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      ‘Tuve que irme’: Hong Kong se debate entre el legado británico y el futuro autoritario de China

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      HONG KONG — El día en que Hong Kong fue devuelto a China hace un cuarto de siglo, el fabricante de fideos de Queen’s Road trabajaba como lo había hecho durante días y décadas previas, transformando harina y agua en el sustento de una ciudad llena de refugiados del continente. Para satisfacer los diversos gustos, elaboraba tiernos fideos de Shanghái y pasta al huevo cantonesa, resbaladizos envoltorios de wonton del sur de China y gruesas masas de dumpling muy apreciadas en Pekín.Cuando la bandera de cinco estrellas de la República Popular China sustituyó a la Union Jack el 1 de julio de 1997, llovió y llovió, y el agua subió rápidamente por Queen’s Road y sus afluentes. Algunos tomaron el diluvio como un presagio del control comunista, otros como un ritual de purificación para limpiar Hong Kong del imperialismo occidental.La tormenta no tuvo mayor significado para To Wo, quien administraba la tienda de fideos con su familia. To seguía trabajando todos los días del año, introduciendo la masa en máquinas ruidosas y vaciando tantos sacos de harina que todo quedaba empolvado de blanco, incluso el santuario del dios de la cocina.“Estaba ocupado”, dijo. “No tenía mucho tiempo para el miedo”.En los 25 años transcurridos desde el traspaso, la única constante ha sido el cambio, tan definido como desafiado por los habitantes de Queen’s Road, la avenida con más historia de Hong Kong. A su alrededor, la ciudad se ha transformado: por la vertiginosa expansión económica de China continental, que amenaza con hacer innecesario esta ciudad portuaria internacional, pero también por el aplastamiento de las libertades por parte de los actuales gobernantes de Hong Kong, que han llenado las cárceles de jóvenes que ahora son presos políticos.A medio camino de 2047, fecha oficial en el que finalizará el periodo  “un país, dos sistemas”, Hong Kong ha entrado en un purgatorio incierto.Para el fabricante de fideos To Wo, la ciudad ofrecía la esperanza de una vida mejor que la que tenía cuando huyó de China.A los 20 años, To escapó de las privaciones del sur de China para instalarse en Queen’s Road, la primera vía construida por los británicos tras tomar Hong Kong como botín de la Guerra del Opio.Bautizada en honor a la reina Victoria, la carretera trazaba la línea costera de una avariciosa potencia colonial. A medida que las instituciones del imperio —bancos, casas comerciales, escuelas, lugares de culto— brotaban a lo largo de ella, Queen’s Road fue evolucionando, y cada afluencia de nuevos habitantes modificaba su carácter. A pesar de la permanencia de los hitos de la calle, sus habitantes estaban menos arraigados, con escaso control sobre el futuro de la ciudad.En 1997, el gobierno chino prometió a Hong Kong una importante autonomía durante 50 años para preservar las libertades que la convirtieron en una capital financiera mundial, por no hablar de una de las metrópolis más emocionantes del planeta.Mientras To ha vivido ahí, Queen’s Road y sus estrechos callejones han sido una encrucijada mundial. Había casas financieras construidas sobre las fortunas del comercio del opio, tiendas de oro que prometían sólidas inversiones a los sobrevivientes de la agitación política, marcas de lujo europeas y comerciantes de aletas de tiburón y hierbas utilizadas en la medicina tradicional china.Rush hour on Queen’s Road Central.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesEn los primeros años tras el traspaso, los legisladores se deleitaron con un poder del que habían carecido durante la mayor parte del gobierno británico, en un edificio diseñado por los arquitectos responsables de una parte del Palacio de Buckingham. En el Tribunal Superior, en un tramo de Queen’s Road llamado Queensway, los jueces usaban pelucas siguiendo la moda británica. La clase empresarial, procedente de la élite de Shanghái, Londres y Bombay, entre otras ciudades, se sentía segura en el imperio de la ley.Durante más de una década, Pekín respetó en gran medida este acuerdo político que rige Hong Kong, llamado “un país, dos sistemas”. La fecha límite de 2047, cuando Pekín tomaría el control político total, parecía convenientemente lejana, aunque los hongkoneses tienen la costumbre de ser prevenidos.Los últimos tres años han comprimido el tiempo. En 2019, millones de manifestantes marcharon por Queen’s Road y otras avenidas, tal y como habían hecho en el pasado para frustrar las impopulares restricciones del gobierno. Esta vez, los enfrentamientos entre la policía y los manifestantes cortaron cualquier filamento de confianza. Durante meses, el gas lacrimógeno, el gas pimienta y las balas de goma envolvieron los centros comerciales. Una ley de seguridad nacional de dos años de antigüedad ha criminalizado la disidencia, y se ha detenido a personas por aplaudir en apoyo de un activista encarcelado.Ahora, a mitad de camino hacia 2047, Hong Kong ha entrado en un purgatorio incierto. Su desaparición ya se ha proclamado antes. En todas esas ocasiones —después de las plagas y los disturbios apoyados por los comunistas, la represión británica y el nerviosismo previo a la entrega— el territorio se ha regenerado.A pesar de la permanencia de los hitos que caracterizan a la avenida, su gente está menos arraigada y tiene poco control sobre el futuro de la ciudad.Queen’s Road fue la primera vía construida por los británicos cuando llegaron, y ha sido una encrucijada mundial durante más de cien años.Una metrópolis que rivaliza con Nueva York, Tokio o Londres no desaparecerá de la noche a la mañana. Pero la promesa de Pekín de mantener la ciudad en una campana de cristal política durante 50 años se ha hecho añicos. Los pobres de Hong Kong son cada vez más pobres, y el número de personas que se apresuran a marcharse ha aumentado.Los cambios sísmicos en Hong Kong están obligando a los residentes a reflexionar sobre lo que significa ser de este lugar en constante evolución. A lo largo de Queen’s Road —la avenida más antigua de una ciudad programada para reinventarse— esta cuestión de identidad resuena de forma muy diferente para un político, un manifestante y un fabricante de fideos.“Todo ha cambiado en Hong Kong”, dijo To. “Todos tenemos destinos diferentes”.