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      Boris Johnson and His Party Suffer Setbacks in Local Voting in Britain

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      But the British leader appeared to have survived the storm — for now at least — as the head of the opposition Labour Party came under scrutiny for violating lockdown rules himself.LONDON — Embroiled in a sprawling scandal over parties in Downing Street that broke lockdown rules, Britain’s prime minister, Boris Johnson, suffered a succession of setbacks on Friday in local elections as voters across the country abandoned his Conservative Party.But by the end of the day, Mr. Johnson appeared to have survived the storm — for now at least — and to have turned the tables on the opposition Labour Party leader, Keir Starmer, who on Friday learned that the police will investigate whether he, too, broke lockdown laws.That news grabbed headlines, taking the gloss off election results that had been good — but not spectacular — for Labour while boosting smaller, centrist Liberal Democrats.With most of the votes counted in England, the Conservatives had lost more than 280 races to elect “councillors” — representatives in municipalities — in what Mr. Johnson acknowledged had been a “tough night in some parts of the country.”The results were closely watched because, after Mr. Johnson was fined for breaking lockdown rules, some of his fellow Conservatives had been considering pressing for a no-confidence vote that could evict him from Downing Street.Although his party avoided the type of electoral meltdown that might have propelled that threat to Mr. Johnson’s future, the results were nevertheless unnerving for a governing party that is confronting strong economic headwinds.London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, right, celebrates Labour’s victory Friday in Wandsworth — traditionally a Conservative borough.Hannah Mckay/ReutersAdding to the party’s troubles, the Irish nationalist party, Sinn Fein, was on track to emerge as the largest party in Northern Ireland after legislative elections, a seismic political shift that could kindle hopes for Irish unity but also sow unrest in a territory where delicate power-sharing arrangements have kept the peace for two decades.The Conservatives’ losses of two boroughs in London — Westminster, which has been held by the party since its creation almost 60 years ago, and Wandsworth — were serious symbolic blows.“Waking up to catastrophic results for the party in London,” Gavin Barwell, who was chief of staff to the former prime minister, Theresa May, wrote on Twitter.These flagship councils were held by Conservatives even when Tony Blair swept to power in a landslide election victory for Labour in 1997, and when the Conservatives imposed austerity measures after 2010 and under Ms. May, he noted. “Losing them should be a wake up call for the Conservative Party,” Mr. Barwell wrote.There was more bad news for the party in Scotland, where Conservatives suffered losses and a BBC analysis suggested that results projected nationally would give Labour 35 percent of the vote, Conservatives 30 percent and the Liberal Democrats 19 percent.With 124 of 146 councils in England having declared their results, the Conservatives had shed more than 280 seats, which meant they lost control of several boroughs. Labour gained around 60 council seats, fewer than the Liberal Democrats, who gained more than 150. The Greens, another smaller party, also made advances, winning around 50 seats.The setback to the Conservatives comes as Britain’s economic picture is deteriorating, putting the financial squeeze on Britons. Growth in Britain is expected to be the lowest in the G7 next year and domestic energy bills are soaring just as the government has been raising taxes. On Thursday, the Bank of England raised interest rates while warning that inflation could hit 10 percent. With voters in a restive mood, a good performance by the centrist Liberal Democrats and the smaller Greens was another warning for Mr. Johnson. The risk for him is that Labour’s advances in big cities could be coming as Liberal Democrats or Greens make gains in parts of the south of England that are traditional Conservative heartlands.Nicola Sturgeon, first minister of Scotland, celebrating election results in Glasgow on Friday.Russell Cheyne/ReutersBut Labour’s progress outside London was mixed, and most analysts were skeptical of Mr. Starmer’s claims that the results marked a “massive turning point” for his party.Labour’s challenge is to win back the so-called “red wall” regions in the north and middle of the country that it once dominated but which switched en masse to the Conservatives in the 2019 general election.James Johnson, who was in charge of polling for Ms. May, wrote on Twitter that the results did not herald a dramatic recovery for the Labour Party “but they do show Labour doing as well in the Red Wall as they did when they last held the Red Wall — and that should worry Conservatives.” In Wandsworth in London, some voters expressed anger at Mr. Johnson’s lockdown scandals as they went to vote.“I would have always identified myself as Conservative, but this vote today was a vote to show that I don’t agree with the government,” said Marcel Aramburo, 62, who has lived in the area for decades.While he said he was happy with the way local issues have been handled under the Conservative council, he felt it was time to vote Labour after becoming increasingly disillusioned with the Conservatives.“I am unhappy with the people running this country,” he said. “Everything that comes out of their mouths is a lie.”Yet Mr. Starmer, who has seized on Mr. Johnson’s difficulties over the Downing Street parties, now has a problem of his own with the news that the police will once again investigate allegations that he broke lockdown rules himself.Keir Starmer, leader of the opposition Labour Party, celebrating election results in Carlisle on Friday.Scott Heppell/ReutersA finding that Mr. Starmer broke the law would put the Labour leader under intense pressure to quit, given that he has called for Rishi Sunak, the chancellor of the exchequer, to resign for briefly attending an illicit gathering in Downing Street to celebrate Mr. Johnson’s birthday. Mr. Starmer has been even more scathing about Mr. Johnson’s leadership after news of the Downing Street parties broke.The allegations against Mr. Starmer center on a gathering in April last year at which he was pictured drinking beer with other party members during a campaign visit to Durham. That has led tabloid newspapers to call the case “beergate.”The police had already looked into the case and decided to take no action but, on Friday, they issued a statement saying that in light of “significant new evidence” they were now investigating possible breaches of coronavirus rules.But in recent days, Labour has come under pressure after it admitted that, despite earlier denials, the party’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, was also at the gathering in Durham.Megan Specia More

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      U.K. Local Elections: What to Look For

