- The local elections are Sunak’s first major electoral test
- Conservatives could lose 1,000 seats – leading pollster
- Labor say they are on track to win the next general election
LONDON, May 5 (Portal) – British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives faced dismal results in local elections, with voters beating his party over political scandals, sluggish economic growth and high inflation, early results showed on Friday.
While government parties often struggle in the midterm elections, the council results in England will be the biggest and possibly final test of voter sentiment ahead of the next general election, which is expected to be held in 2024.
The Conservative Party suffered a net loss of 144 seats on municipal councils up for re-election, early results showed. Main opposition party Labour, which hopes to win hundreds of seats in a mid-term vote, added 96 seats.
Labor said in a statement that based on these local election results they were on track to win the next general election, while smaller political parties such as the Liberal Democrats and the Greens also made gains.
Local election results decide more than 8,000 council seats in 230 local governments responsible for the day-to-day delivery of public services like garbage collection and schools.
Huw Merriman, a Conservative junior transport secretary, said it had been a “difficult night and it could get even more difficult”.
John Curtice, Britain’s best-known pollster, said based on the results so far, the Conservatives could suffer a net loss of about 1,000 seats, which would be in line with the party’s most pessimistic forecast.
BATTLEFIELD AREAS
Sunak has been trying to restore the Conservatives’ credibility since he was appointed prime minister in October after months of economic chaos, strikes and political scandals.
The Conservatives have changed prime ministers three times over the past year after Boris Johnson was ousted in part over parties at government buildings during the COVID-19 lockdowns and Liz Truss was ousted after a game of tax cuts that shook Britain’s reputation for financial stability.
Labor made gains in some areas that supported exiting the European Union in the 2016 Brexit referendum, which the party must win if it is to win a majority in the next general election.
In early results, Sunak’s party lost control of five councils including Brentwood, North Leicestershire and Hertsmere.
Labor won control of Plymouth and Stoke-on-Trent councils, two key battlegrounds seen as important to the party’s hopes of winning the next general election.
Johnny Mercer, an MP for the region, said it had been a “terrible” night for the Conservatives.
Labor leader Keir Starmer visited Plymouth and Stoke-on-Trent during the local election campaign as the party expended resources trying to regain control of councils.
A full picture of the parties’ position will not emerge until later on Friday, when most councils are due to announce their results.
The Conservative leader said ahead of the election that the party could lose about 1,000 seats, a figure some opposition politicians and political analysts said was deliberately exaggerated so he could claim the party had performed better than expected in the results.
The last time most of those local election seats were contested was in 2019, when the Conservatives lost more than 1,300 seats just before then-Prime Minister Theresa May was forced to resign in a move that should help limit losses in those elections.
Reporting by Andrew MacAskill; Edited by Michael Perry
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