Big election ‘black eye’ for Boris Johnson

ANDREW HAMMOND

LAST Thursday(May5)’s election delivered a big ‘black eye’ for Boris Johnson. The Conservatives lost a significant number of seats in the party’s mainstay of England; however, potentially much greater challenges for the prime minister now lie in the rest of the United Kingdom, including Northern Ireland where pro-Irish unification Sinn Féin is now the largest party for the first time. 

In England, the Conservatives lost scores of Council seats, but the party performed better outside of London than inside where it lost control of flagship Councils including Westminster and Wandsworth. Correspondingly, Labour, the Greens, and the Liberal Democrats made clear gains.