Britain’s Conservatives are facing one of their worst local election results in 40 years. Elections were held on Thursday in some constituencies in England and Wales. In the United Kingdom, local voting does not always take place across the country at the same time, so voters in the remaining constituencies or in Scotland or Northern Ireland did not go to the polls.
The elections concern the filling of more than 2,500 seats in local councils, from which the city councils will subsequently emerge. They are primarily responsible for the day-to-day running of public services in their district, such as waste collection, education or transport.
However, commentators and analysts point out that Thursday was primarily the last test before the parliamentary elections, which await Great Britain in January of next year at the latest.
According to the provisional results, Labor clearly won the election. In total, 102 out of 107 constituencies hold over 1,000 seats, which is 204 more than in the previous elections in these constituencies.
On the contrary, at the central level, the ruling conservatives of Rishi Sunak took a noticeable offense. So far, they hold only 468 representative seats, while they have already lost 400 seats compared to the state after the last elections.
At the moment, the Conservatives are even in third place, ahead of even the Liberal Democrats, who have won 500 seats so far.
Given that parliamentary elections in Britain are not based on the principle of proportional representation, but on the majority system, election results in municipal elections can indicate the mood of voters in individual constituencies. The British BBC therefore called the election “a great test of public opinion”. In addition to regional issues, the campaign also addressed national issues – such as the anti-smoking law or the plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda, both from the pen of Rishi Sunak’s government.
We wrote more about these topics here:
“There is no such thing as a safe seat for the Conservatives anymore,” Kwasi Kwarteng, former Industry and Trade Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Boris Johnson and Liz Truss governments, commented on the interim results for The Guardian. His party lost some of the cities it had previously considered its strongholds.
The BBC illustrates this with the town of Basildon in Essex, which has already become a symbol of Conservative victory during Margaret Thatcher’s reign, gaining “iconic status” for them. However, with all the votes counted, Labor has now won there, winning 18 of the 42 council seats. The Conservatives won 13, up from 26 four years ago and a comfortable majority.
But the main news comes from the North East of England. A Labor victory here was widely expected, but they will be particularly pleased with a clear victory in the East Midlands region, which should be a key battleground in the general election. The victory in York and North Yorkshire was also a PR success for the party. The parliamentary constituency of Prime Minister Sunak is also located in this region.
He described the results as “disappointing” but denied that Labor was on course to win the general election. A sure win for him is the election of Ben Houchen to a third term in Tees Valley, albeit with a much smaller majority. The prime minister focused on this constituency in the campaign, and even his social networks celebrate his party’s victory there, while ignoring the election results in other constituencies.
“The results here showed that the voters will stay with us in the parliamentary elections,” Sunak said in a speech after visiting Houchen in person to help him campaign. “Labour knew they had to win here to win the general election, but voters know the Conservatives are building a better future for the Tees Valley and a better future for Britain.”
Even in a commentary Sunak wrote for The Daily Telegraph, he denied that the election was a crushing defeat for his party. “The fact that Labor did not win in places where it admits it needs a majority (the paper points out that the Prime Minister means Tees Valley by this, note ed.), shows that they are harmed by Keir Starmer’s lack of plan and vision (Labor leader, note ed.). We conservatives have something to fight for – and we will, because we are fighting for our values and the future of our country.”
Labor has presented the election as a “referendum on government” and its leader Starmer is pressuring Sunak to step down and call an early election after the election failure.
In this sense, he commented, for example, on the by-election in Blackpool South: “The voters sent a direct message to Rishi Sunak: Back off, let there be a general election. Only Labor can give Britain back its future.” https://twitter.com/Keir_Starmer/status/1786367615008440703 on the X platform.