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      National politics may not be front and center in voters’ minds, but how they cast their ballots could signal their opinions of the main parties.LONDON — Rarely has the American political maxim “all politics is local” seemed more appropriate for an election in Britain.When voters go to the polls on Thursday to select thousands of representatives in scores of local municipalities in England, Scotland and Wales, their choices will reverberate in British national politics, potentially serving as a referendum on the Conservative Party and its scandal-scarred leader, Prime Minister Boris Johnson.Heavy Conservative losses could crystallize fears in the party that Mr. Johnson’s attendance at social gatherings that violated Covid restrictions has hopelessly tarnished his political brand — and, by extension, the party’s. That could provoke a no-confidence vote in his leadership, forcing him from office.This does not mean the scandal over Downing Street parties is uppermost in the minds of many voters. They care more about quotidian concerns such as garbage collection, road maintenance and planning rules — issues that are controlled by elected local council members.Why are the Conservatives vulnerable?The Conservatives face stiff headwinds as Britain struggles with soaring energy and food costs. The scandal over illicit parties held at Downing Street has deepened the anti-incumbent mood, leading some Conservative members of Parliament to worry that Mr. Johnson could endanger their own seats in a future general election.Although his energetic support of Ukraine and of its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, has changed the subject for now, Mr. Johnson still faces several developments that could further erode his standing.Prime Minister Boris Johnson, right, with border officers at Southampton Airport, in southern England, on Wednesday.Pool photo by Adrian DennisThe police could impose more fines on him for breaking Covid rules (he has already paid one). And a government investigator, Sue Gray, is scheduled to deliver a report on the affair that many expect will paint a damning portrait of the alcohol-fueled culture in Downing Street under Mr. Johnson.While the Conservatives trail the opposition Labour Party in polls, a rout is far from a forgone conclusion. Labour did well in 2018, the last time that many of these seats were in play, which gives it less room to advance. While it may pick off some Conservative bastions in London, it could struggle to claw back seats in the “red wall,” the industrial strongholds in the north of England where the Conservatives made inroads in 2019.Who’s voting and for what?Voting is mostly to elect “councillors,” representatives in municipalities who oversee functions like filling potholes, collecting trash and issuing construction permits. Whatever happens, there will be no change in the national government led by Mr. Johnson. Turnout is likely to be low.Elections are taking place everywhere in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and there is also voting in parts of England. Politicians often look to the results as a test of the public mood, but some voters think more about their patch than about the big political picture. And because votes are cast only in some locations, these elections offer at best a fragmented sense of what the electorate is thinking.The leader of the Labour Party, Keir Starmer, visiting pensioners in Wakefield, northern England, on Wednesday.Molly Darlington/ReutersWhat would victory look like?Even before the first vote was cast, the parties were playing down how they expected to perform. It would be no shock on Friday, when the results pour in, if they all claim to be surprised by a better-than-expected result.That’s all part of the game, because in local elections, shaping the narrative is particularly important. In 1990, the Conservatives famously painted defeat as victory by calling attention to symbolic wins in two boroughs in London: Wandsworth and Westminster.Accordingly, the Conservatives do not appear ruffled to see predictions that they could lose 550 seats, because that sets the bar low. Labour, for its part, has dampened expectations by arguing that its strong performance four years ago, when many of the seats were last contested, gives it little room to improve.The Conservatives would like to avoid a loss of more than 350 seats, but they could brush off 100 to 150 seats as typical midterm blues. A gain of more than 100 seats would be a big success for Mr. Johnson.The Labour leader, Keir Starmer, would be disappointed if his party failed to score any significant wins; 50 to 100 seats would be a creditable performance. He also hopes to consolidate Labour’s grip in London.Which races tell a broader story about British politics?With results pouring in from across England, Scotland and Wales — as well as from elections for the Northern Ireland Assembly, where there are different dynamics at play — Friday could seem bewildering.But a handful of races may illuminate the state of British politics. In London, Conservatives will struggle to hold on to the boroughs of Wandsworth and Westminster. Conservatives have controlled Wandsworth since the days of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Westminster, where the Downing Street scandal is a local issue, has never been out of Conservative control.In the North London borough of Barnet, where 15 percent of the population is Jewish, Labour, which had been criticized under its former leader, Jeremy Corbyn, for antisemitism, is looking for a redemptive win. Under Mr. Starmer, Labour has worked to root out antisemitism and mend its ties with British Jews.In the “red wall,” Labour’s ability to reverse Tory inroads will face a test. The Conservatives won a parliamentary by-election in Hartlepool, a port city in the northeast of England, last year. But the local election there is likely to be tight. A Conservative running for a city ward seat urged voters: “Don’t punish local Conservatives for the mistakes made in Westminster.”In Scotland, the question is whether the Conservatives can maintain gains made in the last vote in 2017, when it won the second-largest number of votes, after the Scottish National Party. Polls show that the popularity of the Tories has been damaged in Scotland by the Downing Street scandal.A mural in favor of a united Ireland alongside election posters on the Falls Road, a Catholic stronghold in Belfast, in April.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesWhat does the rise of nationalists mean for the Northern Ireland election?Elections for Northern Ireland’s legislature could deliver the most far-reaching results. The Irish nationalist party, Sinn Fein, was well placed to win the most seats, which would represent an extraordinary coming-of-age for a political party that many still associate with years of paramilitary violence.The results, not expected until Saturday, could upend the power-sharing arrangements in the North that have kept a fragile peace for two decades. In polls this past week, Sinn Fein held a consistent lead over the Democratic Unionist Party, which favors Northern Ireland’s current status as part of the United Kingdom.Sinn Fein has run a campaign that emphasizes kitchen-table concerns such as the high cost of living and health care — and that plays down its ideological commitment to Irish unification, a legacy of its ties to the Irish Republican Army.The only immediate effect of a Sinn Fein victory would be the right to name the first minister in the next government. But the unionists, who have splintered into three parties and could still end up with the largest bloc of votes, have warned that they will not take part in a government with Sinn Fein at the helm. More

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      Why Boris Johnson Will Be Tested in UK by Local Elections

