Tories crushed as Lib Dems win seat in UK by-election

Britain’s Liberal Democrats pulled off a huge win in Thursday’s North Shropshire by-election, taking a seat the Conservatives have held since its inception.

The Lib Dems’ candidate Helen Morgan won the seat with 17,957 votes, beating Tory Neil Shastri-Hurst on 12,032. The Lib Dems recorded a 34 percent swing from the Conservatives, with a turnout of 46.2 percent.

“This is a watershed moment in British politics,” Lib Dem leader Ed Davey told BBC Radio 4’s Today program Friday morning. “I think we’ve brought hope to the whole nation … Liberal Democrats have proven the Conservatives can be beaten anywhere.”

The North Shropshire by-election was triggered by the resignation of Tory Owen Paterson, who held the ultra-safe seat with a majority of nearly 23,000, after he became embroiled in a furious sleaze row.

It’s the second significant by-election win for the Lib Dems over the Tories this year.

The huge swing to the Lib Dems is being seen as a rebuke to U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s party, amid a series of damaging stories about its rule-breaking Christmas parties, known as Partygate.

“Instead of taking action to support Shropshire’s farmers, you spend your time misleading the nation on how you and your office partied during lockdown,” Morgan said during her victory speech Thursday, directly addressing Johnson. “Tonight the people of North Shropshire have said enough is enough. They have said that you are unfit to lead and that they want a change.”

The Tory loss is “a very significant by-election result” because it is “a sign the Conservatives may genuinely be in electoral trouble,” James Johnson of the polling firm JL Partners told POLITICO’s London Playbook. “This result crystallizes the brand-changing impact that has had — and shows that we are now in a very different world as far as public opinion is concerned.”