‘Enfrentar la realidad’El 30 de junio de 1997, mientras sonaba por última vez “God Save the Queen”, Eunice Yung, entonces estudiante de secundaria, estaba enfurruñada en su casa, en un apartamento de Queen’s Road. Sus decepcionantes resultados en los exámenes, que le impedían obtener un cupo universitario en Hong Kong, ocupaban su mente.“Cuando pienso en el traspaso, me quedo en blanco”, dijo Yung. “Es una pena”.Al igual que muchos niños nacidos de inmigrantes recientes, Yung comenzó a trabajar cuando tenía 4 o 5 años, sentada con su bisabuela en una mesa, haciendo estallar discos de metal en la parte posterior de imanes de juguete. Cuando caminaba a su escuela católica, pasaba por los mercados de Queen’s Road, donde se vendían mariscos secos, y por un templo al que los pescadores acudían a rendir culto en barco, antes de que las obras de recuperación empujaran la avenida tierra adentro.Eunice Yung distribuyendo regalos del Día del Padre a sus electores. “En Hong Kong tenemos que enfrentar la realidad de que somos parte de China”.Los cambios sísmicos en Hong Kong están obligando a los residentes a reflexionar sobre lo que significa ser de este lugar en constante evolución.Yung terminó por encontrar cupo universitario en Vancouver para estudiar computación. Sin saberlo, se unió a la corriente de hongkoneses que emigraban por miedo a los nuevos gobernantes del territorio.Después de cada paroxismo en China —la caída de la dinastía Qing, la toma del poder por los comunistas, la Revolución Cultural, la masacre de Tiananmen— la población de Hong Kong se llenó de refugiados. Los años que precedieron al traspaso de poderes, cuando cientos de miles de personas huyeron a Occidente en busca de seguridad, fueron el único momento, hasta ahora, en que la población disminuyó.Yung no estaba en Canadá porque tuviera miedo por Hong Kong. Regresó a su país, se licenció en Derecho y compareció en los tribunales de Queensway. En 2016, ganó un escaño en el Consejo Legislativo como miembro de una fuerza política pro-Pekín.Yung, de 45 años, ha criticado las obras de arte en los museos financiados por el gobierno que desprecian al Partido Comunista Chino. Dijo que la ridiculización pública de los líderes chinos es el resultado de que “la gente perdió la cabeza”.En el museo M+. “En vez de expresarnos sin límites, debemos defender la dignidad de nuestro país”, dijo Yung, la funcionaria.Desde 2019, la ciudad se ha dividido entre los que apoyaron a los manifestantes y los que temían que se estuviera destruyendo la reputación favorable para los negocios de Hong Kong.Sergey Ponomarev para The New York Times“Algunos de los medios de comunicación extranjeros dicen que ‘China es siempre una cosa monstruosa, y que estás bajo su control y no tienes libertad’”, dijo Yung. “Pero en Hong Kong tenemos que enfrentar la realidad de que somos parte de China”.Sin pruebas, los políticos a favor de Pekín han acusado a quienes se unieron a las protestas de estar en connivencia con la Agencia Central de Inteligencia. La temible ley de seguridad ha llevado a los sindicatos y a los periódicos a cerrar por miedo a penas de prisión perpetua. Casi 50 políticos y activistas por la democracia han sido encarcelados en virtud de las nuevas normas. Comparecerán ante el Tribunal Superior de Queensway a finales de este año.En la actualidad, no hay protestas masivas en Queen’s Road ni en ningún otro lugar de Hong Kong.Queen’s Road West in the evening.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times“Creo que Hong Kong sigue siendo una ciudad muy libre”, dijo Yung. “Este tipo de manifestaciones, si las permitimos hasta cierto punto, dañarán nuestros sentimientos hacia nuestro país”.Hong Kong se ha dividido entre los que apoyaron a los manifestantes y los que se preocuparon por la destrucción de la reputación favorable a los negocios de Hong Kong. En 2019, HSBC, el banco más venerable de Hong Kong y uno de los primeros parangones de la globalización, fue acusado de cerrar una cuenta vinculada al financiamiento participativo pro democracia. Los manifestantes salpicaron con pintura roja los leones gigantes que custodian la sede del banco en Queen’s Road.Hong Kong no desaparecerá de la noche a la mañana. Pero la promesa de Pekín de mantener a la ciudad en una campana de cristal política durante 50 años se ha hecho añicos.En la actualidad no hay protestas masivas en Queen’s Road ni en ningún otro lugar de Hong Kong.“Cuando la gente le enseña a sus hijos a faltarle el respeto a su país, a decirles que vamos a derrocar a nuestro gobierno, eso hace daño”, dijo Yung. “En vez de expresarnos sin límites, debemos defender la dignidad de nuestro país”.‘Cuestionar nuestra identidad’El 1 de julio de 2019, el aniversario del traspaso, cientos de miles de residentes de Hong Kong se reunieron para una marcha a favor de la democracia a lo largo de Queen’s Road. Había familias de clase media con termos de agua, pensionistas en camiseta y estudiantes con paraguas amarillos que simbolizaban el movimiento de protesta.Separándose de la multitud, Brian Leung se desvió por una calle lateral que llevaba al nuevo edificio del Consejo Legislativo, uniéndose a otros manifestantes que ocultaban su identidad con máscaras. Asediaron el edificio, rompieron cristales, retorcieron las puertas metálicas y garabatearon grafitis contra el partido comunista.Mientras la policía se acercaba, Leung se subió a una mesa, se quitó la máscara y pronunció un manifiesto democrático. Fue el único manifestante que dio la cara.Oficiales de policía frente al Parque Victoria en el aniversario de la masacre de la Plaza de Tiananmen. En años anteriores, grandes multitudes se reunieron en el parque para conmemorar ese día.Una imagen de teléfono celular de una vela encendida y números que conmemoran el aniversario de la masacre de la Plaza de Tiananmen, que comenzó hace 33 años el 4 de junio.Hijo de migrantes chinos que nunca terminó la secundaria, Leung, que ahora tiene 28 años, es un ejemplo de la promesa de Hong Kong. Creció en una vivienda pública y fue el primer miembro de su familia en asistir a la Universidad de Hong Kong.Era una época en la que muchos jóvenes de Hong Kong se sentían orgullosos de su doble identidad: chinos, sí, pero de un tipo especial que apreciaba el derecho consuetudinario británico y los pasteles de nata de origen portugués.Cuando Pekín celebró los Juegos Olímpicos de verano en 2008, Leung animó a los equipos de Hong Kong y de China.