Sunak, Rishi (1980- )

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      Britain’s By-elections: So Far, a Win and a Defeat for the Tories

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      The governing Conservative Party lost in one electoral district but avoided defeat in Uxbridge and South Ruislip, Boris Johnson’s former seat. A third contest was still to be decided.Britain’s governing Conservative Party suffered a crushing defeat in the contest for what had been considered one of its safer seats in Parliament, but avoided losing another district as results came in early Friday in three by-elections, a critical test of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s popularity.The small, centrist Liberal Democrats party won in Somerton and Frome, in the southwest of England, overturning a big majority. In an emphatic victory, the Liberal Democrats received 21,187 votes against the Conservatives’ 10,790.But there was better news for Mr. Sunak in Uxbridge and South Ruislip, in the northwestern fringes of London, where his Conservatives narrowly held on against the main opposition Labour Party in the district that had been represented by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson.A third, critical contest — in Selby and Ainsty, in Yorkshire in the north of England — was still to be decided.For Mr. Sunak, the by-elections were an anxious foretaste of the general election that he must call by January 2025.Uxbridge and South Ruislip is the sort of seat that Labour has needed to win to prove that it is credibly closing in on power. Its failure to do so was attributed by the victorious Conservative candidate to public anger toward the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, a Labour member, for his plans to extend a costly ultralow emission zone across all of London’s boroughs, including Uxbridge.While the result could raise questions about Labour’s ability to win the next general election, the scale of the defeat in Somerton and Frome will most likely alarm Conservative lawmakers who are under pressure in some of the party’s heartland districts in the south of England.With Britain besieged by high inflation, a stagnating economy and widespread labor unrest, his Conservatives face a real threat of being thrown out of power for the first time in 14 years.While Britain shares some of these economic woes with other countries in the wake of the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Conservatives amplified the problems through policy missteps and political turmoil that peaked in the brief, stormy tenure of Mr. Sunak’s predecessor, Liz Truss.She proposed sweeping but unfunded tax cuts that alarmed the financial markets and triggered her own downfall after on 44 days in office. Mr. Sunak shelved Ms. Truss’s trickle-down agenda and restored Britain’s fiscal stability. But her legacy has been a poisoned chalice for Mr. Sunak and his Tory compatriots with much of the British electorate.“The Liz Truss episode really dented their reputation for economic competence, and that will be very hard to win back,” said Tim Bale, a professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London. “It’s going to be very difficult.”So convincing is the Labour Party’s lead in opinion polls that some analysts predicted in advance that Mr. Sunak would become the first prime minister to lose three so-called by-elections in one day since 1968.But the narrow victory for the Conservatives in Uxbridge and South Ruislip averted that prospect. There, when all votes were counted, the final tally was 13,965 for Steve Tuckwell of the Conservative Party, and 13,470 for Labour’s Danny Beales.By-elections take place when a seat in the House of Commons becomes vacant between general elections. This time around, the contests were also a reminder of the toxic legacy of another of Mr. Sunak’s predecessors, Mr. Johnson.Mr. Johnson resigned his seat in the district of Uxbridge and South Ruislip, on the western fringe of London, after lawmakers ruled that he lied to Parliament over lockdown-breaking parties held in Downing Street during the pandemic.Voters in Selby and Ainsty in northern England were selecting a replacement for one of Mr. Johnson’s closest allies, Nigel Adams, who quit after not being given a seat in the House of Lords, as he had expected.The contest in Somerton and Frome, a rural district in southwestern England, took place because another Conservative lawmaker, David Warburton, gave up his seat after admitting he had taken cocaine.“This is probably the closing of a chapter of the story of Boris Johnson’s impact on British politics,” said Robert Hayward, a polling expert who also serves as a Conservative member of the House of Lords. But he added, “Whether it’s the closing of the whole book is another matter.”Because the voting took place in very different parts of England, it provided an unusual snapshot of public opinion ahead of the general election. It also captured several trends that have run through British politics since the last general election in 2019, when Mr. Johnson’s Conservative won a landslide victory.In Selby and Ainsty, a Tory stronghold, Labour hoped to show that it has regained the trust of voters in the north and middle of England — regions it once dominated but where it lost out to the Tories in the 2019 election.The vote in Somerton and Frome was a test of the Conservative Party’s fortunes in its heartland areas of southern England, known as the “blue wall” — after the party’s campaign colors. It has been under pressure in the region from a revival of the smaller, centrist, Liberal Democrats.The Liberal Democrats have benefited from some voters, who are opposed to the Conservatives, casting their ballots strategically for whoever seems best placed to defeat the Tory candidate.Recent British elections have featured talk of a grand political realignment, with candidates emphasizing values and cultural issues. But analysts said these by-elections have been dominated by the cost-of-living crisis — kitchen-table concerns that hurt the Conservatives after more than a decade in power. More

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      British By-elections: What to Know

