LONDON, June 23. (DPA/EP) –

The British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, had assured this Thursday that it would be “insane” to resign if the Conservatives accepted a fresh setback in a partial election being held this Thursday and in which two seats in the British Parliament are up for grabs. at stake.

Johnson, who was recently rescued from an internal no-confidence vote, has downplayed the possibility of losing the by-elections taking place this Thursday in the cities of Tiverton, Honiton and Wakefield, because “the ruling party usually doesn’t win” elections of this type.

“I had high hopes, but you know, that’s how it is. That’s the reality,” he told a press conference on an official trip that took them to Kigali, Rwanda’s capital. “Are you crazy?”, he had responded to a journalist when he asked if he would resign after a hypothetical defeat.

“It’s only been a year since we won the Hartlepool by-election where everyone thought that … you know, that we didn’t win, I can’t remember the last time the Conservatives won Hartlepool, a long time ago, I don’t think I’ve ever done that. ,” he recalled.

Johnson’s games were played this Thursday in the towns of Tiverton and Honiton, a very conservative corner of the Devon region — in southwest England — and in the old industrial estate of Wakefield — located in the north — where the Conservatives won for the first time in 2019. after 90 years.

Wakefield in West Yorkshire, was one of the traditional Labor strongholds that formed the so-called ‘red wall’, which the Conservatives managed to destroy in the 2019 general election.

As far as Devon is concerned, the Conservatives, who won the county in the last election by more than 24,000 votes, are likely to play these two districts against the Liberal Democrats.

Tiverton and Honiton have been in Conservative hands since they were formed in 1997, but their last Westminster representative, Neil Parish, resigned in April after admitting consuming pornography in Parliament.

In Wakefield’s case, voters had voted for the Labor Party from 1932 to 2019, when Imran Ahmad Khan won for the Conservatives. However, he also had to resign in May after being found guilty of sexually abusing a minor.

If he is defeated in both scenarios, it would be the first time in more than thirty years, following the setback suffered by former Conservative Prime Minister John Major.