The chair shakes under Sunak. The Conservatives lost the English election across the board

That the election results would be very negative for Sunak’s party was already obvious on Friday before the votes in the mayoral races were counted. However, a win in one of the most important would still mean a success for the prime minister, on which the party’s voters could pin their hopes. But he didn’t come.

First, Labour’s Claire Ward became East Midlands’ first ever mayor, defeating Tory candidate Ben Bradley by 11.5 percentage points. Subsequently, London Mayor Sadiq Khan smoothly secured a third term in office. But the biggest shock came in the West Midlands, where the incumbent popular Tory mayor Andy Street was the clear favourite. However, after a recount, he also lost to Labor’s Richard Parker by just 1,508 votes.

Labor also defended the posts of mayor of Greater Manchester and Liverpool, but in these northern cities the Tories traditionally lose. But the wins gave Labor leader Keir Starmer the chance to speak of a “phenomenal result beyond expectations,” while Sunak had to admit disappointment. However, according to The Guardian, he still tried to reassure the party’s voters that his “plan is working”.

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It will be difficult for him to convince voters after this result, and it will be even more difficult to convince Sunak’s fellow party members to still have faith in him. The Conservatives lost 473 seats and control of twelve city councils, and with a total of 513 seats won or defended, they finished third in the election behind the Liberal Democrats and their 521 electoral successes. This is the worst result for the Conservatives since 1996.

Such a crushing defeat cannot be seen other than as a sign that Sunak’s tenure as Prime Minister of Great Britain is coming to an end. Although the date of the general election has not yet been officially set, it should be held in January 2025 at the latest, and the chances of Sunak regaining the trust of voters by then are slim, according to the BBC.

In addition, it is possible that due to the loss in the local elections, he will face an internal party revolt, similar to the one that drove Theresa May from the office of prime minister, and someone else will lead the party in the elections. However, they could be deterred from rebellion by the possibility that the party’s situation is already hopeless and a potential further crushing defeat could thus write off the next leader of the party without him having a chance to do anything about it.

“Phenomenal Result”

Labor won 185 new seats and control of eight councils in the election. It is necessary to point out that the English local elections are not completely equivalent to the general ones, if only because Scotland and Northern Ireland do not participate in them, and Wales only elected police commissioners. In addition, independent candidates are understandably more likely to succeed in local elections. Nevertheless, Labor also won several battles considered good indicators of national trends.

These are traditionally the Milton Keynes and Nuneaton town council elections, which Labor won control of. At the same time as local elections, parliamentary by-elections were also held in the Blackpool South constituency. These came out in full line with national polls, with the Labor candidate leading the Tory candidate by 26 percentage points over the previous race in the constituency.

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Their opponents also inflicted a few symbolically significant defeats on the conservatives. For example, they took away control of the town council in Basildon, Essex. It used to be traditionally Labor before the Tories took control of it under Margaret Thatcher and became their pride as a “rehabilitated” town. However, Sunak was even more embarrassed by the loss in the race for the post of Mayor of York and North Yorkshire, because this area also includes the constituency of Richmond, which Sunak represents in Parliament.

Gaza is Labour’s weakness

However, Labor also suffered several heavy partial losses, namely in constituencies with a large Muslim community. The party leadership continues to support Israel in its offensive in Gaza, launched in response to the terrorist attack by Hamas on October 7. It thus differs from the majority opinion of the party’s voters.

According to information from the BBC, Labor lost 21% of the vote compared to the last local elections in constituencies where more than a fifth of the population identify as Muslim. This weakness was then exploited by the strongly pro-Palestinian British Labor Party led by agitator George Galloway and the Green Party.

One anonymous Labor source told the media at a time when a Tory victory was still expected in the West Midlands that the result would not be “a West Midlands win but a Middle East win” and described Hamas as the “real underdog” of the election. Party leader Starmer subsequently condemned the remarks as racist.