, is emphasizing local concerns like affordable housing and better public transportation. He hopes for a respectable finish in the top five of a 15-candidate field. But in knocking on doors, he says he has encountered a “massive cynicism toward the political class in general.”A Labour Party spokeswoman, Phoebe Plomer, said Mr. Lightwood would spend the final days of the campaign telling voters that by defeating the Tories in Wakefield, they had a chance to force Mr. Johnson out of power. Under the rules of the Conservative Party, Mr. Johnson is not subject to another no-confidence vote for at least a year, though the rules can always be changed.A discount store in Wakefield, where a bus strike has emptied the town center.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesEither way, a loss in Wakefield would carry great symbolism. In 2019, the Conservatives pierced the red wall on the strength of Mr. Johnson’s promise to “get Brexit done.” That message appealed to disillusioned Labour voters, many of whom voted to leave the European Union in 2016. It was hailed as one of the most significant political realignments in British politics since the free-market revolution engineered by one of his Conservative predecessors, Margaret Thatcher.But instead of being revolutionary, Mr. Johnson’s leadership has been chaotic. In the wake of the no-confidence vote, his ethics adviser quit in despair last week, and Parliament is still scrutinizing whether the prime minister lied to lawmakers. On top of all that is a cost-of-living squeeze and a potential recession in the coming months.“There is this conventional thinking that Boris is this Heineken politician who can appeal to Labour voters,” Mr. Bale said, alluding to British ads in which a lager brand promised that it “refreshes the parts other beers cannot reach.”“But his appeal is actually kind of limited,” Mr. Bale said, “and he has become more of a liability then an asset.”Shoppers at an outdoor food market in Wakefield.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesGeoff Hayes, 72, who once worked in the now-defunct coal mines that ring Wakefield, said Mr. Johnson had sold many Labour voters on the promise that Brexit would liberate Britain from the regulatory shackles of the European Union. Now, however, they were realizing that the reality was trucks lined up for miles at ports on the English Channel, where they faced delays because of bureaucratic customs paperwork.“A lot of people thought Brexit was going to change everything,” said Mr. Hayes, as he gazed at peregrine falcons nesting in the steeple of Wakefield’s cathedral. “But in the end,” he said, “the Tories only care about the mega rich.” More

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      In Two Elections, North and South, Boris Johnson Risks a Sharp Rebuke

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      Scandals, economic pain and an uproar over lockdown parties have left Britain’s Conservatives at risk of losing both recent advances and old strongholds.WAKEFIELD, England — Prime Minister Boris Johnson has yet to campaign in the stately but faded city of Wakefield in West Yorkshire, even though his Conservative Party is at risk of losing a highly symbolic seat in a parliamentary election there on Thursday. But that doesn’t mean he’s not on people’s minds — or tongues.“Boris Johnson has been convicted of breaking the law. He held parties in the place where they make the laws. It’s massive hypocrisy,” said Jordan Rendle, 31, who was getting his hair cut by a local barber, Andrew Prust.“We’re all human — 99.9 percent of the country didn’t stick to the rules,” Mr. Prust replied, his shrug reflected in the mirror.“OK, stop the haircut now!” Mr. Rendle spluttered in mock outrage, as he realized his barber backed the prime minister.“Boris Johnson has been convicted of breaking the law,” said Jordan Rendle, getting his hair cut, adding: “It’s massive hypocrisy.”Andrew Testa for The New York TimesEven in races where Mr. Johnson is not on the ballot, he manages to be an all-consuming, often polarizing figure. While this election, along with one in southwestern England, is to fill seats vacated by two lawmakers whose careers were ruined by their own scandals, the races are also a referendum of sorts on the scandal-scarred prime minister.How badly has he been damaged by the uproar over illicit parties held in Downing Street during the pandemic?Were the Conservatives to lose both seats, which is conceivable, it would do fresh damage to the record of electoral success that has helped Mr. Johnson survive the kind of turmoil — including a no-confidence vote by his own party — that would have sunk most politicians. A double defeat could trigger another mutiny among the 148 rebel Tory members of Parliament who voted to oust him only two weeks ago.“If those elections were to be lost quite badly, I can’t see why a good proportion of those M.P.s wouldn’t be demanding another no-confidence vote,” said Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London. “By-elections have a nasty habit of making a generalized problem acute.”For all the high stakes, campaigning in Wakefield has been muted.