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      Three seats in Parliament recently occupied by Conservatives are up for grabs in an election that may show which way the political winds are blowing.One of the last things Britain’s prime minister, Rishi Sunak, needs right now, while he’s trailing in the opinion polls as the economy stalls, is a test of his electoral popularity.But on Thursday, he faces three contests, as voters in different parts of England select replacements for a trio of lawmakers from his Conservative Party who have quit Parliament, including former Prime Minister Boris Johnson.The votes, known as by-elections, happen when a seat in the House of Commons becomes vacant between general elections. In the British system, every elected lawmaker represents a district, so when they quit, those voters decide who will succeed them.Hanging over the contests is the poisoned legacy of Mr. Johnson, who angrily quit Parliament after lawmakers ruled that he had lied to them about Covid-lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street.Because the government will not change whatever the outcome, voters often use such by-elections to register unhappiness with their political leaders. And with inflation and interest rates high, labor unrest boiling and the health service struggling, Mr. Sunak’s Conservatives are braced for the possibility of losing all three contests.That would make Mr. Sunak the first prime minister to suffer a triple by-election defeat in one day since 1968. It would also stoke fears among Conservatives that, under his leadership, they are heading for defeat in a general election expected next year.But by-elections are unpredictable, so nothing is certain on this so-called super Thursday. And so low are expectations for the Conservatives that even winning one would be a welcome relief for Mr. Sunak.Here’s where voters are casting ballots:Uxbridge and South RuislipThis is the seat vacated by Mr. Johnson, and it lies on the fringes of London, the capital. Although the inner areas of the capital tilt to Labour, the main opposition party, outer London, with its suburbs and larger homes, is much better territory for the Conservatives. Mr. Johnson’s majority in the last general election was relatively modest at 7,210 votes, and the scandal-hit former prime minister is a divisive figure, so Labour hopes to win here.But the Conservatives see an opening in a plan to expand an ultralow-emissions program to areas including Uxbridge and South Ruislip. The expansion, pressed by London’s Labour mayor, Sadiq Khan, would cost those driving older, more polluting cars. Conservatives are campaigning against the expansion. The Labour candidate for the area has also said he is against the expansion, though Labour’s leader has not taken a stand.Parliamentary candidates onstage ahead of the by-election for the seat previously held by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson in Uxbridge this month.Susannah Ireland/ReutersSelby and AinstyThe contest in Selby and Ainsty, in Yorkshire in the north of England, is another aftershock of recent political turbulence because the lawmaker who quit, Nigel Adams, was a close ally of Mr. Johnson’s. He resigned after not being awarded a seat in the House of Lords, as he had expected. This is a scenic part of northern England but also one with a mining history, and Labour will be hoping it can snatch the seat.That would send a powerful signal that the party is returning to popularity in the north and middle of England — areas it once dominated but where it lost out in the 2019 general election. Yet, it’s a tall order. If Labour can succeed in Selby and Ainsty, where the Conservative majority in 2019 was 20,137, that would set a record for the size of a majority overturned by Labour in a by-election. So victory for Labour here would suggest it is well on course for a general election victory.Somerton and FromeInstead of Labour, the smaller, centrist Liberal Democrats are seen as the main challengers to the Conservatives in Somerton and Frome, in the southwest of England.The vote follows the resignation of David Warburton, who quit after admitting that he had consumed cocaine. The Lib-Dems have a strong tradition of success in this attractive, mainly rural part of the country, and they held this electoral district until 2015.In the last election, the Conservatives won a big majority, 19,213. But since then, the they have suffered losses in some of their heartland areas in the south of England, the so-called blue wall, named after the party’s campaign colors.At the same time, the fortunes of the Liberal Democrats have been revived considerably. This year, they performed well in elections in local municipalities, and last year, they stormed to victory in a by-election in Tiverton and Honiton, also in the southwest. More

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      As Sunak Makes His Case to Britons, the Economy Could Undermine It

