- By Joshua Nevet
- BBC policy
May 5, 2023 at 8:38 p.m. CET
Updated 29 minutes ago
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Watch: Local Elections in England… in under 60 seconds
Labor leader Sir Keir Starmer says his party is headed down Downing Street after the Tories were hammered in local elections across England.
The Tories have lost 48 councils and more than 1,000 council members, beating their worst predictions.
Labor is now the largest party in local government, surpassing the Tories for the first time since 2002.
“The British public has sent a clear rejection of a Prime Minister who never had a mandate from the start,” said a Labor spokesman.
The Green Party won more than 200 seats – its best result ever in a local election – and won control of its first English council in Mid-Suffolk, although it was overtaken as the largest party by Labor in Brighton and Hove.
Mr Sunak admitted the results were “disappointing” but said he had not detected a “massive bottom wave of movement towards the Labor Party”.
Sir Keir claimed the “fantastic” results showed his party was well placed to oust the Tories from government in a national poll due next year.
“Make no mistake, we are on our way to a Labor majority in the next general election,” he told jubilant activists in Medway, one of the councils his party wrested from the Tories.
‘Catastrophic’
Labor gained control of councils in areas that will be key battlegrounds in the general election, including Swindon, Plymouth, Medway, Stoke-on-Trent and East Staffordshire.
The 230 council elections in England were the first major test of Mr Sunak’s electoral popularity since he became Prime Minister last year.
The BBC’s projected national vote share put Labor at 35%, Tories at 26% and Lib Dems at 20%.
Labor’s projected nine-point lead over the Conservatives is the widest since the party fell from power in 2010.
Sir John Curtice, the election expert, said this year’s results were “just a little disastrous for the Conservatives”.
But BBC Political Editor Chris Mason said the results suggested it would be difficult for both Conservatives and Labor to be confident of winning a majority in the next general election.
He said there seemed to be no appetite for action against Mr Sunak after the Tories ousted two prime ministers – Boris Johnson and then Liz Truss – from office last year.
Still, some Conservatives are reeling from the results, with Mr Sunak’s ousted councilors and critics venting their anger at the party’s performance.
As the bigger picture became clearer, there were disagreements among the Tories over who was to blame for the loss of dozens of English councilors and more than 1,000 councillors.
The UK election came against a difficult economic backdrop, with high inflation contributing to the worst cost-of-living crisis in decades.
A person loyal to Mr Johnson and Ms Truss told the BBC that Mr Sunak had “no choice but to own these results”.
In a racy statement, the person said: “He’s been Chancellor or Prime Minister for practically the last three years and it was he and his supporters who pushed Boris out of office and then Liz to install him at Downing Street.
“The old adage goes that ‘it’s the economy, fool,’ that dictates voter choices at the ballot box.”
Tees Valley Conservative Mayor Ben Houchen said the poor Tory performance was partly due to “the turmoil and upheaval of the last 12 months”.
He said Labor had “succeeded in making this a referendum on government”, adding “people don’t feel like they can vote for us”.
Nigel Churchill, a former Conservative councilor who lost his seat on Plymouth Council, said: “I think we can say with certainty” that his party would lose the next general election.
“The general public doesn’t trust them at the moment,” he said.
But Education Secretary Robert Halfon said this year’s election would always be “difficult” for his party.
He said internal party divisions “didn’t help” but claimed the losses were due to external factors such as the cost of living crisis and troubles in the NHS.
“Any government always suffers losses in local elections during the mid-term, especially a government that has been in power for 13 years,” he said.
Other Tory MPs told the BBC that apathy – Conservative voters staying at home – was also a big problem for the party.
The most important results at a glance:
- Work has gained more than 500 councilors and 22 councilors – including the key battlegrounds of Swindon, Plymouth, Medway and Stoke-on-Trent, where the party hopes to win at the next general election
- The Conservatives lost more than 1,000 councilors and 48 councillors, but gained control of Torbay, Slough and Wyre Forest
- The Liberal Democrats have won 12 councils including former Conservative strongholds Windsor and Maidenhead and Stratford-on-Avon
- Almost 250 Green Councilors were elected and the party won its first outright majority in a Mid Suffolk council
The Conservatives tried to manage expectations ahead of Thursday’s election, with party leader Greg Hands suggesting they could lose 1,000 council seats.
In contrast, Labor has tried to downplay its chances of winning, forecasting a gain of around 400 seats.
Most seats were last up for election in 2019, at a time when the UK was gripped by Brexit-related political turmoil.
The seats up for grabs were mostly on county councils responsible for services such as garbage collection, parks, public housing and building permits.
The remainder of the election was for a mix of metropolitan and unitary councils – individual local authorities dealing with all local services – and four mayors.
The election was the first in England where voter ID cards were checked at polling stations. Some voters told the BBC they had been turned away from polling stations, prompting critics to call for the ID rules to be lifted.