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      The British prime minister is under fire for lockdown-breaking parties. But many voters are skeptical that the opposition can solve issues such as soaring prices.BURY, England — Oliver Henry tries not to talk politics at his barbershop to avoid inciting arguments among his customers. But when Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain was fined recently by the police for breaking his own coronavirus laws, the bickering at Chaps Barbers was unavoidable.“Some people despise him, and other people really love him,” he said, referring to Mr. Johnson, whose Conservative Party faces an important electoral test Thursday as the prime minister battles a swirling scandal over parties in Downing Street that flouted lockdown rules.As he trimmed a client’s hair last week, Mr. Henry said he voted for Mr. Johnson’s Conservatives in the last general election, in 2019, and, grateful for government financial support during the pandemic, was not planning to abandon the prime minister yet.Whether millions of others feel the same when they vote Thursday in elections for local municipalities could determine Mr. Johnson’s fate. His leadership is again on the line, with his own lawmakers mulling a no-confidence motion that could evict him from Downing Street — and a poor result could tip them over the edge.Bury, England. Millions voting in local elections on Thursday could determine Mr. Johnson’s fate.Mary Turner for The New York TimesOne thing that has saved Mr. Johnson so far is his reputation as an election winner, someone able to reach out to voters in places like Bury, the so-called red wall regions of the north and middle of England. These areas traditionally voted for the opposition Labour Party but largely supported Brexit and turned to the Conservatives in the 2019 general election. What happens in them on Thursday will be watched closely.Elections are taking place only in some parts of the country, with around 4,400 seats being contested in more than 140 municipalities. Voting is also taking place in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The Conservatives are braced for losses. They are trailing Labour in opinion polls, the prime minister is mired in scandal and voters are feeling the pain of spiking energy, food and other prices.But things may still not be as easy for Labour as they might seem. Many of the seats contested on Thursday were last up for grabs in 2018, when Labour did well, giving it limited room to advance.Voting is for elected representatives known as councilors in municipalities that control issues like garbage collection, highway maintenance and planning rules. Turnout will most likely be low, and many of those who cast a ballot will be thinking more about potholes than Downing Street parties.A statue of Robert Peel, a 19th century Conservative prime minister, in his hometown, Bury.Mary Turner for The New York TimesLabour is also struggling to make a big breakthrough and win back its old heartland “red wall” areas, like Bury, the birthplace of Robert Peel, a 19th century Conservative prime minister. In recent decades, the area has suffered from deindustrialization.In Bury South, it elected Labour lawmakers to Parliament for years before 2019, when the Conservatives narrowly snatched the seat. But the winner, Christian Wakeford, recently defected to Labour. James Daly, a Conservative, won the other parliamentary seat, Bury North, in 2019 by a margin of just 105 votes.If Labour is ever going to fully regain control over Bury, now should be a good time. At the Brandlesholme Community Center and Food Bank, close to Chaps Barbers, its chairwoman, Jo Warburton, sums up the situation locally in a word: “diabolical.”Meat and poultry stalls at Bury Market. Many people there are struggling with high prices.Mary Turner for The New York TimesSoaring energy bills are forcing some people to choose between eating and heating, she said, adding, “Nobody can afford to live.” Ms. Warburton recently put out a plea for additional donations after having almost run out of food to offer. Even people with jobs are increasingly in need of groceries, including one person who said she had been surviving on soup for a week, Ms. Warburton added.Because the food bank is a charity, Ms. Warburton tries to keep out of politics. But she said that while local Labour Party politicians support the center, she has had little contact with Conservatives. As for the government in London, “they haven’t got a clue about life,” she said.Across town, one Bury resident, Angela Pomfret, said she sympathized in particular with those who have young families. “I don’t know how people are able to survive,” she said. “I am 62, and I am struggling.”Ms. Pomfret said she had been unable to visit her mother, who died during the coronavirus pandemic, because of Covid restrictions, so she was at first annoyed by news about illicit parties taking place in Downing Street at the same time.But while Ms. Pomfret says she will vote for Labour, she bears no grudge against Mr. Johnson and says she is not against him personally.Polling station signs in a Bury community center that also houses the Brandlesholme food bank ahead of elections.Mary Turner for The New York TimesNor is there much hostility toward him at Bury Market, where Andrew Fletcher, serving customers at a meat and poultry stall, acknowledges that trade is a little depressed at present but does not blame the government. “I will be voting Tory,” he said. “I don’t think Labour could do any better.”Trevor Holt, who has spent 39 years as an elected member of Bury Council for the Labour Party and twice served as the town’s mayor, is convinced that Mr. Johnson is a big liability for the Tories.“I think Boris Johnson is very unpopular, people think he’s either a fool or a crook — and he’s probably both, isn’t he?” he said with a laugh, drinking tea in a cafe at a building he opened as mayor in 1997. The cost of living is also eroding support for the Conservatives, he added. His expectations are cautious, however, and he thinks that Labour will “gain some seats” rather than sweep to a big victory.Trevor Holt, who has spent 39 years as an elected member of Bury Council for the Labour Party and twice served as the town’s mayor, is convinced that Mr. Johnson is a big liability for the Tories.Mary Turner for The New York TimesLabour currently controls Bury Council, and that means that it takes the blame for many things that go wrong locally as well as for some unpopular policies.Moves to build more homes on green spaces have provoked opposition, as have plans for a clean air zone, a proposal — now being reconsidered after protests — that would charge for journeys in some more polluting vehicles.To complicate matters, there is also a fringe party campaigning for more support for an area of Bury called Radcliffe. In the Royal Oak pub, Mike Smith, a councilor for the party, Radcliffe First, who is running for re-election, describes his patch as “an archetypal forgotten ‘red-wall’ town,” comparing it to Springfield, the fictional setting of “The Simpsons.”“If they need to build a sewage works, they’ll try to put it in Radcliffe,” he said.Campaigners and candidates for the Radcliffe First political party at the Royal Oak pub in Bury after canvassing for votes.Mary Turner for The New York TimesAt another table in the pub, which filled steadily before a soccer match was screened, Martin Watmough described Mr. Johnson as “an absolute charlatan,” and said he would support Labour in the local elections, adding that the Conservatives had lost the trust of many voters.But Nick Jones, the leader of the Conservatives on Bury Council, is bullish, considering the political headwinds against his party generated by the lockdown party scandal. He is hoping to win a handful of seats.Mr. Jones is campaigning not so much for the prime minister as against Labour’s record locally. Speaking in another pub in Bury, he highlighted issues including the clean air zone plan, the state of the highways (“a disgrace,” in his opinion) and the frequency of refuse collections.Nick Jones, leader of the Conservatives on Bury Council, is bullish and hoping to win a handful of seats. Mary Turner for The New York TimesWhen the conversation turns to Mr. Johnson, who visited Bury last week, Mr. Jones is careful to be loyal.But his political pitch has little to do with a scandal-prone prime minister, whose immediate fate could depend on results of elections like these.The message to the voters in Bury, Mr. Jones said, is: “We are not talking about Downing Street, we are talking about your street.” More

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      Sinn Fein Poised to Make Historic Gains in Northern Ireland Elections