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      Britain’s Conservative government faces a morass of problems, some new, others longstanding, that are stymying Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.Prime Minister Rishi Sunak hopes to hold onto power by selling himself as the repairman for a broken Britain. On Wednesday, he got a faint sign that the repair work was gaining traction: the government announced that Britain’s inflation rate in June was 7.9 percent, a decline from the previous month.But the rate is still higher than that of Britain’s European neighbors and more than twice that of the United States. And it is just one of a morass of economic problems — from spiraling debt to labor shortages to sputtering growth — that are stymying Mr. Sunak as he makes the case that his Conservative Party, in government for the past 13 years, deserves to stay there after an election that he must call by January 2025.The Conservatives will face an early test of their political fortunes on Thursday, with three by-elections, special elections to fill seats in Parliament vacated by Tory lawmakers. The party is girding itself for a long day.“They’re running out of runway,” said Tim Bale, a professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London. “These by-elections are likely to be a referendum on the government, and they could lose all three.”Shoppers in London last month. Britain’s annual inflation rate is higher than that of its European neighbors and twice that of United States.Tolga Akmen/EPA, via ShutterstockMr. Sunak, a former chancellor of the Exchequer who once worked at Goldman Sachs, has cultivated a reputation as a technocrat and problem solver. He has thrown off the supply-side ideological experimentation of his predecessor, Liz Truss, and the have-your-cake-and-eat-it style of her predecessor, Boris Johnson.But Mr. Sunak’s return to fiscal prudence has yet to reinvigorate Britain’s growth. On the contrary, inflation is forcing the Bank of England to hike interest rates aggressively to avert a wage-price spiral. The tight-money policy threatens to tip the economy, already stagnant, into recession. And it is inflicting pain on millions of Britons who face soaring rents and higher rates on their mortgages.Inflation, economists agree, is likely to continue to drop in the next six months, perhaps even enough to meet Mr. Sunak’s goal of halving the rate to 5.2 percent by year-end. But Britain’s other problems — anemic growth, low productivity, a labor shortage, and a crumbling National Health Service — are not likely to be fixed in time for him to claim a full turnaround before he faces the voters.“Low productivity and low growth make economic policy challenging,” said Mahmood Pradhan, head of global macro economics at Amundi, an asset manager. “It reduces fiscal space. It’s a very tight straitjacket to be in.”With deteriorating public finances, Mr. Sunak can neither spend heavily to raise wages for striking doctors or railway workers, nor can he offer tax cuts to voters. As things stand, he is already at risk of missing another of his five pledges: to reduce national debt. Government debt has risen to more 100 percent of gross domestic product for the first time since 1961, according to the latest data.Striking junior doctors outside Queens Hospital in Rumford in March.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesFor two years, the government has frozen the income brackets for personal income taxes rather than raising them with inflation, driving up the effective rates. As a result, Mr. Sunak finds himself in an awkward paradox: a free-market Conservative heading into an election with a government that is imposing the greatest tax burden on the electorate since World War II.Critics argue he has no one to blame but himself. Mr. Sunak supported the fiscal austerity of the Conservative-led government of David Cameron and his chancellor, George Osborne, which hurt Britain’s productivity and hollowed out its public services. And he championed Brexit, which cut into its trade with the European Union, scared off investment and worsened its labor shortage.“He’s quite rare in being directly associated with both Cameron-Osborne austerity and Johnsonian hard Brexit,” said Jonathan Portes, a professor of economics and public policy at Kings College London. “Many other senior Tories could plausibly claim that they didn’t really buy into one or the other. Not Sunak.”This week’s by-elections attest to Mr. Sunak’s predicament. One seat belonged to Mr. Johnson, who resigned from Parliament after a committee recommended suspending him for misleading lawmakers about his attendance at parties during the coronavirus pandemic lockdowns. Another was held by an ally of Mr. Johnson, who also quit, and the third by a lawmaker who resigned after allegations of drug use and sexual misconduct.While Mr. Johnson’s soiled legacy and Conservative Party scandals will play a role in these races, analysts say the cost-of-living crisis will be the dominant theme. Few governments, Professor Bale noted, win elections when real wages are eroding, as they are in Britain. In the latest polls, the opposition Labour Party leads the Conservatives by close to 20 percentage points.The specter of a sweeping defeat has put Mr. Sunak under pressure from Tory backbenchers to offer voters relief in the form of tax cuts or help in paying their mortgages. The most analysts expect, however, is for him to promise a reduction in income taxes next spring, to be deferred until after the election.As Mr. Sunak likes to remind people, not all of Britain’s problems are unique or self-inflicted. Like many other countries, it suffered from supply bottlenecks after pandemic lockdowns ended, from rising food prices and from the lingering impact of soaring energy prices after Russia invaded Ukraine.Yet Britain’s core inflation rate — which excludes volatile energy and food prices and is a gauge for domestic price pressures — has remained high at 6.9 percent, compared to 4.8 percent in the United States and 5.4 percent in the eurozone.“That does suggest these inflation dynamics have become more embedded than they have in other countries,” said Kristin Forbes, a professor of management and global economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a former member of the Bank of England’s rate-setting committee.Britain, she said, had the misfortune of being hit by both the energy spike, like its neighbors in Europe, and strong domestic inflationary pressures because of a tight labor market, like the United States.Commuters cross London Bridge last week. Unlike most countries, Britain still has more people out of the labor force than before the pandemic.Andy Rain/EPA, via Shutterstock“The U.K. was facing a more difficult challenge than the other countries, in the sense it was really hit by a confluence of shocks that were greater than the individual shocks hitting other countries,” Professor Forbes said.But there are other problems that are distinctively British. Unlike most countries, Britain still has more people out of the labor force than before the pandemic. A majority say they can’t work because of long-term illnesses, a problem exacerbated by the crisis in the N.H.S. With so many job vacancies, wages are rising rapidly, which further fuels inflation.Mr. Sunak has offered to increase public sector wages by 5 percent to 7 percent to end strikes that have closed Britain’s schools and crippled the health service. But that has yet to quell the labor unrest.Britain has so far avoided a recession, surprising some economists. But its resilience could crack, as people curtail spending to pay their rising mortgage bills. Already, about 4.5 million households have had to swallow rate increases since the Bank of England started raising interest rates in December 2021. The rest, another 4 million, will be affected by higher rates by the end of 2026.As with other Western leaders, Mr. Sunak’s fortunes may be largely out of his hands. Last month, the Bank of England, stung by the virulence of inflation, unexpectedly raised interest rates by half a percent, to 5 percent. Traders are betting that rates will climb further still, to about 5.8 percent by the end of the year — implying several more rate increases that would mean higher financing costs for businesses and households and hurt economic growth even more.“The more tightening we see, the risk of recession rises,” said Mr. Pradhan, who served as a deputy director of the International Monetary Fund. “It wouldn’t take very much to tip the U.K. economy into recession.” More

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      Legacy of Boris Johnson Looms Over By-election to Replace Him