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesPolls suggest the Conservatives are on track to lose Wakefield to the main opposition Labour Party, less than three years after they won it in Mr. Johnson’s 2019 election landslide. That would give Labour back a seat it held for nearly 90 years and restore a brick to the party’s “red wall” — areas in England’s equivalent of the rust belt, former industrial cities and towns that were once Labour strongholds.The election in Tiverton and Honiton, in the rural Tory heartlands to the south, is more of a tossup. There, the centrist Liberal Democrats are hoping to evict the Conservatives from a seat they held since the district was created in 1997, and won with a hefty margin in 2019.The incumbent, Neil Parish, resigned in April after he admitted watching pornography on his phone while sitting in the House of Commons. In Wakefield, the Conservative, Imran Ahmad Khan, was jailed after being convicted of sexually assaulting a teenage boy.Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain speaking in 2019 during his Conservative Party’s final election campaign rally in London.Kirsty Wigglesworth/Associated PressThe lurid circumstances that required these off-year elections makes the Conservative Party especially vulnerable. It adds to the perception of what critics call “Tory sleaze.” But there is deeper disillusionment with politics in Wakefield, where a strike at one of the bus companies has depressed business at shops and restaurants.“Politicians always make promises and then they always break them,” said Christine Lee, 82, a retired dress designer, as she browsed in one of Wakefield’s mostly deserted outdoor shopping malls. She said she did not plan to vote on Thursday because neither the Labour nor the Conservative candidate would make a difference.Given its high stakes, the campaign has been surprisingly muted. The Labour candidate, Simon Lightwood, who is comfortably ahead in the polls, has avoided making waves. His Tory opponent, Nadeem Ahmed, has gone quiet since he gave an ill-fated interview to The Daily Telegraph last week, in which he described his predecessor, Mr. Khan, as a “one bad apple,” who should not cause voters to turn against all Conservatives.A Labour stronghold in Wakefield. The party lost the seat in 2019, but has been ahead in polls there.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesDavid Herdson, who is running for the independent Yorkshire Party, left the Conservatives because of Mr. Johnson’s “reckless strategy” on Brexit.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesMr. Ahmed likened the case to that of Harold Shipman, a notorious English doctor and serial killer who is believed to have murdered 250 of his patients as a general practitioner before killing himself in prison in Wakefield in 2004. “Have we stopped trusting G.P.s?” Mr. Ahmed said to the Telegraph. “No, we still trust G.P.s and we know that he was one bad apple in there.”Mr. Johnson has so far kept his distance. On Friday, he skipped a conference of northern Conservative lawmakers in the nearby city of Doncaster, instead making a repeat visit to the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, where he met President Volodymyr Zelensky.To some local politicians, that was a telling sign.“Conservatives don’t think it’s worth fighting for,” said David Herdson, who is running for the seat as the candidate of the independent Yorkshire Party. “Labour thinks the election is in the bag, and they don’t want to make any mistakes.”Mr. Herdson, 48, who left the Conservative Party because of what he called Mr. Johnson’s “reckless strategy” in leaving the European Union, is emphasizing local concerns like affordable housing and better public transportation. He hopes for a respectable finish in the top five of a 15-candidate field. But in knocking on doors, he says he has encountered a “massive cynicism toward the political class in general.”A Labour Party spokeswoman, Phoebe Plomer, said Mr. Lightwood would spend the final days of the campaign telling voters that by defeating the Tories in Wakefield, they had a chance to force Mr. Johnson out of power. Under the rules of the Conservative Party, Mr. Johnson is not subject to another no-confidence vote for at least a year, though the rules can always be changed.A discount store in Wakefield, where a bus strike has emptied the town center.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesEither way, a loss in Wakefield would carry great symbolism. In 2019, the Conservatives pierced the red wall on the strength of Mr. Johnson’s promise to “get Brexit done.” That message appealed to disillusioned Labour voters, many of whom voted to leave the European Union in 2016. It was hailed as one of the most significant political realignments in British politics since the free-market revolution engineered by one of his Conservative predecessors, Margaret Thatcher.But instead of being revolutionary, Mr. Johnson’s leadership has been chaotic. In the wake of the no-confidence vote, his ethics adviser quit in despair last week, and Parliament is still scrutinizing whether the prime minister lied to lawmakers. On top of all that is a cost-of-living squeeze and a potential recession in the coming months.