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      But Sinn Fein, which is leading in polls ahead of next week’s elections, hasn’t focused its campaign on unification with Ireland.CARRICKFERGUS, Northern Ireland — The sun was setting over the tidy, red brick homes in a Protestant neighborhood outside Belfast when two candidates for Northern Ireland’s legislature came to knock on doors on a recent evening. It might as well have been setting on the pro-unionist dreams of the residents.“It’s changed times now,” said Brian Gow, 69, as he contemplated the growing odds that the Irish nationalist party, Sinn Fein, would win the most seats in parliamentary elections on Thursday.That would represent an extraordinary coming-of-age for a political party that many outside Ireland still associate with years of paramilitary violence. It would also be a momentous shift in Northern Ireland, one that could upend the power-sharing arrangements that have kept a fragile peace for two decades.Yet for all of the freighted symbolism, Mr. Gow and his wife, Alison, greeted the prospect of a Sinn Fein victory with relative equanimity.“There’s no way I would vote Sinn Fein,” said Mrs. Gow, 66, who, like her husband, is a die-hard supporter of the Democratic Unionist Party, which favors Northern Ireland’s current status as part of the United Kingdom. “But if they’re committed to serving everyone equally, people will have to live with it.”Mary Lou McDonald, the president of Sinn Fein, center left, talking to voters and stall owners at St. George’s Market during a campaign stop this week in Belfast.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesBrian Gow talking to Danny Donnelly, a candidate for the Alliance Party, a centrist alternative to Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionists, this week in Carrickfergus.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesThat would be music to the ears of Sinn Fein’s leaders. In polls this past week, they held a lead of two to six percentage points over the D.U.P., running a campaign that emphasizes kitchen-table concerns like the high cost of living and the need for better health care — and that plays down the party’s ideological commitment to Irish unification, a legacy of its ties to the Irish Republican Army.Irish unification, party leaders say, is an over-the-horizon issue, over which Sinn Fein has limited control. It is up to the British government to call a referendum on whether Northern Ireland should stay part of the United Kingdom or join the Republic of Ireland.The only immediate effect of a Sinn Fein victory would be the right to name the first minister in the next government. The unionists, who have splintered into three parties, could still end up with the largest bloc of votes, according to political analysts.“I hope that political unionism, when they meet this democratic test next week, will accept the vote from the people, no matter what that is,” said John Finucane, a Sinn Fein member of the British Parliament who is running the party’s campaign. “To paint this in an us-versus-them context, post election, is potentially dangerous.”A lawyer and rugby player, Mr. Finucane, 42, knows the horrors of Northern Ireland’s past firsthand. When he was 8, he watched from under a table while masked gunmen killed his father, Pat Finucane, a prominent Catholic lawyer. The murder, in which loyalist paramilitaries colluded with British security forces, was one of the most notorious of the 30 years of violence known as the Troubles.“I hope that political unionism, when they meet this democratic test next week, will accept the vote from the people, no matter what that is,” said John Finucane, a Sinn Fein member of the British Parliament.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesWalking near a “peace wall” that separates Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods in Belfast.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesPat Finucane’s photograph still hangs over his son’s desk — a poignant reminder of why a Sinn Fein victory would mean more than just better health care. In the United States, where many in the Irish diaspora embrace the nationalist cause, the party’s supporters frame the stakes more dramatically.Before St. Patrick’s Day, they took out ads in The New York Times and other newspapers that promised “Irish unity in our time” and called on the Irish government to “plan, prepare and advocate for Irish unity, as provided for in the Good Friday Agreement,” the 1998 peace accord that ended sectarian violence in the North.“If Sinn Fein are the largest party, the focus will immediately turn to their calls for a border poll” to determine whether a majority of people favor Irish unity, said Gordon Lyons, a Democratic Unionist who represents Carrickfergus. “What people want to avoid is the division, the arguments, and the rancor that would come from that.”But it is the Democratic Unionists who are laying the groundwork for the rancor. They have warned they will refuse to take part in a government with a Sinn Fein first minister. The party pulled its own first minister from the government in February in a dispute over the North’s trade status since Brexit, which is governed by a legal construct known as the Northern Ireland Protocol.Unionists complain that the protocol, which requires border checks on goods passing from mainland Britain to Northern Ireland, has driven a wedge between the North and the rest of the United Kingdom. They are pressuring Prime Minister Boris Johnson to overhaul the arrangement, which he negotiated with the European Union.Graffiti next to a supermarket pressing shoppers not to buy goods from the European Union or Ireland, but from Britain.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesUnion Jack bunting and flags celebrating Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee, which will be celebrated in June in Britain, adorned a shop this month on Sandy Row in Belfast.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesMr. Johnson seems poised to do so. His government is readying legislation, which could be introduced days after the election, that would throw out parts of the protocol. Critics warn it could prompt a clash with Brussels and jeopardize the hard-won peace of the Good Friday Agreement.But public opinion polls suggest the protocol is not a high priority for most voters in Northern Ireland, even many unionists. Some economists contend that the North’s hybrid trade status is an advantage, giving it dual access to markets in mainland Britain and the European Union.The issue did not come up much on a recent evening of canvassing by two candidates for the Alliance Party, which presents itself as a centrist alternative to Sinn Fein and the D.U.P. “People see it as the parties fighting over flags and the border, not the bread-and-butter issues that affect people’s everyday lives,” said one of them, Danny Donnelly.The D.U.P., opponents say, is exploiting the protocol — despite its numbingly complicated details — particularly in loyalist strongholds, where posters warn that residents will “NEVER accept a border in the Irish Sea!”“There’s no way you can tell me that a kid with a petrol bomb in his hand is aggrieved at the finer points of an international trade agreement between the E.U. and the British government,” Mr. Finucane said, referring to fiery clashes last year between young protesters and the police in Belfast.Still, even if the protocol has little tangible effect on daily lives, it does carry symbolic weight for those who have felt cast adrift from Britain since Brexit. Though Protestants remain a bare plurality of the population in the North, the Catholic population is growing faster and is poised to overtake them.“What people want to avoid is the division, the arguments, and the rancor that would come from” calls for a border poll, said Gordon Lyons, a Democratic Unionist.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesA Catholic neighborhood around Falls Road in Belfast.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesWhile the connection between religion and national identification is not automatic — some Northern Ireland Catholics view themselves as British, not Irish — it has added to the belief among unionists that the North and South will inevitably move closer together, and that their links to London will inevitably fray.