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      The vote to pick a new member of Parliament in the ex-prime minister’s once-reliably Conservative district is just one of three by-elections on Thursday that will give a snapshot of Britain’s mood.When Boris Johnson paid a surprise visit last year to the Swallow pub and poured some pints, he seemed to leave the clientele more agreed on his skills as a barman than as a politician.“He asked me whether it was a decent pint — and it was,” said Tony O’Shea, 55, holding up a photo on his phone of the moment he was served a beer by Mr. Johnson, then the prime minister. Still a fan, Mr. O’Shea described Mr. Johnson as a “lovable rogue” whom he had voted for in 2019.On the other side of the pub, however, Jenny Moffatt, 73, had no complaints about the drinks she was served by Mr. Johnson. But she described him as “a buffoon,” with a tendency to “pontificate.”Love him or laugh at him, Mr. Johnson was an outsize presence both in British politics — and here in Uxbridge and South Ruislip, the district of outer London that he represented in Parliament. Now he is gone: He was forced out of Downing Street last summer and chose to resign his seat in Parliament last month after a ruling by senior lawmakers that he had lied to Parliament about lockdown-breaking parties.That leaves voters in his constituency to determine on Thursday what kind of post-Johnson future they prefer — to stick with the Conservatives or flip to Labour. Since the district was created in 2010, there have only been Tory representatives in Parliament but the party now trails badly in national opinion polls.Mr. O’Shea, who runs a cleaning company, said he was unsure for whom he will cast his ballot on Thursday. “There are a lot of people, irrespective of what has happened, who would still vote for Boris because of his character,” he said.It is partly thanks to Mr. Johnson’s tarnished legacy, however, that the current prime minister, Rishi Sunak, faces three unwelcome tests on Thursday in so-called by-elections — contests in local parliamentary districts — that fall at a time of roaring inflation and economic stagnation.As well as Mr. Johnson’s seat on the fringes London, there is a vacancy in Selby and Ainsty, in northern England, where one of Mr. Johnson’s allies, Nigel Adams, also quit. In both these contests, the Labour Party, the main opposition, detects the scent of success.A third contest was called when David Warburton, another Conservative, resigned after admitting he had used cocaine. In the race to succeed him in Somerton and Frome, in southwest England, the centrist Liberal Democrats are seen as the main challengers.Steve Tuckwell, second from left, the Conservative candidate running for a parliamentary seat in Boris Johnson’s former district, at a debate with other candidates this month. Susannah Ireland/Reuters“There is a sense that the by-elections are the end of the Boris Johnson era — this electoral test wouldn’t have happened but for him,” said Robert Hayward, a Conservative member of the House of Lords and a polling expert. He added that, because the three seats are being fought in three very different areas, they will give a rare snapshot of opinion across the country.“For the Conservatives, it will be a challenge and damaging if they lose all three,” said Mr. Hayward, while adding that “if they win even one it would substantially lift their spirits because expectations are so low.”Perhaps surprisingly, given their poor national poll ratings — trailing Labour by around 20 percentage points — the Conservatives are optimistic in Uxbridge and South Ruislip, where in the 2019 general election Mr. Johnson won by a relatively modest majority.However, the party is relying on local issues to buoy them, rather than counting on affection for Mr. Johnson. Indeed, the former prime minister has largely been airbrushed from the Tories’ campaign literature, has not been asked (or offered) to campaign for the new Tory challenger in his former district, Steve Tuckwell, and has had only a brief phone call with him.“Boris Johnson was a marmite politician” said David Simmonds, a Conservative lawmaker in the neighboring area of Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner, referring to a salty, yeasty paste that Britons tend to either love or hate.“There were people here who voted Conservative because they liked Boris Johnson and other people who stopped voting Conservative because they didn’t think he was the right person,” he added. “But that’s history, he’s not on the ballot paper at this election, I think people have moved on a while ago.”The résumé of Mr. Tuckwell is strikingly different from that of Mr. Johnson, who was educated at Eton College, Britain’s most famous private school, and Oxford University. By contrast Mr. Tuckwell stocked shelves at a supermarket as a part-time job when he was young, and then was employed as a postal worker. A protest against plans to extend an ultra low emission zone for vehicles, known as ULEZ, across all London boroughs, in London, in April.Maja Smiejkowska/ReutersMr. Tuckwell’s campaign stresses his local credentials in part because his main rival, the Labour Party’s Danny Beales, is now an elected councilor in Camden, an inner London municipality. (Mr. Beales was born and raised in the Uxbridge and South Ruislip district.)The Conservatives also have a pressing local issue because the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, a Labour member, plans to extend an ultra low emission zone across all of London’s boroughs, including Uxbridge, effectively levying a fee on drivers of older, more polluting, cars.The plan, known as ULEZ, already operates in central London and aims to improve the quality of the city’s air, which has been found to have contributed to the death of one girl in the city.The threatened new cost has alarmed many drivers in Uxbridge and South Ruislip, and Mr. Tuckwell has likened the scheme to the tactics of a famed highwayman, Dick Turpin, an 18th century figure whose exploits were romanticized after his execution and who, according to legend, may have once lived locally.“After all, Turpin asked for a few shillings — not four-and-a-half grand a year,” Mr. Tuckwell wrote, totaling the cost of using a noncompliant car every day of the year to more than £4,500, or about $5,870.Mr. Beales has been under pressure on the issue and recently said that now is “not the right time” to extend ULEZ because of the squeeze it puts on incomes.But that is not enough to satisfy some. Outside his home, Neil Wingerath said the new rules would cost him £12.50 each time he drove his 13 year-old Land Rover SUV.“I’m not a Conservative but I am persuaded to vote Conservative because of ULEZ,” said Mr. Wingerath, 67, a retired accountant, who added that the resale value of his car had halved since the announcement of the ULEZ expansion to the area. “They are unsellable locally.”Even on this most local of issues, however, there is no escaping the legacy of Mr. Johnson who, in a newspaper article, recently condemned the “sheer bone-headed cruelty,” of the extension of ULEZ to outer London.His critics point out that the policy was introduced in inner London, by none other than Mr. Johnson himself when he served as the city’s mayor. More

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      Scotland’s Independence Movement Is Down, but Not Out, Analysts Say

