After crushing defeats, Boris Johnson refuses to quit

After his Conservatives suffered two crushing defeats in the Westminster election and a staunch ally resigned, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson refused to bow to renewed demands to quit.

In a letter to Johnson, party chairman and cabinet member Oliver Dowden stated that somebody had to shoulder the blame for recent events, which was widely seen as a reference to Partygate and other scandals that have plagued the prime minister, who only narrowly survived a no-confidence vote this month among Tory MPs.

Johnson framed the election setbacks as mid-term blues for the Conservatives, as Britain contends with inflation reaching double-digit levels not seen since the 1970 s.

The sense of crisis has been added by national strikes by railway workers this week.

He said that we have to listen to these results from Rwanda, where he is attending a Commonwealth summit. We will keep going, addressing the concerns of people. Johnson is going to Germany and then Spain for G 7 and NATO summits after his current visit to Rwanda. He is not due back in Britain until late next week, and Tory critics will be sharpening their knives.

If replicated in the next general election due by 2024, the results in the two by-elections would consign the Conservatives to a historic national defeat.

In the Tiverton and Honiton constituency of southwest England, the party saw its 2019 general election majority of more than 24,000 votes wiped out by the centrist Liberal Democrats, one of the biggest upsets of the UK electoral history.

The main Labour opposition regained the Westminster seat of Wakefield in northern England, in a sign of its resurgence after Johnson triumphed on a promise to get Brexit done. Since then, the economic picture has been worsened, and opinion polls show widespread disgust at Johnson's leadership arising from Lock-down-busting parties held in Downing Street.

The victorious Liberal Democrat candidate, Richard Foord, said voters in Tiverton and Honiton had sent a shockwave through British politics. It's time for Boris Johnson to go and go now, he said.

Simon Lightwood, Labour's MP for Wakefield, told Johnson: Your contempt for this country is no longer tolerated. The reasons for the two by-elections were emblematic of the Tory troubles.

After he was seen watching pornography on his phone in Parliament, he had to step down as a former MP for Tiverton and Honiton.

In Wakefield, the MP quit after he was convicted of sexual assault against a 15-year-old boy.

Neil Parish, a porn MP, rejected Johnson's attempts to deflect blame after the Tories lost his rural area of southwest England for the first time since the early 19th century.

It was a referendum on Boris Johnson and what is happening nationally, he told BBC television.

The prime minister should be safe from a leadership vote for 12 months under current party rules.

The rules could be changed, according to senior MP Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, who sits on the committee of Tory backbenchers in 1922.

He said on BBC radio that Johnson will have to defend himself anew to the party in the coming days.

We will have to make a judgment as to whether we think that is a satisfactory explanation or whether we should actually take measures to have a new prime minister. Dowden was early backers of Johnson's attempt to defeat Theresa May as the Conservative leader in June 2019.

Daniel Finkelstein, a Conservative lord and journalist, wrote in The Times newspaper that his departure is the ravens leaving the Tower of London.

He said that we all take responsibility for the results and that we're determined to tackle the cost of living, and he said he wouldn't say whether he still supports the prime minister.