“We’re still part of the U.K.,” Mr. Gow said, “but we’re not being treated that way.”For that, he blames the D.U.P. rather than Sinn Fein. The party signed off on the deal that Mr. Johnson struck with Brussels and now wants to unravel. Then it pulled out of the government, which he viewed as a political stunt that betrayed its 50-year history as a responsible voice for unionists in Belfast and London.The divisions within the party, which also faces a challenge from a right-wing party, the Traditionalist Unionist Voice, are so deep that some say the entire unionist movement may need a reset.“There is a stream of thought in unionism that maybe everything needs to crash and burn before we can get a proper new unionist movement that unites everybody,” said David Campbell, the chairman of the Loyalist Communities Council, which represents a group of pro-union paramilitary groups.“There is a stream of thought in unionism that maybe everything needs to crash and burn before we can get a proper new unionist movement that unites everybody,” said David Campbell, chairman of the Loyalist Communities Council.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesA view of Belfast from Black Mountain, which overlooks the city.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesMr. Lyons pointed out that the D.U.P. had managed to get the British government to commit to overhauling the protocol. He predicted that unionist voters — even those demoralized by Brexit — would return to the fold rather than risk letting Sinn Fein seize the mantle of the largest party.Whatever the result, history has moved on around Belfast. Kevin Mallon, 40, a shopkeeper on the bustling Falls Road, a Catholic stronghold, said nationalists were more interested in economic prosperity than in uniting with the South, even if that idea still holds atavistic appeal.Thomas Knox, 52, a house painter and decorator who is Catholic, nursed a pint in the Royal British Legion, a bar in the nearby town of Larne once frequented by British police and soldiers. A decade ago, he said, he would not have felt comfortable walking into the place.“Those days are long gone,” Mr. Knox said.Catholics and Protestants drinking together at the Station pub in the town of Larne.Andrew Testa for The New York Times More

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      Johnson Is All Apologies Before Parliament After ‘Partygate’ Fine

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      Though opposition politicians called him out, only one member of his own Conservative party called on him to resign.Boris Johnson, the prime minister of Britain, apologized to members of Parliament after he was fined by police for attending a lockdown party in Downing Street during the height of the pandemic.Neil Hall/EPA, via ShutterstockLONDON — Prime Minister Boris Johnson faced Parliament on Tuesday as an awkward pioneer in British politics: a confirmed lawbreaker who misled fellow lawmakers but remains ensconced in the nation’s highest elected office.Apologizing profusely for his recent police fine for breaching coronavirus restrictions, Mr. Johnson tried to move on from a scandal over illicit Downing Street parties that has threatened his hold on power. The war in Ukraine and a lack of obvious successors to him have conspired to keep him in his job, at least for now.But Mr. Johnson’s political resilience did not mask the weighty legal and constitutional issues at stake. Opposition lawmakers hammered the prime minister for flouting the rules he imposed on others and accused him of misleading Parliament when he claimed that none of the social gatherings held in his office had been improper.“He knows he’s dishonest and incapable of changing, so he drags everybody else down with him,” said Keir Starmer, the leader of the Labour Party. He urged backbench members of Mr. Johnson’s Conservative Party not to follow “in the slipstream of an out-of-touch, out-of-control prime minister.”Only a single Conservative lawmaker, Mark Harper, called on Mr. Johnson to resign. Several echoed the arguments of his cabinet ministers that the scandal was a distraction at a time when Europe is facing its gravest security crisis since World War II. Forcing out their leader now, they said, would be a mistake.Still, the angry, emotional tenor of the debate revealed how deeply the scandal has blackened Mr. Johnson’s reputation. No prime minister in living memory has been formally designated as a lawbreaker, and he faces the prospect of additional fines for attending other illicit parties. Tory lawmakers began drifting out of the chamber as the debate wore on, suggesting limits to the party’s backing for him.The angry, emotional tenor of the debate in Parliament revealed how deeply the scandal has blackened Mr. Johnson’s reputation.Tolga Akmen/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMr. Johnson stuck to his penitent tone, apologizing more than a dozen times, though he never explicitly admitted to breaking the law, when asked directly. He was especially contrite about his previous statements to Parliament, which pose a particular danger to him since they have been exposed as misleading, either intentionally or unwittingly.“It did not occur to me, then or subsequently, that a gathering in the Cabinet room just before a vital meeting on Covid strategy could amount to a breach of the rules,” Mr. Johnson said. “That was my mistake and I apologize for it unreservedly.”Ministers caught lying to Parliament are expected to resign under rules written in what is known as the ministerial code. As recently as 2018, a Conservative lawmaker, Amber Rudd, quit as home secretary after admitting that she had “inadvertently misled” lawmakers over government targets for removing illegal immigrants.“The ministerial code is quite clear: deliberately misleading Parliament is a resigning offense since it prevents Parliament doing its job of scrutiny,” said Vernon Bogdanor, an expert on constitutional issues and professor of government at King’s College London. “The trouble is that there is no means of enforcing this principle against a prime minister if his party continues to support him.”Indeed, the ultimate arbiter of the ministerial code is the prime minister himself. Mr. Johnson has disregarded this system of checks and balances before, in 2020, when they involved a member of his government.That was when Mr. Johnson’s independent ethics adviser, Alex Allan, concluded that the home secretary, Priti Patel, had breached the ministerial code in her treatment of members of her staff, even if she was not aware she was bullying them. Despite that finding, Mr. Johnson decided that Ms. Patel had not breached the code and should not resign, and it was ultimately Mr. Allan who quit.Now Mr. Johnson is in the odd position of being a prime minister who is accused of breaking the code, making him effectively the judge and jury in his own case. He has made it clear that he has no intention of stepping down, declaring that the best way to come back from this scandal is to deliver on behalf of the British people.“It’s something the people who drew up the ministerial code didn’t really anticipate happening,” said Hannah White, deputy director of the Institute for Government, a London-based think tank. Under what she called the “good chap” theory of government, the prime minister would typically have resigned before getting to this point.Understand Boris Johnson’s Recent TroublesCard 1 of 5Turmoil at Downing Street. More

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      Your Monday Briefing: Shelling in Ukraine intensifies