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      Support for Scottish independence has dipped, but backing for Scotland remaining part of the United Kingdom is fragile, too. Nicola Sturgeon’s arrest leaves the fate of the movement in flux.For almost a decade Nicola Sturgeon, as the leader of the Scottish government, was the uncontested figurehead of the push to break Scotland’s centuries-old union with England.Her resignation earlier this year — and now her arrest on Sunday over an investigation into her Scottish National Party’s finances — leaves the fate of the movement in flux.Support for independence has dipped, but backing for Scotland remaining part of the United Kingdom, a bond forged in 1707, is fragile, too. Opinion polls show the Scottish public still roughly split on the issue. For now, the political path to an independent Scotland is blocked.“It’s a stalemate, there is no settled will for independence, but equally we have to acknowledge that there is no settled will for union either,” said Nicola McEwen, professor of territorial politics at the University of Edinburgh.“Reports of the demise of the independence movement and indeed of the S.N.P. are somewhat exaggerated,” said Professor McEwen, who added that “given everything that’s going on, maybe it’s surprising that support hasn’t declined more than it has.”Operation Branchform, the code name for inquiry into the Scottish National Party’s finances, began in 2021 and was reported to have followed complaints about the handling of about 600,000 pounds, or about $750,000, in donations raised to campaign for a second vote on Scottish independence. In 2014, Scots voted by 55 to 45 percent against breaking away from the United Kingdom in a divisive referendum.Ms. Sturgeon, who was released on Sunday after seven hours of questioning and who swiftly proclaimed her innocence, has not been charged. On Monday, her successor, Humza Yousaf, rejected calls for Ms. Sturgeon to be suspended from the party.She is the third senior figure in the party to be arrested but not charged. Another is Ms. Sturgeon’s husband, Peter Murrell, the party’s former chief executive who held the post from 1999 until March, when he resigned after accepting blame for misleading statements from the party about the size of its dues-paying membership.Police officers outside the home of Ms. Sturgeon and her husband, Peter Murrell, in Uddingston, Scotland, in April.Andrew Milligan/Press Association, via Associated PressThe police investigation deepened in the weeks after Ms. Sturgeon’s surprise resignation and the fractious competition to succeed her that was won, narrowly, by Mr. Yousaf.His leadership is still relatively new but, so far, he has struggled to match the high profile of his predecessor, or to advance toward the prize that ultimately eluded her: Scottish independence.Supporters have pressed for a second vote on Scottish independence after the first one failed in 2014. Their argument was bolstered by Brexit, which took Britain out of the European Union because the majority of Scots who voted in the Brexit referendum of 2016 wanted to remain in the European bloc. They were outnumbered by voters in England and Wales who wanted to leave.But, to have legal force, the government in London must agree to another vote on independence, and successive prime ministers have refused, insisting that the decision of 2014 stands for a generation.Ms. Sturgeon hit another roadblock last year when she tested in court her right to schedule a referendum without approval from London. In November, Britain’s Supreme Court ruled against her.Some hard-line voices favor unilateral action, perhaps holding a vote in defiance of London. Catalan separatists in Spain took that route in 2017, but it led to the imprisonment or exile of some independence movement leaders. And going outside the law would block an independent Scotland’s path toward membership of the European Union, the S.N.P.’s objective.Frustrated on all sides, Ms. Sturgeon finally proposed using the next British general election, which is expected in the second half 2024, as a de facto independence referendum, making Scotland’s constitutional future the central question. Internal critics doubted the practicality of that idea, given that other political parties would not agree.Nicola Sturgeon at a news conference in 2022 about Scottish independence.Andrew Milligan/Press Association, via Associated PressIn an interview broadcast on Sunday, before Ms. Sturgeon’s arrest, Mr. Yousaf said he was confident that, even with recent setbacks, an independent Scotland was coming.“Despite having some of the most difficult weeks our party has probably faced, certainly in the modern era, that support for independence is still rock solid. It’s a good base for us to build on,” he told the BBC. “I’ve got no doubt at all, that I will be the leader that will ensure that Scotland becomes an independent nation.”The party might have missed its moment, however. It is hard to see a more favorable backdrop for the independence campaign than the messy aftermath of Brexit, the chaotic leadership of the former prime minister, Boris Johnson — who was unpopular in Scotland — and the political dramas of 2022 when Britain changed prime ministers twice.Paradoxically, while Brexit may have strengthened the political case for Scottish independence, it has complicated the practical one. Britain has left the European Union’s giant single market and customs union, and that implies that there would be a trade border between an independent Scotland and England, its biggest economic partner.The years of gridlock and chaos that followed the Brexit referendum may also have scared some Scottish voters away from further constitutional changes.In addition, the S.N.P. has been criticized over its record in government, and the opposition Labour Party senses an opportunity to recover in Scotland, where it dominated politically before the S.N.P. decimated it.“Coming after dishonest claims of party membership, a very poor record in government and making no progress on independence this simply adds to the S.N.P.’s woes,” said James Mitchell, a professor of public policy at Edinburgh University, referring to recent events.“It would be damaging enough to the S.N.P.’s electoral prospects but with Labour looking ever more confident and competent in Scotland as well across Britain, it looks as if the S.N.P.’s opportunity to advance its cause has passed.”Humza Yousaf, Scotland’s new first minister, has said he was confident that, despite recent setbacks, an independent Scotland was coming.Russell Cheyne/ReutersThe next British general election might present Mr. Yousaf with a new opening if, as some pollsters predict, Labour emerges as the biggest party but without an overall majority. In that scenario, the S.N.P. could try to trade its support for a minority Labour government in exchange for a promise to hold a second referendum.The problem is that Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, has so far rejected any such deal. And, if some Scottish independence supporters vote for Labour to try and defeat the Conservative government, led by Rishi Sunak, the S.N.P. could lose seats at Britain’s Parliament, weakening its hand.Some analysts believe that the independence movement should concentrate on building wider popular support, including through other organizations and political parties, reaching out beyond the confines of the S.N.P. and its supporters.After all, Scotland’s union with England was entered into voluntarily, and were opinion polls to show around 60 percent of voters consistently favoring an independent Scotland, that would be difficult for a British government to ignore.Even Mr. Yousaf acknowledges that is some way off, however. At present, he told the BBC, “it’s pretty obvious that independence is not the consistent settled will of the Scottish people.”The question confronting him, his colleagues and the wider independence movement is how they intend to change that. “I don’t really see any signs of a strategy,” said Professor McEwen, “that doesn’t mean there isn’t one, I just don’t see any evidence of it.” More