“Creo que todos queríamos darle una oportunidad a China, y pensamos que con la vuelta a la madre patria, en Hong Kong podríamos formar parte de aquella gran nación”, dijo.La sociedad civil de Hong Kong, impulsada por la juventud, marcó la diferencia. Un grupo de adolescentes ayudó a convencer al gobierno de que archivara un plan de estudios pro-Pekín.Las marchas del verano de 2019, al igual que un plantón estudiantil cinco años antes, tuvieron un desenlace más doloroso. La policía respondió a los manifestantes sin líderes con una fuerza cada vez mayor, deteniendo a miles de adolescentes. Para cuando la pandemia de coronavirus restringió las concentraciones en 2020, una quietud había caído sobre Hong Kong.An intersection on Queensway..En la actualidad, solamente el dos por ciento de los jóvenes de Hong Kong se consideran “chinos”, según una encuesta local. Más de tres cuartas partes se identifican como “hongkoneses”. Hay orgullo en el cantonés, el patois de Hong Kong, en lugar del mandarín del continente.“Cuando quedó claro que China ya no estaba interesada en las reformas liberales, empezamos a cuestionar nuestra identidad como chinos”, dijo Leung, que editó una colección de ensayos llamada Hong Kong Nationalism. “Empezamos a pensar: ‘somos hongkoneses’”.Para los millones de personas que huyeron de la agitación en China, Hong Kong sirvió durante más de un siglo como refugio, pero también como estación de paso hacia un lugar mejor. Con el tiempo, la transitoriedad de Hong Kong se asentó. El territorio se convirtió en el hogar de millones de chinos, muchos de los cuales adoptaron nombres occidentales para facilitar la burocracia británica: Kelvin y Fiona, Gladys y Alvin, Brian y Eunice.​​Ahora, Hong Kong se está deshaciendo de sus residentes. En un mes de este año, salieron del aeropuerto tantas personas como las que emigraron a Hong Kong en todo 2019. Las continuas restricciones por el coronavirus hacen que casi nadie venga. Muchos de los activistas que no están en prisión están en el exilio. Taxistas, contadores y profesores se han marchado a nuevas vidas en el extranjero.Después de cada paroxismo en China —la caída de la dinastía Qing, la toma del poder por los comunistas, la Revolución Cultural, la masacre de Tiananmen— la población de Hong Kong se llenó de refugiados.Ahora, la ciudad se está deshaciendo de sus residentes. En un mes de este año, salieron del aeropuerto tantas personas como las que emigraron a Hong Kong en todo 2019.Horas después de que la policía desalojara el Consejo Legislativo con gases lacrimógenos en julio de 2019, Leung abandonó Hong Kong, con el corazón acelerado mientras el avión se elevaba en el aire.“No pude contener las lágrimas”, dijo Leung, que ahora vive en Estados Unidos. “Quiero mucho a Hong Kong. Por eso luché por ella y por eso tuve que irme”.No ha vuelto desde entonces.‘Ese era mi destino’To, el fabricante de fideos, arriesgó su vida para escapar de China en 1978. Se entrenó durante más de un año, perfeccionando su natación y aumentando su volumen para la caminata a través de las colinas. Su primera tentativa fracasó. En la segunda, las lluvias llenaron de hongos los pasteles de luna empaquetados para el viaje. Finalmente, tras siete noches en los bosques, vio a Hong Kong al otro lado del agua.“Nadamos hacia la luz”, dijo.Para los millones de personas que huyeron de la agitación en China, Hong Kong sirvió durante más de un siglo como refugio, pero también como estación de paso hacia un lugar mejor.Era una época en la que muchos jóvenes de Hong Kong se sentían orgullosos de su doble identidad: chinos, sí, pero de un tipo especial que apreciaba el derecho consuetudinario británico y los pasteles de nata de origen portugués.Queen’s Road deslumbró a To con sus coloridos carteles que anunciaban todo tipo de delicias: abulón y té blanco agujas de plata, whisky escocés y pasteles de crema.La China que había dejado era desesperadamente pobre. Sólo en dos ocasiones durante su infancia se sintió completamente lleno. Cuando la hermana de su esposa visitaba a su familia en China, hacía equilibrios con cañas de bambú cargadas de jarras de aceite de cocina sobre los hombros y se ponía varias capas de ropa para repartir entre sus parientes.Hoy en día, en algunas zonas de Guangdong, la provincia del sur de China vecina de Hong Kong, el auge económico más rápido y sostenido del mundo ha elevado el nivel de vida por encima del de algunos habitantes de la antigua colonia británica. A lo largo de Queen’s Road, los alquileres abusivos y la ralentización de los negocios han hecho que las familias de artesanos tengan que abandonar sus antiguas tiendas.A market on Queen’s Road East.To ya superó la edad de jubilación en China. Su hijo, To Tak-tai, de 35 años, se hará cargo algún día de la tienda de fideos, rezando al mismo dios de la cocina cubierto de harina.A diferencia de sus padres, él nació en Hong Kong. No piensa en irse.“Hong Kong es el hogar”, dice.Por ahora, To trabaja día tras día, alimentando las máquinas de hacer fideos. Hong Kong tiene una red de seguridad social irregular. No recuerda la última vez que disfrutó de unas buenas vacaciones.To vive con su familia en un estrecho apartamento, pero ha construido una mansión de seis pisos en su pueblo natal de Guangdong. Sus hermanos, que nunca salieron de China, viven cómodamente de las pensiones estatales. Él también sueña con jubilarse allí.“En Hong Kong, si no trabajo, no tengo nada”, dijo To, con el torso desnudo y las pestañas escarchadas de harina. “Pero venir a Hong Kong, ese era mi destino”.El lema de un cartel que dice: “Celebrando la entrega. Mano a mano. Comenzando un nuevo capítulo”.Tiffany May More

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      U.K. Conservatives Lose By-Elections, Adding to Pressure on Boris Johnson