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      Plus the Olympics end and Queen Elizabeth II tests positive.Mortar attacks continued through the weekend in eastern Ukraine.Tyler Hicks/The New York TimesRussia’s imminent invasion?U.S. intelligence learned last week that the Kremlin had ordered an invasion of Ukraine to proceed, prompting a dire warning by President Biden that President Vladimir Putin had made the decision to attack.The new intelligence reveals that 40 to 50 percent of the Russian forces surrounding Ukraine have moved out of staging and into combat formation.Russian artillery fire escalated sharply in eastern Ukraine this weekend, deepening fears of an imminent attack and potentially giving Russia a pretext to invade. Ukrainians reluctantly left their homes, some evacuating to Russia. After repeated assurances that military drills would end this weekend, Belarus said that it and Russia would continue to “test” their military capabilities and that Russian troops would stay longer than planned. NATO has long warned that the deployment could be used as cover to build an invasion force.Resources: Here are live updates, an explainer about the conflict and a timeline.Genocide: The single word has become key to Moscow’s baseless accusations against the Ukrainian government — and a wider quest for a new imperial identity rooted in Russian ethnicity.Ukraine: The conflict has weakened Ukraine’s economy, but its people are doubling down. Paramilitary groups are preparing for an invasion.Diplomacy: President Volodymyr Zelensky left Ukraine to meet with leaders in Europe. Zelensky urged sanctions against Russia and criticized the Western response after the U.S. heightened its warnings of an imminent Russian attack. Geopolitics: Russia and China appear to be in lock step, and the U.S. is trying to build up global coalitions to counter the alliance. Experts say that Putin may be trying to revise the outcome of the last Cold War and that Russia’s troop buildup could be a sign that he has become more reckless.Flags at the closing ceremony in Beijing.Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesThe Beijing Olympics closeFor all of China’s efforts to carry on the Winter Games with a festive spirit, Beijing 2022 unfolded as a joyless spectacle: constricted by the pandemic, fraught with geopolitical tensions and tainted once again by accusations of doping.Television viewership dropped significantly in the U.S., Canada, Britain and other countries, underscoring concerns facing the Olympic movement. But the sports shone through.Medals: Norway repeated its extraordinary success in the Winter Olympics, with a record 16 golds and 37 medals overall.China: The Chinese team had its best medal haul in a Winter Olympics: nine golds and 15 overall. Inside the country, online propagandists promoted a vision of the Games free of rancor or controversy.Athletes: Eileen Gu, an 18-year-old skier from San Francisco who competed for China, became the event’s breakout star. Some Chinese Americans see themselves in the duality she has embraced.Pandemic: China’s “closed loop” approach worked — and birthed new infrastructure. Only a few athletes had to miss their competitions, and there were days when not a single test came back positive.Business: Olympic sponsors are struggling to straddle a widening political gulf between the U.S. and China: What is good for business in one country is increasingly a liability in the other.If Queen Elizabeth II is too ill to fulfill her duties, her heirs — Prince Charles and Prince William — would step in to lead.Steve Parsons/Agence France-Presse, via Pool/Afp Via Getty ImagesQueen Elizabeth tests positive for Covid The 95-year-old British monarch was “experiencing mild coldlike symptoms,” Buckingham Palace said.Although the circumstances of the queen’s infection remained clouded in questions, Prince Charles, her eldest son and heir, tested positive in a breakthrough infection two days after meeting with her earlier this month.After canceling public events in the fall, citing exhaustion, the queen has begun appearing in public again. Her frailty is deepening anxiety that her extremely popular reign may be coming to an end.Pandemic: Prime Minister Boris Johnson was expected to announce the lifting of the remaining restrictions in England on Monday, including the legal requirement for those who test positive to isolate.In other pandemic developments:Australia will reopen to travelers on Monday.Canadian police cleared demonstrators in Ottawa in an attempt to end the weekslong occupation over Covid restrictions.Hong Kong will postpone the election of its next leader, citing a surge in cases.South Korea, which is experiencing its largest Covid-19 wave yet, will set a 90-minute window for Covid-positive voters to cast their ballots in next month’s presidential election.THE LATEST NEWSAsiaCharanjit Singh Channi, the chief minister of the Indian state of Punjab, is both the incumbent and the underdog.Saumya Khandelwal for The New York TimesThe Indian National Congress, once the dominant force in Indian politics, faced a major test in Punjab’s election on Sunday.A young Afghan boy died on Friday after being trapped in a deep well for several days.World NewsCritics say the China Initiative chilled scientific research and contributed to a rising tide of anti-Asian sentiment.Stefani Reynolds/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe U.S. Justice Department will modify the China Initiative, a Trump-era effort to combat security threats. Critics said it unfairly targeted Asian professors.Recently leaked data from the 1940s until the 2010s showed how Credit Suisse held millions for strongmen, spies and human rights abusers.A severe storm pummeled parts of Britain and northern Europe with fierce winds, killing at least eight people. Hundreds of people were rescued on Friday from a burning ferry near Greece. At least one person has died, and 10 are still missing.Syrians are mixing wheat flour with corn to cope with shortages, after years of conflict and climate change destroyed the country’s breadbasket.What Else Is HappeningJean-Luc Brunel, an associate of Jeffrey Epstein charged with the rape of minors, was found dead in an apparent suicide in a Paris jail.The Biden administration is pausing new federal oil and gas drilling in a legal fight over how to weigh the cost of climate damage.Forensic linguists believe they have identified two men as the likely sources of the QAnon conspiracy theory movement.A Morning ReadScientists land on an ice floe to take measurements.Explorers have started combing Antarctica’s icy Weddell Sea for one of the most revered ships in the history of polar exploration: Ernest Shackleton’s Endurance. As underwater drones scan the seafloor for the wreck, scientists are also looking for signs that the climate crisis is changing the pack ice.ARTS AND IDEAS Ana MiminoshviliHow will we travel in 2022?With Omicron cases ebbing, travel agents and operators have reported a significant increase in bookings for spring and summer trips. Big bucket-list trips seem to be in high demand.Here are a few trends to watch:Air travel will probably open up. Expect fewer restrictions in 2022, more travelers and more flights. Maybe even cheaper fares, too.Entry requirements may still snarl plans: Here’s a guide of what to expect at international borders.Cities are back: Travelers are itching for museums and great restaurants, especially in European capitals.So are all-inclusive resorts, catering to pandemic-scarred travelers wary of leaving the grounds.There’s also a rise in sexual wellness retreats, education-focused jaunts for families looking to help children supplement missed learning and smaller, more niche cruises. Happy trails!PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookAndrew Purcell for The New York TimesThis gingery fried rice is a good way to use up leftover vegetables.What to Read“The Naked Don’t Fear the Water: An Underground Journey With Afghan Refugees” is an “expansive, immersive work that reads like the most gripping novel.”WellnessCan a cold water plunge really reduce anxiety and depression?Now Time to PlayHere’s today’s Mini Crossword.Here’s today’s Wordle. (If you’re worried about your stats streak, play in the browser you’ve been using.)And here is today’s Spelling Bee.You can find all our puzzles here.That’s it for today’s briefing. Tell us what you think about this newsletter in this short survey. Thank you! See you next time. — AmeliaP.S. Times reporters shared how they have covered the U.S. as it struggled to navigate Covid-19.The latest episode of “The Daily” is about the shortage of nurses in the U.S.You can reach Amelia and the team at briefing@nytimes.com. More