“There is this conventional thinking that Boris is this Heineken politician who can appeal to Labour voters,” Mr. Bale said, alluding to British ads in which a lager brand promised that it “refreshes the parts other beers cannot reach.”“But his appeal is actually kind of limited,” Mr. Bale said, “and he has become more of a liability then an asset.”Shoppers at an outdoor food market in Wakefield.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesGeoff Hayes, 72, who once worked in the now-defunct coal mines that ring Wakefield, said Mr. Johnson had sold many Labour voters on the promise that Brexit would liberate Britain from the regulatory shackles of the European Union. Now, however, they were realizing that the reality was trucks lined up for miles at ports on the English Channel, where they faced delays because of bureaucratic customs paperwork.“A lot of people thought Brexit was going to change everything,” said Mr. Hayes, as he gazed at peregrine falcons nesting in the steeple of Wakefield’s cathedral. “But in the end,” he said, “the Tories only care about the mega rich.” More

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      Northern Ireland Turns to Sinn Fein

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      Election results reflected the demoralization of unionist voters, the disarray of their leaders and an electorate with new priorities — much of which can be traced to Brexit.LONDON — Six years after Britain voted to leave the European Union, no part of the United Kingdom has felt the sting in the tail more than Northern Ireland, where Brexit laid the groundwork for Sinn Fein’s remarkable rise in legislative elections this week.With more than half of the votes counted on Saturday, Sinn Fein, the main Irish nationalist party, was closing in on victory, racking up 21 seats, the most of any party in the territory. The Democratic Unionist Party, which represents those who want Northern Ireland to remain part of the United Kingdom, slipped to second place, with 19 seats.Though Brexit was not on the ballot, it cast a long shadow over the campaign, particularly for the D.U.P., the flagship unionist party that has been at the helm of Northern Ireland’s power-sharing government since it was created by the Good Friday peace agreement nearly a quarter-century ago.Brexit’s legacy rippled through local elections across the British Isles: In London, where anti-Brexit voters turned Conservative Party bastions over to the Labour Party, and in the “red wall,” England’s pro-Brexit rust belt regions, where the Conservatives held off Labour. But in Northern Ireland, Brexit’s effect was decisive.For all of the history of Sinn Fein’s victory — the first for a party that calls for a united Ireland and has vestigial ties to the Irish Republican Army — the election results are less a breakthrough for Irish nationalism than a marker of the demoralization of unionist voters, the disarray of their leaders, and an electorate that put more of a priority on economic issues than sectarian struggles.Much of that can be traced to Brexit.A Sinn Fein election poster in Belfast next to a mural expressing support for a united Ireland.Andrew Testa for The New York Times“Coming to terms with the loss of supremacy is an awful lot for unionism to process,” said Diarmaid Ferriter, a professor of modern Irish history at University College Dublin. “But the unionists really managed to shoot themselves in the foot.”The D.U.P. struggled to hold together voters who are divided and angry over the North’s altered status — it is the only member of the United Kingdom that shares a border with the Republic of Ireland, a member of the European Union.That hybrid status has complicated life in many ways, most notably in necessitating a complex trading arrangement, the Northern Ireland Protocol, which imposes border checks on goods flowing to Northern Ireland from mainland Britain. Many unionists complain that it has driven a wedge between them and the rest of the United Kingdom by effectively creating a border in the Irish Sea.The D.U.P. endorsed the protocol, only to turn against it later and pull out of the last Northern Ireland government in protest. Unionist voters punished it for that U-turn, with some voting for a more hard-line unionist party and others turning to a nonsectarian centrist party, the Alliance, which also scored major gains.The success of the Alliance, political analysts said, suggests that Northern Ireland may be moving beyond the sectarian furies of the past and a binary division between unionists and nationalists.Loyalists protested against the Northern Ireland Protocol, a measure that imposes border checks on goods flowing to Northern Ireland from mainland Britain, in Portadown last year.Paulo Nunes dos Santos for The New York TimesEven Sinn Fein, which for decades was associated with the bloodstained struggle for Irish unity, said little about the