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      The double defeat exposed the party’s vulnerabilities and was likely to revive talk of another no-confidence vote against the prime minister.LONDON — Britain’s governing Conservative Party lost two strategically important parliamentary seats on Friday, prompting the resignation of a party chairman and raising fresh doubts about the future of the country’s scandal-scarred leader, Prime Minister Boris Johnson.The double defeat is a stinging rebuke of Mr. Johnson, who survived a no-confidence vote in his party this month, precipitated by a scandal over illicit parties held at Downing Street during the coronavirus pandemic. And it revived talk of another attempt to oust him, though under the party’s current rules Mr. Johnson cannot face another challenge until next June.In elections on Thursday, voters in Tiverton and Honiton, a rural stretch of southwest England that is the party’s heartland, and in the faded northern industrial city of Wakefield evicted the Conservative Party from seats that had come open after lawmakers were brought down by scandals of their own.The Labour Party’s victory in Wakefield was widely expected, and it ran up a comfortable margin over the Conservatives. In the south, which had been viewed as a tossup, the Liberal Democrats scored a stunning upset, overcoming a huge Conservative majority in the last election to win the seat by a solid margin.It was the first time a governing party had lost two seats in a parliamentary by-election since 1991. And as grim as the electoral prospects for the Conservatives look, they could worsen further in the next year, with galloping inflation, interest rate hikes and Britain almost certainly heading for a recession.Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain, who is dealing with swelling discontent at home, was in Rwanda on Friday for the opening ceremony of a Commonwealth summit.Pool photo by Dan KitwoodThe political fallout was swift and stark: Oliver Dowden resigned his job as a chairman of the Conservative Party on Friday morning in a letter sent to Mr. Johnson less than two hours after the votes had been counted. The party’s supporters were “distressed and disappointed by recent events, and I share their feelings,” Mr. Dowden wrote, adding that “somebody must take responsibility.”A longtime ally of Mr. Johnson, Mr. Dowden pointedly professed his loyalty to the Conservative Party, rather than to its leader. But on Friday, Mr. Johnson showed no signs of reconsidering his position, even as he acknowledged the defeats and promised to listen to the voters.“Midterm governments, postwar, lose by-elections,” said the prime minister, who is attending a meeting of the leaders of the Commonwealth in Kigali, Rwanda.“We are facing pressures on the costs of living,” Mr. Johnson added. “We are seeing spikes in fuel prices, energy costs, food costs, that is hitting people. We have to recognize that there is more that we have got to do and we certainly will. Challenged later on his own responsibility for the two losses, Mr. Johnson responded: “I genuinely, genuinely, don’t think that the way forward in British politics is to focus on issues of personalities, whether they are mine or others.” Rishi Sunak, the chancellor of the Exchequer, offered his support to the prime minister, echoing his explanation of the defeats and accepting some of the blame. “We all take responsibility for the results and I’m determined to continue working to tackle the cost of living,” he wrote on Twitter.Mr. Sunak had been seen as a potential successor to Mr. Johnson until his popularity plummeted this year, and — although other senior ministers kept noticeably quiet — his statement suggests that a coordinated cabinet move against the prime minister was unlikely. However, one senior Conservative figure, Michael Howard, called for the resignation of a prime minister now seen by many as an electoral liability. “The party, and more importantly the country, would be better off under new leadership,” Mr. Howard, a former Tory leader, told the BBC, adding, “Members of the Cabinet should very carefully consider their positions.”And Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, a senior Conservative lawmaker, said Mr. Johnson could still be removed either by a cabinet rebellion or if the rule protecting him from another no-confidence vote for a year was changed. “There will be a lot of conversations taking place next week,” he told Times Radio, “and we’ll have to see what happens.”The defeats exposed Conservative vulnerabilities on two fronts: the so-called red wall, in the industrial north of England, where Mr. Johnson shattered a traditional Labour stronghold in the 2019 general election, and in the southwest, a traditional Tory stronghold often called the “blue wall.”The political fallout was swift and stark: Oliver Dowden resigned his job as a chairman of the Conservative Party on Friday morning in a letter sent to Mr. Johnson less than two hours after the votes had been counted.Paul Ellis/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIn Tiverton and Honiton, where the Liberal Democrats won 53 percent of the vote to the Conservatives’ 39 percent, the victorious candidate, Richard Foord, said the result would send “a shock wave through British politics.” The Liberal Democrats’ leader, Ed Davey, called it “the biggest by-election victory our country has ever seen.”The Labour leader, Keir Starmer, said that his party’s victory in Wakefield, where Simon Lightwood won a solid 48 percent of the vote to the Conservative candidate’s 30 percent, was “a clear judgment on a Conservative Party that has run out of energy and ideas.”While the political contours of the two districts are very different, they share a common element: a Conservative lawmaker who resigned in disgrace. In Tiverton and Honiton, Neil Parish quit in April after he admitted watching pornography on his phone while sitting in Parliament. In Wakefield, Imran Ahmad Khan was sentenced to 18 months in prison in May after being convicted of sexually assaulting a teenage boy.Mr. Khan’s legal troubles, which included multiple unsuccessful efforts to have his case heard secretly, meant that Wakefield did not have a functioning representative in Parliament for two years. “The whole unfortunate situation is about a broken political system that ignores the voters and their wishes, and politicians who don’t do the right thing or serve the people who got them into power,” said Gavin Murray, editor of the Wakefield Express newspaper. “This point is amplified and exaggerated by the behavior of Boris and Downing Street.”While there had been little expectation that the Conservatives would hold on to the Wakefield seat, the scale of the victory for Labour suggested that the party could compete successfully against the Conservatives in the next general election.The giant swing in votes in Tiverton and Honiton, a usually safe Conservative district where the party had hoped to hold on, was even more sobering for Mr. Johnson. It suggested that even the most loyal Tory voters had become disenchanted with the serial scandals and nonstop drama surrounding the prime minister.The Labour candidate Simon Lightwood won a solid 48 percent of the vote to the Conservatives’ 30 percent in Wakefield.