Bexley by-election: Voters share their thoughts on PM
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A win in Bexley and Sidcup cooled the nerves of the Conservatives in what was a convincing victory for the party. With a by-election being held in North Shropshire, to replace the departing Owen Paterson, there is now a real sense of worry that an upset could be on the cards.
Fresh news of Anthony Allen, a former Tory councillor in North Shropshire defecting to the Reclaim party in North Shropshire, has further heightened worry that a defeat is increasingly more likely.
Speaking about his decision to leave, Mr Allen said he believed “the Conservatives simply aren’t conservative anymore”.
He added the party have “gone soft on illegal immigration, they’ve lost control of taxation and are obsessed with crippling green taxes nobody wants”.
Martin Daubney, former Brexit Party MEP, and Laurence Fox, are both set to hit the campaign trail soon.
However, there seems to be a sense of worry that this seat is not as comfortable as imagined.
In the previous election, a majority of 22,000 showed how solid a seat it was at the time.
Yet with the deployment of Boris Johnson and Michael Gove to campaign for the seat, a real sense of worry seems to be in the air.
But Lord Norman Tebbit, former MP and member of the Conservative Party, has warned of the “real danger” the Prime Minister now faces.
Writing for the Telegraph, he said: “The minds of the staff at Conservative headquarters will now have turned to the impending by-election in North Shropshire, brought about by the resignation of Owen Paterson.
“Despite Paterson’s majority of almost 23,000 it will not be an easy election for the Tories to win, for there are too many things going awry for the Government.
“The arrival of the new, seemingly highly infectious variant of Covid cannot be blamed on Johnson.
“But there is the question of whether the measures he has taken on travel, masks and meetings will have some impact on family plans for Christmas.
“Moreover, the opposition parties will project Paterson’s conduct into a charge of sleaze against Johnson himself and the Government from top to bottom.
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“I doubt that many long-term Conservatives would be tempted to defect to the increasingly green-tinted Liberal Democrats or the sluggish and divided Labour Party of Sir Keir Starmer.
“However, Richard Tice’s Reform UK is a different matter.
“It has roots in the Brexit movement and champions anti-statist, neo-Thatcherite economic and social attitudes which could be attractive to Conservative voters harbouring doubts about Boris Johnson.
“My money would be on the Tories to hang on to North Shropshire, but with a very much reduced majority, with a lot of their vote going to Reform UK.
“That would put Boris Johnson in real danger.
“I have no doubt that the Prime Minister thinks instinctively as a Conservative, but time and again he shows himself as a man of thoughts and words rather than action.”
“I doubt that many long-term Conservatives would be tempted to defect to the increasingly green-tinted Liberal Democrats or the sluggish and divided Labour Party of Sir Keir Starmer.
“However, Richard Tice’s Reform UK is a different matter.
“It has roots in the Brexit movement and champions anti-statist, neo-Thatcherite economic and social attitudes which could be attractive to Conservative voters harbouring doubts about Boris Johnson.
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