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      Trounced, Conservatives Feel Voters’ Wrath in English Heartlands

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      Defections in the once solidly Conservative southern “blue wall” drove large losses in recent municipal elections.LITTLEWICK GREEN, England — Aged 22 and not long out of college, George Blundell never expected to win when he ran in municipal elections against a Conservative Party bigwig in a region long loyal to the Tories. But for a young, enthusiastic, former politics student it still seemed worth a shot.“I was like, ‘Well, what’s stopping me’? It’s not something you get to do every day, is it?” recalled Mr. Blundell, a member of the centrist Liberal Democrats, as he sipped a beer outside the village pub where he once washed dishes as a summer job.To his surprise, Mr. Blundell is now a councilor representing the area around Littlewick Green, having defeated the powerful incumbent in perhaps the biggest upset from local elections that have sent shock waves through Britain’s governing Conservative Party.Unhappy about Brexit and aghast at the economic chaos unleashed during Liz Truss’s brief leadership last year, traditional Conservative voters are deserting the party in key English heartlands, contributing to the loss of more than 1,000 municipality seats in voting this month.With a general election expected next year, that is alarming for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who has earned solid marks as a problem solver and seems to have stanched the party’s bleeding from the Ms. Truss fiasco, but whose party nevertheless lags far behind the opposition Labour Party in opinion polls.In these affluent areas within reach of London — called the “blue wall” after the campaign color of the Conservatives — the Liberal Democrats and the Greens, rather than Labour, made big gains in this month’s local elections. But when the next general election comes, the defection of voters from the Conservative Party could deprive Mr. Sunak of a parliamentary majority and propel Labour’s leader, Keir Starmer, into Downing Street.The village pub at Littlewick Green, near Maidenhead.Olivia Harris for The New York TimesIt could also sweep from Parliament prominent Conservatives — like the chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, and the senior cabinet minister, Michael Gove — who hold seats in Conservative southern heartlands, as does the former prime minister, Theresa May, the member of Parliament for Maidenhead.According to Robert Ford, professor of political science at the University of Manchester, they have only themselves to blame because many moderate Conservatives feel their party has abandoned them, rather than the other way around.“Their Conservative Party was about stable government and low taxes, and looking after the City of London,” he said, referring to the financial district to which many voters here commute. “This Conservative government has delivered none of that.”“Rishi Sunak turning up and saying ‘Don’t worry, I know we spent five years burning down the house, but someone who is not an arsonist is in charge now,’” Professor Ford said. “Well, it’s not enough.”Certainly, it proved insufficient in Littlewick Green which, with its village pub, cricket field and pavilion flying British flags, is an unlikely spot for a political insurrection.Yet, so successful was Mr. Blundell that, when he joined a crowd of around 200 people celebrating the coronation of King Charles III, they greeted their newly-elected representative with spontaneous applause.Mr. Blundell, who works as a training adviser for an education firm, said he blushed so hard that “I basically turned into a human tomato.” He added: “I’ve known them all for a long time, and I want to do well by them and help them out — even if it’s the smallest things.”Mr. Blundell prevailed in Littlewick Green, despite its tony image as a place having a cricket field, a village pub, and a pavilion flying British flags.Olivia Harris for The New York TimesIn this quintessential corner of “blue wall” Britain, Mr. Blundell lives with his siblings (he is a triplet) and mother, a vicar, in a house that was once used as a set by the makers of “Midsomer Murders,” a TV detective show featuring gory crimes in scenic English villages.Mr. Blundell attributes his victory to a combination of national politics, local factors and the complacency of local Conservatives. The night of the count was “spectacular,” he added.Simon Werner, the leader of the Liberal Democrats in Windsor and Maidenhead, thinks the success can be repeated in a general election. “The ‘blue wall’ is crumbling,” he said. “We’ve proved we can do it on a local basis and now we have to step up and do it at the general election next year.”In part, the events here represent the aftershocks of the polarizing leadership of Boris Johnson, who won a landslide general election victory in 2019 with the support of voters in deindustrialized areas in the north and middle of England. But Mr. Johnson’s bombastic, pro-Brexit rhetoric, disdain for the business sector and focus on regenerating the north of England never endeared him to moderate Conservatives in the south.Most stuck with the Tories in 2019 because Labour was then led by the left-winger, Jeremy Corbyn. But with the more centrist Mr. Starmer now firmly in charge, the prospect of a Labour government is no longer so scary for many traditional Tories, liberating them to abandon the Conservatives.Professor Ford added, the Tories had caricatured and pilloried their own supporters for years, with some Conservative politicians characterizing such voters as a privileged elite.“If you tell people often enough that they are not welcome, eventually they will get the message,” said Professor Ford.Even some Conservative lawmakers admit they are worried by the appeal of the Liberal Democrats to these voters.“Those traditional moderate Conservatives for whom the world works very well — who were happy to be in the European Union because it worked for them — yes, I am concerned to attract them back from the Liberal Democrats,” said Steve Baker, a government minister and lawmaker who represents Wycombe, close to Windsor and Maidenhead.Mr. Blundell chats with his mother in Littlewick Green.Olivia Harris for The New York TimesThere are demographic factors at play as well, as younger voters relocate from London, a Labour stronghold, forced out by high property prices.But local issues are important, too. At Maidenhead Golf Club, which was established in 1896, there is anger that the Conservative-controlled municipality facilitated plans to construct around 1,800 houses on the 132 acres of land the club rents — threatening to make the club homeless.Merv Foulds, a former club treasurer and lifelong Conservative voter, said that on election day he decided not to join his wife at their polling station, adding: “If I had I would not have voted Tory.”Both locally and nationally the Conservatives are seen as untrustworthy, he said, while Mr. Sunak has yet to prove persuasive.“Sometimes, when he speaks, you just get the feeling he is speaking down to you,” said Mr. Foulds, an accountant. “At least with Boris you felt that he was talking to you — even though he might have been talking drivel, and maybe lying through his back teeth as well.”In Woodlands Park, a less affluent district of Windsor and Maidenhead, Barbara Hatfield a cleaner, said she had voted for several parties in recent elections but was worried about hikes in food prices and angry about development in the town center.A house decorated with a Union Jack in Littlewick Green.Olivia Harris for The New York Times“Maidenhead is terrible, it looks like Beirut,” she said of the town, where there has been construction work, adding that she was unsure how she would vote in a general election.Another uncommitted voter is Mr. Blundell’s mother, Tina Molyneux, who ministers at local churches as well as being head of discipleship and social justice in the diocese of Oxford. She has her own theory of why her son was victorious.“Everybody was saying ‘There’s got to be a change,’” she said. “There was something to do with youth and a fresh approach.”Rev. Molyneux said she had previously voted for Mrs. May, whom she still respects, but will not support her at the general election because the Conservatives have “gone to the right.” More

