Local election voters delivered an emphatic warning to Rishi Sunak, but stopped short of anointing Sir Keir Starmer as Britain’s PM-in-waiting.
These contests were in many ways a dress rehearsal for the likely 2024 general election, with 70% of England’s electorate having the opportunity to cast a ballot. And while there is always some debate over voters’ primary motivations for choosing a particular party in a local poll – potholes perhaps mattering more than PMQs – there is no doubting that the Conservatives were sent packing by the electorate in swathes of England.
The Tories lost more than one thousand seats nationwide and had 48 councils taken out of their control, in results even Rishi Sunak described as “disappointing”.
They suffered bruising defeats in East Staffordshire, Dover and Medway, with the councils switching from Tory to Labour control, while the Liberal Democrats seized Windsor & Maidenhead and Dacorum from Conservative clutches. Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey jubilantly celebrated his party’s results by posing with one of his trademark props - a giant analogue clock which declared: “Time’s Up For Rishi Sunak”.
Stratford-upon-Avon was the scene of more Tory turmoil as it also returned a Lib Dem majority – the first time ever that a party other than the Conservatives have controlled the council. Controversy surrounding the town’s MP, former Tory Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi, was said by some campaigners to be a key issue on the doorstep.
Zahawi is not the only senior Conservative MP who may be looking over their shoulder at the Lib Dem surge. Jacob Rees-Mogg (NE Somerset) and Michael Gove (Surrey Heath) have also seen Davey’s party showing considerable strength in their backyards and may be bracing for a fierce fight to keep their parliamentary seats.
The Conservative collapse was so catastrophic that they lost their position as the largest party in local government for the first time since 2002.
Despite this, public grumbles in the Tory ranks about Rishi Sunak’s leadership were few and far between. With the ‘Bring Back Boris’ brigade seemingly subdued (Johnson himself reportedly did no public campaigning for his party in these elections) and Tory backbenchers perhaps reluctant to change leader yet again, Sunak’s position appears fairly secure. All eyes will be on the Conservative party conference this September – potentially the PM’s last opportunity to ‘rally the troops’ before a 2024 general election campaign.
Meanwhile, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer embarked on a local election victory lap, describing the results for his party (gaining 22 councils and more than 500 councillors) as “very, very good” and claiming that the country was “on course for a Labour majority at the next election”.
It hadn’t been entirely plain sailing for Labour’s local election campaign, with parts of the tabloid press attempting to whip up a storm relating to Starmer’s incoming Chief-of-Staff Sue Gray. Furthermore, Starmer’s concession that the party was unlikely to retain its commitment to abolishing university tuition fees, despite having pledged to "support the abolition" of such fees during his leadership campaign, was criticised as an unforced error in the week before local polling day.
Some green shoots of Red Wall recovery were certainly evident for Labour after they prevailed in the tussle for control of Stoke-on-Trent council. But it was a different story in Walsall, where the party failed to make any inroads at all, showing there is still work to be done for Starmer in convincing vital northern seats to vote red again.
Legendary polling guru Professor Sir John Curtice sounded a note of caution regarding Labour’s performance in the projected national vote share, saying: “The party will be disappointed that it has not been any more successful this year than last."
He pointed out that "at 35%, Labour's own estimated share is no higher than it was last year.”
Later, Prof Curtice added: “"Labour's share of the vote on average, in the Parliamentary constituencies where you can do this, is pretty much where it was in December 2019.
“But the Labour Party is still, on these measures... going to win most of these constituencies, because the Conservative vote is down so much from 2019.
"It's certainly true that Labour's position relative to the Conservatives is stronger in these local elections than probably it has been at any set of elections since 2010… The progress that has been made is because the Conservatives are going down.”
Prof Curtice also remarked: “Perhaps there is a message here that voters are not yet necessarily fully enthused about the Labour alternative, even if they are clearly disenchanted about the current Conservative government.”
By this analysis, defeat for the Conservatives at the next general election is not a foregone conclusion. They suffered brutal losses at local polls in 1991 and 2019, but on both occasions went on to win majorities at Westminster less than a year later.
Scotland remains a huge, looming question mark for both major parties. It is notable that SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn has been aiming his fire at Starmer as well as Sunak at recent PMQs sessions, perhaps wary of the increasing threat posed by Labour to his party's electoral supremacy north of the border. With Starmer having ruled out a coalition with the SNP at Westminster, Sunak’s hopes for a fifth consecutive Conservative term in office could rest on whether new First Minister Humza Yousaf is able to fend off the strengthening challenge of Scottish Labour under Anas Sarwar.
Nationwide, it appears that support for Starmer is lukewarm – a recent poll gave him just a 1% lead in a 'best PM' match-up with Sunak – and the Labour leader’s admission that he "really hated selling" himself to Labour members during his leadership bid does not inspire confidence in his coming general election campaign.
With Labour still lacking the Blair buzz of 1997, the door remains ajar for Sunak to pull off an unlikely electoral upset, despite significant public anger over how his party have handled public services, strikes, the economy and coronavirus, along with an avalanche of other controversies.
Labour resoundingly won this battle, but they must do more if they are to win the political war.
Comments
Post a Comment