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      Why So Many People Are Unhappy With Democracy

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      We pay too little attention to delivering effective government as a critical democratic value. We are familiar with the threats posed by democratic backsliding and the rise of illiberal forces in several democracies, including the United States. But the most pervasive and perhaps deepest challenge facing virtually all Western democracies today is the political fragmentation of democratic politics.Political fragmentation is the dispersion of political power into so many different hands and centers of power that it becomes difficult for democratic governments to function effectively.President Biden has recognized this historic challenge, calling the defining mission of his presidency to be winning the “battle between the utility of democracies in the 21st century and autocracies.”Yet even with unified control of government, the internal divisions of the Democratic Party postponed passage of his bipartisan infrastructure bill for several months and have made it uncertain which parts, if any, of the Build Back Better proposal will be enacted.When democratic governments seem incapable of delivering on their promises, this failure can lead to alienation, resignation, distrust and withdrawal among many citizens. It can also trigger demands for authoritarian leaders who promise to cut through messy politics. At an even greater extreme, it can lead people to question democracy itself and become open to anti-democratic systems of government.The struggle of the Biden administration to deliver on its policy agenda offers a good example of the political fragmentation of politics taking place throughout Western democracies. It takes different forms in the multiparty systems of Europe and the two-party system of the United States. The European democracies are experiencing the unraveling of the traditionally dominant center-left and center-right major parties and coalitions that have governed since World War II. Support for these parties has splintered into new parties of the right and left, along with others with less-easily defined ideological elements. From 2015 to 2017, over 30 new political parties entered European parliaments. Across European democracies, the percentage of people who identify strongly with a political party or are members of one has declined precipitously.The effects on the ability to govern have been dramatic. In Germany, the stable anchor of Europe since the 1950s, the two major parties regularly used to receive over 90 percent of the vote combined; in this fall’s elections, that plummeted to less than 50 percent. Support has hemorrhaged to green, anti-immigrant, free-market and other parties. After its 2017 elections, with support fragmented among many parties, it took Germany six months to cobble together a governing coalition, the longest time in the country’s history. The Netherlands, after its 2017 elections, needed a record 225 days to form a government.The coalitional governments assembled amid this cacophony of parties are also more fragile. Spain, for example, was forced to hold four national elections between 2015 and 2019 to find a stable governing coalition. Spain had effectively been a two-party democracy until 2015, but mass protest movements spawned a proliferation of new parties that made forging stable governments difficult. In Sweden, the prime minister lost a vote of no confidence this summer — a first in the country’s modern political history. Digital pop-up parties, including anti-party parties, arise out of nowhere and radically disrupt politics, as the Brexit Party did in Britain and the Five Star Movement did in Italy.The same forces driving fragmentation in other democracies are also roiling the United States, though our election structures make effective third parties highly unlikely. Here the forces of fragmentation get channeled within the two major parties. The most dramatic example on the Republican side is that when the party controlled the House from 2011 to 2019, it devoured two of its own speakers, John Boehner and Paul Ryan. Mr. Boehner’s memoir portrays a party caucus so internally fragmented as to be ungovernable.Similarly, the central story of the Biden administration is whether the Democratic Party can overcome its internal conflicts to deliver effective policies. Remarkably, Speaker Nancy Pelosi scheduled floor votes on the infrastructure bill, only to pull it because she could not deliver enough Democratic votes — extraordinary evidence of how difficult it is for a speaker to unite her caucus amid the forces of fragmentation. It took a disastrous election night for progressives to bury their concerns and support the bill — and several now regret having done so.The recent collapse of Build Back Better, at least for now, led to a remarkable public bloodletting between different elements within the party.Large structural forces have driven the fragmentation of politics throughout the West. On the economic front, the forces include globalization’s contribution to the stagnation of middle- and working-class incomes, rising inequality and outrage over the 2008 financial crisis. On the cultural side: conflicts over immigration, nationalism and other issues.Since the New Deal in the United States and World War II in Europe, the parties of the left had represented less affluent, less educated voters. Now those voters are becoming the base of parties on the right, with more affluent, more educated voters shifting to parties on the left. Major parties are struggling to figure out how to patch together winning coalitions in the midst of this shattering transformation.The communications revolution is also a major force generating the disabling fragmentation of politics. Across Europe, it has given rise to loosely organized, leaderless protest movements that disrupt politics and give birth to other parties — but make effective government harder to achieve.In the United States, the new communications era has enabled the rise of free-agent politicians. A Congress with more free agents is more difficult to govern. Even in their first years in office, individual members of Congress (like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or Ted Cruz) no longer need to work their way up through the party or serve on major committees to attract national visibility and influence.Through cable television and social media, they can find and construct their own national constituencies. Through internet fund-raising (particularly small donations), politicians (particularly from the extremes) can become effective fund-raising machines on their own. In this era, party leaders lack the leverage they once had to force party members to accept the party line. That is why speakers of the House resign or reschedule votes on which they cannot deliver.The political fragmentation that now characterizes nearly all Western democracies reflects deep dissatisfaction with the ability of traditional parties and governments to deliver effective policies. Yet perversely, this fragmentation makes it all the more difficult for governments to do so. Mr. Biden is right: Democracies must figure out how to overcome the forces of fragmentation to show they once again can deliver effective government.Richard H. Pildes, a professor at New York University’s School of Law, is the author of the casebook “The Law of Democracy: Legal Structure of the Political Process.”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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      For Johnson, a Political Rebuke as Omicron Variant Engulfs Britain

