By-election news - live: PM loses backing of more Tory MPs after disastrous defeats

The good news for Labour and the Liberal Democrats is that the two latest by-elections show voters are doing it by themselves, writes Andrew Grice. But will it become a widespread practice?

Sir Keir Starmer has lent his voice to the vehement and widespread criticism of a decision to scrap the constitutional right to abortion in the US, calling it “devastating”.

The US Supreme Court has ended constitutional protections for abortion that have been in place for nearly 50 years by deciding to overturn the landmark Roe v Wade ruling.

The Labour leader tweeted on Friday evening: “Today’s devastating Supreme Court decision is a massive setback for women’s rights in the United States of America.

“The right of women to make their own decisions about their own bodies is a fundamental human right.”

Normally, Boris Johnson’s cabinet is desperately hunting around trying to find talking points that will divide the good people of the United Kingdom, but this week they have successfully delivered something to unify people from both the north and south of England. Rural communities and urban centres alike have lost patience with this government.

Of course, the Tories were busy spinning the reasons for their monumental failures in the by-elections in Wakefield and Tiverton and Honiton. My favourite came before the results were even in, when Tory MPs took to the airwaves to say that anything less than a massive swing to Labour would be a failure for the Labour Party.

In a moment of rare honesty for the governing party, they genuinely thought that their best defence in the face of losses was to say: “God, we are so very bad and hated at the moment, we should have lost by more votes.”

Read more from Labour’s Jess Philips here:

Shadow foreign secretary David Lammy has called the rejection of Boris Johnson’s bid by Commonwealth leaders to oust secretary-general Baroness Scotland a “humiliating diplomatic failure” for the PM.

The prime minister had backed Jamaican foreign minister Kamina Johnson Smith to replace the Labour peer in the role as the public face of the 54-nation body.

But allies rejected Mr Johnson’s move and re-elected Baroness Scotland for a second term during the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting on Friday.

Responding to the news, Mr Lammy said: “This was a divisive campaign and a humiliating diplomatic failure for Boris Johnson that illustrates his embarrassing lack of influence within the Commonwealth.”

A week ago ministerial allies of Boris Johnson were insisting that losses in the Tiverton and Wakefield by-elections were already “priced in”. The results would not matter, they insisted, because no one expected them to win. It did not quite work out that way.

Less than two hours after the scale of the disastrous defeats became apparent, one of Boris Johnson’s most publicly loyal allies, party chairman Oliver Dowden, quit. Shortly afterwards, former Conservative leader Michael Howard became the latest senior Tory to call on the prime minister to resign. And yet still Mr Johnson limps on.

Our Whitehall editor Kate Devlin and economics editor Anna Isaac have the details:

Today was a “momentous and sad day for the United States”, the UK chairwoman of Democrats Abroad, the official organisation of the Democratic Party for US Citizens living overseas, has said.

Speaking at a protest outside the US embassy in London, Wen-Wen Lindroth said: “I’m about the same age as Roe v Wade and, you know, I think a lot of women of my generation, we just took it for granted that the struggle for women’s rights, you know, had come a very long way, maybe not all the way, but this was certainly one of the fundamental decisions that, you know, underlies our sense of equality in the US.

“So to have it taken away is very meaningful and it will impact women, you know, of older generations, of younger generations certainly, and its just something that we’re going to need to address politically and find a way to turn back.”

The government should admit the public are tired of its rule, Jess Phillips has said.

Writing after her party beat the Conservatives in the Wakefield by-election and the Lib Dems overcame a Tory majority in the Tiverton & Honiton by-election, the Labour MP said:

The problem is Boris Johnson and 12 years of failure. It wasn’t some non-existent pact between Labour and the Lib Dems. It was because people in wildly different parts of our country decided to use their votes, completely of their own volition, to send a message that they think that the prime minister and his government have failed. Simple.

Britain did not abandon Commonwealth countries during the coronavirus crisis, Boris Johnson has said.

After admitting that the UK could always have done more, he said the country had played a “pretty remarkable” role in distributing vaccines around the world.

“I think that is a great, great thing,” he said.