Tony Blair's Labour Party Loses Parliamentary Seat to Anti-War Party in Special Election
The Associated Press
LONDON July 15, 2004 — Prime Minister Tony Blair's governing Labour Party lost a parliamentary seat to an anti-war party and narrowly avoided defeat, according to vote results Friday.
The result is a further blow for Blair, whose popularity has slumped since the Iraq war. Labour fared terribly in local council and European Parliament elections last month and some in the party question whether Blair, once their most prized electoral asset, has become a liability.
The Liberal Democrats, who strongly opposed the war in Iraq, finished first in Thursday's balloting with 10,274 votes in Leicester, a city in central England with a high Muslim population. Labour was second with 8,620 votes and the Conservative Party had 5,796. Labour narrowly held onto another parliamentary seat, in the nearby city of Birmingham.
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