Last week, by-elections were held in West Yorkshire's Wakefield constituency as well as Devon's Tiverton and Honiton, resulting in the Conservative Party losing two seats to the Labour and the Liberal Democrats, respectively. The elections took place in the wake of Johnson surviving a vote of no-confidence in the Conservative Party. The prime minister announced after the defeat that he is not planning to resign.
"For the Conservatives, the two defeats on the same night, in very different areas, raise the possibility of successful attacks from Labour (in the north) and the Liberal Democrats (in the south). Certainly this is likely to happen if Johnson clings on as leader," Garnett said, noting that "it is becoming increasingly clear to Conservative MPs that Johnson is a vote-loser and that his public appeal will never recover."
According to the expert, the Labour was always in a good position to win in Wakefield as it is a constituency where they usually do well and which was taken by the Tories in the "unusual" election of 2019. At the same time, the loss in Tiverton and Honiton is more significant as it could portend the Lib Dems, who have strong support in the south-west, becoming the preferred choice of the middle class which has lost confidence in Johnson. Garnett went on to suggest that the prime minister could even lose to the Liberal Democrats his own parliamentary seat of Uxbridge and South Ruislip.
"The big problem for the Conservatives is that they do not have an alternative leader who can appeal in both of these areas. Their best chance would be to find someone who appeals to middle class voters, but such a person would almost certainly have to take a more moderate line on 'Brexit', risking a revival of bitter divisions within the party," Garnett explained, adding that "a strong Brexiteer would have more appeal in the north and among the party membership, but would risk driving middle class voters away from the Conservatives for many years to come."
He went on to say that with Johnson not going away, the Tory party seems to hope for better economic news that "might help it to avoid a complete disaster after the next election."
"Only a defeat on the scale of 1997 would persuade the Conservatives to rethink their overall position, which since 2016 has been to appeal to the country as the only party which can be trusted on 'Brexit,'" Garnett concluded.