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesLast year, the Conservatives were stunned by the loss of a parliamentary seat in Chesham and Amersham, a well-heeled district northwest of London. Analysts said that it suggested a backlash against Mr. Johnson’s divisive brand of politics and tax-and-spend policies.The government has promised to “level up” and bolster the economy in northern England, a reward to the red-wall voters. But some analysts see a significant risk of support fracturing among traditional Tories in the south.The Liberal Democrats specialize in fighting on local issues in by-elections. They have a long history of achieving surprise results, and success for them in Tiverton and Honiton consolidated the party’s strong performance in local elections in May, where they also emerged the big winners.In the days leading up to the two elections, Labour and the Liberal Democrats both concentrated their resources in the districts they were better placed to win, leaving the other a freer run. Worryingly for Mr. Johnson, that tactic proved effective.Vince Cable, a former leader of the Liberal Democrats, said that rather than any official cooperation between the two parties, there was a “tacit understanding, relying on the voters to get to a sensible outcome.” Kenneth Baker, a former chairman of the Conservative Party and a member of the House of Lords, said that Mr. Johnson was now too polarizing a figure.“If the Conservative Party continues to be led by Boris,” he said, “there is no chance of the Conservatives winning an overall majority.” More

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      Conservatives Lose 2 U.K. By-Elections, Adding to Pressure on Boris Johnson

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      The double defeat exposed the party’s vulnerabilities and was likely to revive talk of another no-confidence vote against the prime minister.LONDON — Britain’s governing Conservative Party lost two strategically important parliamentary seats on Friday, prompting the resignation of the party’s chairman and raising fresh doubts about the scandal-scarred leadership of Prime Minister Boris Johnson.The double defeat is a stinging rebuke of Mr. Johnson, who survived a no-confidence vote in his party this month, precipitated by a scandal over illicit parties held at Downing Street during the coronavirus pandemic. It will most likely revive talk of another no-confidence vote, though under the party’s current rules, Mr. Johnson should not face another challenge until next June.In elections on Thursday, voters in Tiverton and Honiton, a rural stretch of southwest England that is the party’s heartland, and in the faded northern industrial city of Wakefield evicted the Conservative Party from seats that had come open after lawmakers were brought down by scandals of their own.The Labour Party’s victory in Wakefield was widely expected, and it ran up a comfortable margin over the Conservatives. In the south, which had been viewed as a tossup, the Liberal Democrats scored a stunning upset, overcoming a huge Conservative majority in the last election to win the seat by a solid margin.It was the first time a governing party had lost two seats in a parliamentary by-election since 1991. And as grim as the electoral prospects for the Conservatives look, they could worsen further in the next year, with galloping inflation, interest rate hikes and Britain almost certainly heading for a recession.Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain, who is dealing with swelling discontent at home, was in Rwanda on Friday for the opening ceremony of a Commonwealth summit.Pool photo by Dan KitwoodThe political fallout was swift and stark: Oliver Dowden resigned his job as a chairman of the Conservative Party on Friday morning in a letter sent to Mr. Johnson less than two hours after the votes had been counted. The party’s supporters were “distressed and disappointed by recent events, and I share their feelings,” Mr. Dowden wrote, adding that “somebody must take responsibility.”A longtime ally of Mr. Johnson, Mr. Dowden pointedly professed his loyalty to the Conservative Party, rather than to its leader. But on Friday, Mr. Johnson showed no signs of reconsidering his position, even as he acknowledged the defeats and promised to listen to the voters.“Midterm governments, postwar, lose by-elections,” said the prime minister, who is attending a meeting of the leaders of the Commonwealth in Kigali, Rwanda.“We are facing pressures on the costs of living,” Mr. Johnson added. “We are seeing spikes in fuel prices, energy costs, food costs, that is hitting people. We have to recognize that there is more that we have got to do and we certainly will, we will keep going addressing the concerns of people until we get through this patch.”Rishi Sunak, the chancellor of the Exchequer, offered his support to the prime minister, echoing his explanation of the defeats and accepting some of the blame. “We all take responsibility for the results and I’m determined to continue working to tackle the cost of living,” he wrote on Twitter.Mr. Sunak had been seen as a potential successor to Mr. Johnson until his popularity plummeted this year, and — although other senior ministers kept noticeably quiet — his statement suggests that a coordinated cabinet move against the prime minister was unlikely.However, one senior Conservative figure, Michael Howard, called for the resignation of a prime minister now seen by many as an electoral liability. “The party, and more importantly the country, would be better off under new leadership,” Mr. Howard, a former Tory leader, told the BBC, adding, “Members of the Cabinet should very carefully consider their positions.”The defeats exposed Conservative vulnerabilities on two fronts: the so-called red wall, in the industrial north of England, where Mr. Johnson shattered a traditional Labour stronghold in the 2019 general election, and in the southwest, a traditional Tory stronghold often called the “blue wall.”The political fallout was swift and stark: Oliver Dowden resigned his job as a chairman of the Conservative Party on Friday morning in a letter sent to Mr. Johnson less than two hours after the votes had been counted.Paul Ellis/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIn Tiverton and Honiton, where the Liberal