topic during the campaign, keeping the focus on bread-and-butter issues like jobs, the cost of living and the overburdened health care system.With the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday accord approaching, some analysts said it was time to revisit the North’s political structure.The agreement ended decades of sectarian strife by, among other things, creating an open border on the island. But it also balanced political power between the nationalists and unionists, at a time when the predominantly Protestant unionists were the majority and the predominantly Catholic nationalists were a restive minority.Demographic trends have changed that: The faster-growing Catholic population is poised to overtake the Protestants. While the link between religion and political identification is not automatic — there are some Catholics who favor staying in the United Kingdom — the trends favored the nationalists, even before Brexit.As the largest party, Sinn Fein will have the right to name a first minister, the symbolic top official in the government. But the final seat count between nationalists and unionists is likely to be close, since the two other unionist parties won a handful of seats, and the one other party that designates itself as nationalist, the Social Democratic and Labour Party, performed poorly.A deli in Belfast last year. Its manager said the shop was buying more supplies from the European Union, because of difficulties in bringing goods from mainland Britain.Paulo Nunes dos Santos for The New York TimesAs the runner-up, the D.U.P. is entitled to name a deputy first minister, who functions as a de facto equal. Even so, it has not committed to taking part in a government with a Sinn Fein first minister. And it has threatened to boycott until the protocol is scrapped, a position that draws scant support beyond its hard-core base.“There’s fragmentation within parties that are trying to reflect a more secular Northern Ireland,” said Katy Hayward, a professor of politics at Queen’s University in Belfast. “That fits uncomfortably with the architects of the peace agreement. There’s no dominant group now. We’re all minorities.”In this more complex landscape, Professor Hayward said, Sinn Fein was likely to govern much as it campaigned, by focusing on competent management and sound policies rather than mobilizing an urgent campaign for Irish unity.Michelle O’Neill, the Sinn Fein leader in Northern Ireland who is set to be designated as the first minister, hailed what she called “the election of a generation.” But she said little about Irish unity. Sinn Fein’s overall leader, Mary Lou McDonald, said this week that she could foresee a referendum on Irish unification within a decade, and possibly “within a five-year time frame.”Mary Lou McDonald, center left, the president of Sinn Fein, speaking with potential voters and stall owners in April at St. George’s Market on a campaign visit in Belfast.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesFor the unionists, the path out of the wilderness is harder to chart. Professor Hayward said the D.U.P. faced a difficult choice in whether to take part in the next government.If it refuses, it would be violating the spirit of the Good Friday Agreement. It would also risk further alienating voters, particularly “soft unionists,” who have little patience for continued paralysis in the government.But if it joins the next government, that brings its own perils. The D.U.P. swung to the right during the campaign to fend off a challenge from the more hard-line Traditional Unionist Voice party. It has made its opposition to the Northern Ireland Protocol an article of faith.“There may be serious talks now about unionist unity, but there will be no government unless the protocol goes,” said David Campbell, chairman of the Loyalist Communities Council, which represents a group of pro-union paramilitary groups that vehemently oppose the protocol.That puts the D.U.P.’s future out of its hands, since the decision to overhaul the protocol lies with the British government. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has signaled that he is open to doing that — especially if it would facilitate a new Northern Ireland government — but he must weigh other considerations.The Good Friday Agreement established the open border line, which runs along the top of Cuilcagh Mountain, dividing the two Irelands.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesOverturning the protocol would raise tensions with the European Union and even risk igniting a trade war, a stark prospect at a time when Britain already faces soaring inflation and warnings that its economy might fall into recession later this year.It would also antagonize the United States, which has warned Mr. Johnson not to do anything that would jeopardize the Good Friday Agreement.“The Biden administration has made it very clear that the protocol is not a threat to the Good Friday Agreement,” said Bobby McDonagh, a former Irish ambassador to Britain. “It actually helps support the Good Friday Agreement. That will act as a sort of constraint on Johnson.” More