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      The prime minister’s Conservative Party lost a seat it had held for more than a century, a loss that could hamper his efforts to address the Omicron variant now sweeping Britain.LONDON — In the pre-dawn hours of Friday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson learned that his Conservative Party had crashed to defeat in a district it had represented for more than a century. Twelve hours later, Britain reported more than 90,000 new cases of Covid-19 as the Omicron variant engulfed the country.Each of those events would be daunting enough on its own. Together, they pose a uniquely difficult challenge to Mr. Johnson as he struggles to navigate his nation through the latest treacherous phase of the pandemic.The electoral defeat exposed the vulnerability of a prime minister who built his career on his vote-getting skills. Normally reliable Conservative voters turned on the party in striking numbers, disgusted by a steady drip of unsavory ethics disclosures and a growing sense that the government is lurching from crisis to crisis.The defeat came on top of a mutiny in the ranks of Conservative lawmakers, around 100 of whom voted against Mr. Johnson’s plan to introduce a form of Covid pass in England earlier in the week. Having been politically rebuked, he now has less flexibility to impose new restrictions to curb a virus that is spreading explosively.Mr. Johnson is betting he can avert a full-blown crisis by massively accelerating Britain’s vaccine booster program. But so far, the rate of infections is outrunning the percentage of people getting their third shots. With the variant doubling every 2.5 days, epidemiologists warn that some type of lockdown might ultimately be the only way to prevent an untenable strain on hospitals.Waiting for vaccinations at a center in London. Mr. Johnson is betting he can avert a full-blown crisis by massively accelerating Britain’s vaccine booster program.Andrew Testa for The New York Times“What on earth is the prime minister going to do if the rising Covid numbers means he is getting strong scientific advice to take further restrictive measures?” said Jill Rutter, a senior research fellow at UK in a Changing Europe, a research institute. Mr. Johnson was able to pass his recent measures thanks to votes from the opposition Labour Party. But that dramatized his political weakness, Ms. Rutter noted, and resorting to it again would further antagonize his own rank and file. “That’s politically a terrible place for the prime minister to be,” she added.Indeed, Mr. Johnson needs to worry about fending off a leadership challenge — a once-remote scenario now suddenly plausible as Conservative lawmakers worry that the calamitous result in North Shropshire, a district near England’s border with Wales, could translate into defeat in the next general election.The victorious Liberal Democrat candidate, Helen Morgan, overturned a majority of almost 23,000 won by the former Conservative lawmaker, Owen Paterson, at the last general election, in 2019. Mr. Paterson, a former cabinet minister who had held the seat since 1997, resigned last month after breaking lobbying rules, despite an unsuccessful effort by Mr. Johnson to save him.Helen Morgan, the Liberal Democrat lawmaker, won a seat held by the Conservative party for more than a century.Jacob King/Press Association, via Associated PressAbout the only reprieve for Mr. Johnson is that Parliament recessed for the Christmas holiday on Thursday. That will temper the momentum behind any possible leadership challenge, at least until Conservative lawmakers return to Westminster after the New Year and assess the state of their party and the country. A prime minister who just a week ago was promising to save Christmas may now need Christmas to save him.“I totally understand people’s frustrations,” Mr. Johnson said on Friday. “In all humility, I’ve got to accept that verdict.” But he also blamed the news media, telling Sky News, “some things have been going very well, but what the people have been hearing is just a constant litany of stuff about politics and politicians.”Mr. Johnson’s standing has been weakened by claims, widely reported in the papers, that his staff held Christmas parties in Downing Street last year at a time when they were forbidden under coronavirus restrictions.The cabinet secretary, Simon Case, had been investigating those allegations but on Friday evening, he abruptly withdrew after a report surfaced that he was aware of a separate party held in his own office last year. Though another civil servant, Sue Gray, will take over the investigation, the latest disclosure is only likely deepen to public suspicion about the government’s behavior.Even before the election loss in North Shropshire, there was speculation that Mr. Johnson could face a formal challenge to his leadership, little more than two years after he won a landslide election victory in December 2019.Mr. Johnson could face a challenge to his leadership from within his own party. Jessica Taylor/UK Parliament, via Associated PressTo initiate a no-confidence vote, 54 lawmakers would have to write to the chairman of the committee that represents Conservative backbenchers, Graham Brady. Such letters are confidential, but analysts do not believe that prospect is close.Even so, Friday’s result will increase jitters in Downing Street. North Shropshire was one of the Conservative Party’s safest seats, in a part of Britain that supported Brexit, Mr. Johnson’s defining political project. Many Labour Party voters and others hostile to the Conservatives coalesced around the Liberal Democrats, the party deemed most likely to defeat the Tories in that region — a practice known as tactical voting.Were this to be repeated nationally in the next general election it could deprive the Conservatives of perhaps 30 seats and, in close contest, affect the outcome, said Peter Kellner, a former president of the polling firm YouGov.“Tactical voting has a chance to make a material difference to the politics of Britain after the next general election,” he said.In recent weeks, Labour has moved ahead of the Conservatives in several opinion surveys, which also recorded a steep drop in Mr. Johnson’s approval ratings. Political analysts said that could also put the prime minister in a vulnerable position, given the transactional nature of his party.“The Tory Party is a ruthless machine for winning elections,” said Jonathan Powell, a former chief of staff to Prime Minister Tony Blair. “If that is continuing into an election cycle, the party will get rid of him quickly.”A memorial to victims of the coronavirus in London this week.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesBut while the political climate remains volatile, most voters are more preoccupied by the effect of the Omicron variant as they prepare for the holiday season. Scientists said it was too soon to say whether the variant was less severe than previous ones, but they warned that even if it was, that would not necessarily prevent a swift rise in hospital admissions, given the enormous number of infections.“If you have enough cases per day, the number of hospitalizations could pose potentially great challenges for any hospital system,” said Neil Ferguson, an epidemiologist at Imperial College London, whose frightening projections about the virus prompted Mr. Johnson to impose his first lockdown in March 2020.Ms. Rutter said Mr. Johnson could yet emerge unscathed if the variant is milder than feared, hospitals are not overwhelmed, and the booster program is effective. Earlier this year, his fortunes revived when Britain’s vaccination rollout was fast and effective, allowing him to remove all restrictions in July.By weakening Mr. Johnson’s position, however, the defeat in North Shropshire is also likely to embolden his rivals, among them the chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, and the foreign secretary, Liz Truss. Any resulting tensions within the cabinet are likely to erode Mr. Johnson’s authority further.All of that is a dangerous recipe for a prime minister who may find himself forced to return to Parliament to approve further restrictions.“In March 2020, he had massive political capital coming off the back of that fantastic election victory,” Ms. Rutter said. “He’s managed in that time to pretty much squander that political capital, certainly within his party.” More