Democrats won 53 percent of the vote to the Conservatives’ 39 percent, the victorious candidate, Richard Foord, said the result would send “a shock wave through British politics.” The Liberal Democrats’ leader, Ed Davey, called it “the biggest by-election victory our country has ever seen.”The Labour leader, Keir Starmer, said that his party’s victory in Wakefield, where Simon Lightwood won a solid 48 percent of the vote to the Conservative candidate’s 30 percent, was “a clear judgment on a Conservative Party that has run out of energy and ideas.”While the political contours of the two districts are very different, they share a common element: a Conservative lawmaker who resigned in disgrace. In Tiverton and Honiton, Neil Parish quit in April after he admitted watching pornography on his phone while sitting in Parliament. In Wakefield, Imran Ahmad Khan was sentenced to 18 months in prison in May after being convicted of sexually assaulting a teenage boy.Mr. Khan’s legal troubles, which included multiple unsuccessful efforts to have his case heard secretly, meant that Wakefield did not have a functioning representative in Parliament for two years.“The whole unfortunate situation is about a broken political system that ignores the voters and their wishes, and politicians who don’t do the right thing or serve the people who got them into power,” said Gavin Murray, editor of the Wakefield Express newspaper. “This point is amplified and exaggerated by the behavior of Boris and Downing Street.”While there had been little expectation that the Conservatives would hold on to the Wakefield seat, the scale of the victory for Labour suggested that the party could compete successfully against the Conservatives in the next general election.The giant swing in votes in Tiverton and Honiton, a usually safe Conservative district where the party had hoped to hold on, was even more sobering for Mr. Johnson. It suggested that even the most loyal Tory voters had become disenchanted with the serial scandals and nonstop drama surrounding the prime minister.The Labour candidate Simon Lightwood won a solid 48 percent of the vote to the Conservatives’ 30 percent in Wakefield.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesLast year, the Conservatives were stunned by the loss of a parliamentary seat in Chesham and Amersham, a well-heeled district northwest of London. Analysts said that it suggested a backlash against Mr. Johnson’s divisive brand of politics and tax-and-spend policies.The government has promised to “level up” and bolster the economy in northern England, a reward to the red-wall voters. But some analysts see a significant risk of support fracturing among traditional Tories in the south.The Liberal Democrats specialize in fighting on local issues in by-elections. They have a long history of achieving surprise results, and success for them in Tiverton and Honiton consolidated the party’s strong performance in local elections in May, where they also emerged the big winners.In the days leading up to the two elections, Labour and the Liberal Democrats both concentrated their resources in the districts they were better placed to win, leaving the other a freer run. Worryingly for Mr. Johnson, that tactic proved effective.Vince Cable, a former leader of the Liberal Democrats, said that rather than any official cooperation between the two parties, there was a “tacit understanding, relying on the voters to get to a sensible outcome.”“Because the economic outlook is so awful, certainly for the next 12 to 18 months, it wouldn’t surprise me if Johnson did something very risky and went for an autumn election,” Mr. Cable said at an election-eve briefing.That is a remarkable reversal of fortune for a party that won an 80-seat majority in Parliament only two-and-half years ago on the strength of Mr. Johnson’s promise to “get Brexit done.”Kenneth Baker, a former chairman of the Conservative Party and a member of the House of Lords, said that Mr. Johnson was now too polarizing a figure.“If the Conservative Party continues to be led by Boris,” he said, “there is no chance of the Conservatives winning an overall majority.” 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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      Boris Johnson Is in Trouble, and So Is Britain’s Conservative Party

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      LONDON — For Boris Johnson, Britain’s embattled and scandal-ridden prime minister, nowhere is safe.On Thursday, that may become inescapably clear. Two local elections — one in a traditional Tory area in South Devon that the party has controlled almost continuously since 1885, the other in a postindustrial seat in North England that the Tories took from Labour for the first time in 90 years in 2019 — will deliver a decisive assessment of Mr. Johnson’s flailing popularity. As things stand, the Conservatives are set to lose both.Mr. Johnson’s ability to win over such disparate people and places — affluent farmers and neglected manufacturers, the shires in the South and old Labour heartlands in the North — once ensured his position at the top of the Conservative Party. Yet now, as Britain hovers on the brink of economic recession, the constituencies that previously united around the prime minister appear to be rejecting him. For Mr. Johnson, his authority frayed by a recent no confidence vote, a double defeat would leave his tenure hanging by a thread.But the Conservatives’ problems are much bigger than the prime minister. After 12 years in office, under three different leaders, the Conservatives have collectively set the stage for Britain’s woes. The balance sheet is dire: Wages haven’t risen in real terms since 2010, austerity has hollowed out local communities, and regional inequality has deepened. Britain’s protracted departure from the European Union, pursued by the Conservatives without a clear plan, has only made matters worse.For this litany of failures, the Conservatives seem to be finally paying the price. After four successive electoral victories, each one with a larger share of the vote, the party has trailed in the polls all year. Thursday’s elections are likely to be yet another indicator of the public’s growing disenchantment, one that bodes badly for the party’s chances in the next election, due by the start of 2025. Unable to address the country’s deep-seated problems and devoid of direction, the Conservatives are in trouble — whether led by Mr. Johnson or not.As the prices of food and energy soar to record levels, Conservatives can point to causes outside their control: the pandemic’s global disruption, lockdowns in China, Russia’s war in Ukraine. But they cannot explain why, in this time of global crisis, Britain is afflicted with particular severity. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Britain’s economy won’t grow at all next year — a bleak forecast shared only, among major economies, with Russia.That should concern the Conservatives, whose dismal economic record is visible everywhere, from rising levels of poverty to chronically underfunded public services. In the National Health Service, to which Conservatives love to pronounce their loyalty, wages for health care workers have fallen in real terms, and an estimated 110,000 positions lie vacant. As the waiting list for medical attention hits an all-time high, ever more Britons are going private: The average amount now spent by households on health care, as a percentage of G.D.P., is nearing levels in America. For a country so proud of its public health care, it’s an especially painful development.For Conservatives, the chaos of Mr. Johnson’s prime ministership offers another appealing alibi. Having first ridden on the back of Mr. Johnson’s unruliness, Conservatives now claim that it is impeding their ability to address the serious problems facing the country. They often complain that they just want to “get back to governing.” But the truth is that Conservatives gave up on governing long ago — a fact that accounts both for Britain’s current mess and Mr. Johnson’s appeal in the first place.Indeed, while Mr. Johnson’s own desperation to become party leader was always an open secret, his eventual rise to the top relied on his Conservative colleagues’ desperation as well. By 2019, after almost a decade in power and with little positive to show for it, there was a pressing need to plot a new national course. In a rut and out of ideas, Conservatives turned instead to a known peddler of feel-good fantasies. Mr. Johnson offered Conservatives an escape — from Europe, seriousness and self-doubt. What he lacked in sense of direction he made up for with his boundless optimism and sense of humor. Punch lines could take the place of policy, raising spirits if not wages.Mr. Johnson’s boosterism, giddily amplified by his cheerleaders in the right-wing press, worked for a while. During the push to leave the European Union, and even during the devastatingly mishandled pandemic, Mr. Johnson could play the role of mascot, rallying the nation for the task ahead. But now in the wreckage of that double disruption, each one exacerbated by Mr. Johnson’s incompetence, the Conservative leader has lost his charm. His jokes, amid an escalating cost-of-living crisis, fall flat. And having finally “got Brexit done,” as his winning campaign slogan promised, Mr. Johnson struggles to pin blame for the nation’s troubles on the European Union. Fed up with broken promises and brazen deceit, voters are turning against him.But Conservatives can avoid their own reckoning for only so long. First through austerity, then through Brexit and Mr. Johnson, the Conservatives have left Britain in the ruins of their ambition. Each one of their proposed solutions, offered in the name of national renewal, has made the situation worse. No one in the party can escape blame for this baleful legacy. One of the pretenders to Mr. Johnson’s throne — Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss or Jeremy Hunt — may offer a change in style. But a substantial change of course is unlikely to come. An economy predicated on low productivity and low investment, buttressed by a self-defeating lack of seriousness about Britain’s condition, is all the Conservatives seem to be able to offer.In the 1960s, an English satirist named Peter Cook warned that Britain was in danger of “sinking giggling into the sea.” Today, the feeling is pervasive. Over 12 years, the Conservatives have unmoored Britain from its foundations and perpetuated a failed economic model, accelerating the nation’s descent into disorder. For the most part, Conservatives have cheered the country on its way. On Thursday, Britain will at least learn if the tide is finally turning.Samuel Earle (@swajcmanearle) is a British journalist at work on a book about how the Conservative Party has dominated Britain for almost two centuries.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. 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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      As Boris Johnson Stumbles, Labour Struggles to Offer a Clear Message

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      Out of power for 12 years, Britain’s Labour Party has made some gains, but its message hasn’t won back the rust belt regions that abandoned it in the last election.LONDON — When Boris Johnson hit energy companies with a windfall tax last week as a way of providing more aid for struggling consumers, it was a bittersweet moment for the opposition Labour Party, which had been promoting just such a plan for months.For once, Labour could claim to have won “the battle of ideas.” But at a stroke, Mr. Johnson had co-opted the party’s marquee policy and claimed the credit.This might have been a moment of opportunity for Labour. Mr. Johnson’s leadership has been in jeopardy because of a scandal over illicit lockdown-busting parties in Downing Street — missteps highlighted by a civil servant’s report last week that said senior leadership “must bear responsibility” for the failure to follow the rules.But some political analysts think Labour should focus less on the “partygate” scandal and more on outlining a clear agenda to British voters, who face rising inflation and a possible recession.Prime Minister Boris Johnson outside 10 Downing Street in London. His leadership has been in jeopardy because of illicit lockdown-busting parties held there.Dominic Lipinski/Press Association, via Associated PressNow out of power for 12 years, Labour has lost the last four general elections, including a thrashing in 2019 when Jeremy Corbyn, a left-winger and the party’s leader at the time, was crushed by Mr. Johnson’s Conservatives.John McTernan, a political strategist and onetime aide to then-Prime Minister Tony Blair, said that while Labour had made a decent recovery under the current leader, Keir Starmer, it had not yet “closed the deal” with the electorate.