The Labour candidate trying to win Boris Johnson’s old seat has spoken of his “whirlwind weekend” getting ready for a suprise by-election. Johnson resigned as the MP forUxbridge and South Ruislip on Friday night after being told he’d be suspended from Parliament for more than 10 days over Partygate.
It leaves Danny Beales, the Labour candidate, hoping to win the snap vote. “It wasn’t how I envisioned my weekend,” he told us from a pub in between door-knocking sessions yesterday. “We were looking at a general election in a year or 18 months time... it’s certainly increased the intensity very quickly”. Beales was helped by an influx of supporters in the past two days, saying over 100 extra volunteers went down to canvas for Labour soon after the news about Johnson broke.
He said that on the doorstep a few people told him it was “about time” the ex-PM left, but others wanted to talk about other issues like the economy. “He’s got no one to blame but himself. Like most of the voters I’m pretty sick of talking about it” Beales said. Johnson was famous for not spending much time in the seat he’s held since 2015. “He doesn’t have much to pack”, Beales joked.
Beales will have to move house, as while he spent much of his childhood in the area, he’s currently still a councillor in Camden. ““I’ll be staying here a bit sooner than I envisaged” he said, saying looking for a new home has “accelerated”. He quit his day job in Spring to prepare for fighting a general election.
The Tories will choose their candidates in the coming days, and are defending defending a 7,000 majority. That means a target seat for Labour: party leader Sir Keir Starmer sent Labour members an email on Friday, and Beales his best wishes. “After the news broke he text me, just saying ‘Good luck, we’re with you, anything you need let me know’” Beales said. “I’ve not had a conversation with him but he sent me a nice supportive message”.