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      With Local Elections in Much of the U.K., Here’s What’s at Stake

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      Municipalities across England will face voters, including in areas that could sway the next national election. Here’s a guide to the ballots and how to interpret them.Votes will be cast across England on Thursday in local elections that will be a test of the popularity of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who has stabilized Britain’s politics but whose government remains unpopular in the face of surging inflation, sluggish economic growth and labor unrest.These votes will not affect the national Parliament that gives Mr. Sunak his power: Members of Parliament face the public every five years or so in a general election. The date is flexible but one isn’t expected until next year.But Thursday’s voting could offer important clues about whether Mr. Sunak, whose Conservative Party trails the opposition Labour Party in opinion polls, can turn things around.At stake are seats for around 8,000 representatives in lower tiers of government: municipalities that control services like garbage collection and construction permitting and raise taxes, within strict constraints, on residential property.It’s not an infallible guide to national sentiment. Turnout will be far lower than at a general election and parochial issues like planned housing developments could sway some races.Still, this may be the largest public vote between now and the next general election, and it’s fought across most of the areas likely to determine the next British government, with national issues often prominent in campaigning.What’s the state of play nationally?Recent surveys show Mr. Sunak cutting into Labour’s lead, though it remains in double digits. So he retains hopes of snatching an unlikely fifth consecutive general election victory for the Conservatives.Keir Starmer, Labour’s leader, needs a decent result to sustain his hopes of becoming the next prime minister. Despite moving his party close to power, he has failed to excite voters.The Labour leader Keir Starmer on the eve of local elections in Gillingham, England, on Tuesday.Gareth Fuller, via Associated PressThe local elections will indicate how Labour’s polling lead and Mr. Sunak’s polling progress translate into real votes.Who’s voting and where?The elections on Thursday take place across much — but not all — of England. Scotland and Wales aren’t voting, and Northern Ireland has local elections on May 18.Up for grabs are seats for representatives in 230 municipalities. The last time these seats were contested was in 2019, when Parliament was gridlocked over Brexit and the two main parties were about equally unpopular. Many big cities are voting (London excepted) but so are more rural areas.Both main parties hold a lot of these seats, but the Conservatives are defending the most — around 3,500 — and polling suggests they will lose plenty.How many is the key question: The parties traditionally seek to massage expectations. Greg Hands, the chair of the Conservatives, has talked of estimates that his party could lose 1,000 seats — a high number that some analysts think he inflated in an effort to portray lower losses as a triumph.Which are the results to watch?Some the most closely watched votes will be in so-called red wall areas in northern England and the Midlands. These deindustrialized regions used to be heartlands of the Labour Party. Mr. Sunak’s predecessor but one, Boris Johnson, fought a pro-Brexit general election campaign in late 2019 that won many of them for the Conservatives.With support dwindling both for the Conservatives and for Brexit, Labour hopes to regain some former strongholds, for example in northeastern England in areas like Middlesborough and Hartlepool.In the south, analysts will watch how the Conservatives perform in their traditional strongholds, prosperous towns like Windsor and Maidenhead, now sometimes known as blue wall areas. Here, Mr. Johnson alienated anti-Brexit Conservative voters, allowing independent candidates and a centrist party, the Liberal Democrats, to make gains. Mr. Sunak hopes his more technocratic style has arrested that slide.Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in London in April. The local elections will indicate how Labour’s polling lead and Mr. Sunak’s polling progress translate into real votes.Neil Hall/EPA, via ShutterstockSome results should emerge overnight — the northern city of Sunderland, for instance, prides itself on having all its votes counted just hours after the polls close, at 10 p.m. local time — but many places start counting the next day. There won’t be a reliable picture of votes across England until later on Friday.What’s the likely impact on British politics?Earlier this year, when Mr. Sunak’s leadership looked shaky, these elections seemed like a potential trigger for a leadership crisis and a comeback opportunity for Mr. Johnson, whose own fall was accelerated by local election losses last year.Since then, Mr. Sunak has struck a post-Brexit deal with the European Union on Northern Ireland, and stabilized the economy after upheavals under Liz Truss, Mr. Johnson’s short-lived successor. By contrast, Mr. Johnson is embroiled in an inquiry into whether he lied to Parliament about lockdown-busting parties during the pandemic.So Mr. Sunak’s position looks secure for now. But a bad result could demoralize party workers, shake confidence in his prospects, embolden his critics and confirm expectations that he will postpone calling a general election until late next year (it must take place by January 2025). A better-than-expected result for the Conservatives would strengthen Mr. Sunak and increase pressure on Mr. Starmer.If the Conservatives do suffer, the prime minister has one big thing going for him: timing. On Saturday, all the British media’s attention will shift to the pomp and pageantry of the coronation of King Charles III. More