“It looks like modest progress because it is modest progress” said Mr. McTernan, while adding that it was still a “massive rebalancing” after the 2019 defeat.He praised the advances made under Mr. Starmer, but said the party still had work to do if it hoped to install a Labour government in place of the Tories. “This is the year the tempo has to pick up,” he said.And while the Conservatives lost badly in recent local elections, Labour has made only limited progress, with smaller parties doing well.Mr. Starmer suffered a setback recently when the police reopened an investigation into whether he, too, broke coronavirus rules. He promptly promised that he would resign if he were fined by the police — in contrast to Mr. Johnson, who suffered that fate in April but refused to quit.But whatever Mr. Starmer’s future, the Labour Party has yet to draft a convincing message to win back rust belt regions that abandoned it in the last election and that — judging by the local election results — remain to be convinced.A polling station this month in Wandsworth, England. While the Conservatives lost badly in recent local elections, Labour has made only limited progress, with smaller parties doing well.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesIn the 2019 general election, parts of England that for decades had voted for Labour switched en masse to the Conservatives, allowing Mr. Johnson to recast the political map just as Donald J. Trump did in the United States in 2016.Since then, Mr. Starmer has junked much of Mr. Corbyn’s socialist agenda, posed frequently alongside the British flag to illustrate his patriotism, taken a tough line against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and become the first Labour leader in more than a decade to visit NATO.But the party has yet to define itself with a clear new vision to British voters, and Mr. Starmer, a former chief prosecutor, has little of the charisma that distinguishes leaders in the mold of Mr. Trump and Mr. Johnson.Even he accepts that Labour is not yet in a solid, election-winning position.“I always said the first thing we needed to do was to recognize that if you lose badly, you don’t blame the electorate, you change your party,” Mr. Starmer said in an interview this year after meeting with voters at a town-hall meeting at Burnley College in northwestern England. “We have spent the best part of two years doing that heavy lifting, that hard work.”A supermarket in London. Prime Minister Boris Johnson promised a new and more generous package of aid worth billions of dollars to help all British households.Tolga Akmen/EPA, via ShutterstockYet Labour’s task is huge.In 2019, the Conservatives captured areas like Burnley, in Britain’s postindustrial “red wall,” and Labour polled poorly in Scotland, once another heartland, losing out to the Scottish National Party. Looming changes to electoral boundaries are likely to favor the Conservatives in the next general election, which must take place by the end of 2024 but that many expect next year.So Labour is hosting a series of town-hall meetings where uncommitted voters are asked what would lure them back to the party.After the gathering in Burnley, Lisa Nandy, a senior member of the Labour Party, reflected on the project to mend what she called “a breakdown in trust” between Labour and its traditional voters.“It broke my heart in 2019 when I watched communities where I grew up and that I call home turning blue for the first time in history,” said Ms. Nandy, referring to the campaign color used by the Conservatives. She represents Wigan, another former industrial town, speaks for Labour on how to spread prosperity to areas outside England’s prosperous southeast, and knows that her party has work to do.People at the meeting in Burnley liked the idea of cutting energy bills by placing a windfall tax on the profits of oil and gas firms, said Ms. Nandy, speaking before the government announced the plan. Yet few at this time knew this was one of Labour’s main policy proposals.“The question is, why don’t they know this is what we have been saying?” Ms. Nandy lamented earlier this year, referring to voters.The reason, she thinks, is that politicians spend too much time in London and too little “on people’s own territory having conversations with them about things that matter to them.”Labour is also reaching out to a business community whose ties to the government have been strained over Brexit rules that pile mounds of extra red tape onto many exporters. At a digital meeting with businesses in the Midlands, Seema Malhotra, who speaks for Labour on business and industrial issues, heard a litany of problems, including customs bureaucracy, inflation, rising energy and wage costs, and supply-chain difficulties.Labour Party signs in Bradford, England.Mary Turner for The New York Times“I don’t think anyone is expecting full policy across the board until the time of the next election,” she said. “A lot of what we need to do is about rebuilding our relationship with the country and setting out our values, and people need to get to know the Labour Party again.”“Whilst people are prepared to listen to Labour again, we cannot be complacent,” she added. “Many people have yet to feel that we have fully moved on from the past enough to now trust us. We have work to do on continuing to demonstrate that our party has changed.”Some analysts argue that what Labour really needs is a sharper message.“I know so many progressives who think that politics is like a football game: If you have a 10-point plan on health and your opponents only have a five-point plan you win 10 to 5,” Mr. McTernan said. “You don’t.”Instead, he added, “You have to say: ‘This is Britain’s big challenge. Labour is the answer. Here’s why and here’s how.’”To succeed, the party needs to convince people like Ged Ennis, the director of a renewable energy company that equipped Burnley College with solar panels. He has voted for Labour and the Conservatives over the years, but opted for the centrist Liberal Democrats in 2019.Mr. Ennis said he had been convinced that Labour was keen to listen but confessed to having a hazy picture of Mr. Starmer’s politics. “I think what he needs to do is to be brave and to be really clear about what he wants to deliver,” he said. More

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      in Elections

      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