The UK’s ruling Conservatives risked losing up to 1,000 councilors in local elections on Friday, with voters in many parts of England turning against the party after a tumultuous year.
Losses of this magnitude would greatly exceed the predictions of most forecasters that, while the party stood to lose several hundred local authority seats, the number was unlikely to reach four figures.
In the early hours of the morning, Work took control of Plymouth City Council in south-west England, which had previously been under no overall control. The Tories had previously lost overall control of two councils – Brentwood in Essex and Tamworth in Staffordshire.
Labor also took the post of mayor-elect of Middlesbrough, with the party’s Chris Cooke winning over independent Andy Preston.
The gains were better distributed than expected among opponents of the Tories, going up to Liberal Democrats and the Greens as well as the Labor Party.
In the early hours of the morning, the Liberal Democrats said they were ‘confident’ to have taken control of the council in Windsor and Maidenhead, an area which contains the solidly Conservative parliamentary constituency of former Prime Minister Theresa May.
Just before 4 a.m., in all declared wards across England, Labor had gained 46 seats from its position just before the election, while the Liberal Democrats had won 15 and the Greens seven. The independents lost 15 seats and the conservatives 53.
Polling expert Sir John Curtice wrote on the BBC website that it was possible the Tories would hit the 1,000 seat loss threshold, but added that the ‘spoils’ were more evenly distributed among the Conservatives than expected. Labor and the Liberal Democrats.
‘Labour will be disappointed that it looks like their vote is simply level with their performance in local elections last year, despite the Conservatives still being five points short of 12 months ago,’ wrote curtice.
Munira Wilson, the Liberal Democrat MP for Twickenham, told the BBC it looked like a “fantastic night” for her party.
“We are making gains across the country,” she said.
Labor shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson said the results reflected how Sir Keir Starmer had transformed the party since becoming leader in April 2020.
“I think it shows how Keir Starmer has toppled Labour,” Phillipson said of the results. “We look to the country; we focus on the issues that matter to voters.
The full results image will not appear for a few hours. Most of the 230 councils that held elections won’t start counting votes until Friday morning.
The Conservative Party, in charge nationally in Westminster, has acknowledged it faces significant losses.
“It will be a tough night for the Conservatives,” the party said. “Any government that has been in power for 13 years is at high risk of losing seats.”
Veterans Affairs Minister Johnny Mercer, who represents Plymouth Moor View, said it had been a “terrible night” for the Tories.
THE local elections are likely to be the last major test of public opinion at the polls before the general elections, scheduled for January 2025 at the latest but likely to take place several months earlier. Elections for contested wards on Thursday were last held in 2019, when the Tories under Theresa May and Labor under Jeremy Corbyn fared poorly.
Curtice said Labor needed a double-digit lead in the election to be sure of securing a parliamentary majority in the general election.
Labor hope to show they can beat the Tories in the “red wall” of predominantly worker seats in the north of England that Boris Johnson, when he was prime minister, captured for his Conservative party.
Data and charts by Olivier Hawkins, Ella Hollowwood And Martin Stabe
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