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      Britain’s New Voter ID Rules Are Raising Hackles

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      Critics say the Conservative government’s new requirements are meant to discourage voting by young people and members of minority groups, who are likely to be Labour voters.The rituals around voting have changed little for decades in Britain, where electors give their names and addresses to polling station staff, are checked off a list and then handed a paper ballot to mark and cast in a box.But on Thursday a new requirement will be added for those choosing thousands of elected representatives for municipalities in England: proof of identity.And while voters in many countries take that obligation for granted, the move has unleashed a political storm in Britain.Critics claim the change could reduce turnout, discourage young people from voting and disenfranchise some minority voters and others who are less likely to have a passport or driver’s license.Requiring proof of ID could deter people either from going out to vote or from actually doing so if the new checks lead to long delays at polling stations, they say.And one quirk of the new system that has particularly incensed the critics is a concession allowing some older people to use as ID the cards that entitle them to free or reduced-fee travel, while preventing younger folk to use their travel cards in the same way.Given that older voters are statistically more likely than the young both to vote and to support the Conservative Party, led by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, some opposition politicians fear a finger on the scales. The leader of the centrist Liberal Democrats, Ed Davey, accused the government of “undermining our democracy.”Ed Davey, the leader of Britain’s Liberal Democrats, said the new regulations on voter ID would undermine democracy.Henry Nicholls/ReutersEven one senior Conservative lawmaker, David Davis, has reservations. “The introduction of Voter ID has been shown to reduce turnout. This is bad for our democracy,” he wrote on Twitter.A similar push has proved contentious in parts of the United States. Several states where Republicans control the legislature and the governor’s seat have introduced new identification requirements as well as broader voting restrictions.But in Britain the furor also reflects the country’s longstanding resistance to identity cards, which are a common feature in many of its continental European neighbors.A 2005 effort by Prime Minister Tony Blair to introduce national identity cards was abandoned in the face of staunch opposition. (Mr. Blair still urges their adoption, although now in digital form.)Britons did carry identity cards during World War II, though they were abandoned in 1952 after a famous case in which Clarence Willcock, a dry cleaner from north London, refused to show documentation to a police officer who pulled over his car. When the matter came to court, a judge ruled in Mr. Willcock’s favor.Acceptable documents for modern-day voters will include a driver’s license or passport, and the government says it is simply following standard practice in most Western nations to protect the integrity of the electoral system.An official survey found that 96 percent of the electorate held a form of ID with a photo that respondents thought was still recognizable. That number fell to 91 percent when including only those with ID cards that had not expired.Those who lack the necessary documentation could apply for a new form of photo ID that the government calls a voter authority certificate.Prime Minister Rishi Sunak defended the regulations in Parliament on Wednesday, saying they were “commonplace” throughout Europe and in Canada.Dan Kitwood/Getty ImagesHowever, there were just 85,689 applications for those cards, representing 4.3 percent of the estimated two million people who did not have valid photo ID, according to openDemocracy, an independent media platform that focuses on the political process.In requiring proof of identity, the government is offering a solution to a nonexistent problem, critics say. The Electoral Commission, the independent body that governs elections in Britain, said that in recent years there had been “no evidence of large-scale electoral fraud.”Of the 1,386 suspected cases reported to police between 2018 and 2022, nine led to convictions and six cautions were issued. In most instances, officers either took no further action or resolved the matter locally, it said.Critics fear that any barrier to participation in the electoral process will particularly affect minority groups. Clive Lewis, a Labour lawmaker, argued that those people already felt excluded from the political process, adding that “voter ID will make it even harder for marginalized groups to vote.”And a parliamentary committee noted “the widely voiced concerns about the potential impact of the introduction of mandatory voter ID on certain societal groups and for some with protected characteristics, including people with disabilities, members of LGBTQ+ communities, Black and ethnic minority groups and older people.”Questioned in Parliament on Wednesday, Mr. Sunak said that a voter ID requirement was “common in European countries, it’s common in Canada and it’s absolutely right that we introduce it here too.”John Curtice, a professor of politics at the University of Strathclyde, said most countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development would expect people to show ID when they vote, as they must in Northern Ireland, where rules were introduced to deal with voting irregularities there.“From an international perspective you could say you should be doing it. From a domestic perspective the issue is, what’s the problem?” he said, noting that few cases of electoral fraud had been successfully prosecuted.Professor Curtice added that some categories of acceptable identification “look a little curious,” in particular the use of travel cards by older people.Ideally, such changes should have been made on a cross-party basis with the agreement of opposition politicians, he said.Another risk is that turning away voters who fail to provide valid ID could spark disputes, perhaps raising the suspicions about the fairness of election results that they were designed to allay. That is most likely in municipal elections, where turnouts tend to be low and just a handful of votes can decide the outcome of some contests.As to the likely scale of any impact, Professor Curtice said it was hard to predict.“The honest answer is that we don’t know and that we may never know,” he said, “unless there is an enormous drop in turnout, and that is particularly in places where fewer people have passports.” More