Tories Suffer Major Losses as Labour and Lib Dems Win Key Battlegrounds in Local Elections

Labour leader Keir Starmer holds five month old Hazel (no surname given) as he joins party members in Chatham, Kent, where Labour has taken overall control of Medway Council for the first time since 1998 on May 5, 2023. (Gareth Fuller/PA Wire)

The Conservative Party suffered a series of losses after voters across England headed to the ballot box for May local elections, with Labour as well as the Liberal Democrats, and the Green Party seizing control of several councils.

Counting is underway in the 230 local authorities in England that held elections on Thursday, with many votes still to come in on Friday.

Labour leader Keir Starmer celebrated “fantastic” council results in key battlegrounds and said that he was on course to win the next general election.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said it was “hard to draw firm conclusions” at this current stage.

According to the BBC, to date, Labour has 1,872 councillors in total and has gained 351 seats. The Conservatives have 1,555 councillors but have lost 666.

It was the first election in England to require photo ID.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak speaks to the media following a meeting with the local community and police leaders, following the announcement of a new police task force to help officers tackle grooming gangs, in Rochdale, England, on April 3, 2023. (Phil Noble - Pool/Getty Images)

Lost Control

Government minister and local MP Johnny Mercer said Labour gaining control of Plymouth, where the Tories had run a minority administration, was “terrible.”

Mercer wrote on Twitter that “it’s been a terrible night in Plymouth as we lost every seat we stood in.”

“We lost some outstanding friends and colleagues who have given decades of service to Plymouth. Take it on the chin, learn and go again tomorrow. It’s going to be a fight but I like a fight,” he added.

The Liberal Democrats also made gains as the Tories lost control of 10 councils.

In Hertsmere, where Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden is MP, the Tories lost control of the council, with 13 councillors voted out while Labour gained seven and the Lib Dems six.

The Lib Dems said that they believed that they have taken overall control of Stratford-on-Avon council, where former Tory Party chairman Nadhim Zahawi is MP, though this is yet unconfirmed.

Conservatives lost control of Welwyn Hatfield, in Net Zero Secretary Grant Shapps’ constituency, where both the Lib Dems and Labour made gains.

The Green Party picked up 15 new councillors on east Hertfordshire council, taking them, to date, to 17.  The Tories had gone into the local elections with 40 out of 50 seats.

Liberal Democrats leader Ed Davey in Windsor, Berkshire, where the Conservatives lost control of Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead council in the local elections, on May 5, 2023. (Andrew Matthews/PA Wire)

Sunak said it was “hard to draw firm conclusions” from the initial results after speaking to staff at Conservative Campaign Headquarters in central London on Friday morning.

He told broadcasters he was “not detecting any massive groundswell of movement towards the Labour Party or excitement for its agenda” despite the opposition’s gains.

“It’s always disappointing to lose hardworking Conservative councillors. They’re friends, they’re colleagues, and I’m so grateful to them for everything they’ve done,” he added.

“But in terms of the results, it’s still early. We’ve just had a quarter of the results in but what I am going to carry on doing is delivering on the people’s priorities,” he said.

Analysis

James Johnson, co-founder of J.L. Partners and who previously ran polling in Downing Street under former Prime Minister Theresa May told The Epoch Times by email that it’s clear from these results that “Labour has done very well indeed.”

However, he added that despite the Tory losses, there is still a long way to go until Sunak’s planned autumn general election in 2024.

“They are nowhere near 1990s wipeout levels or the projections we heard a few months ago of 200 seat landslides, but the question for Friday is whether this will be a good or very good night for them (and looks more likely to be the latter),” said Johnson.

“What the key question for Conservatives is now is not whether there are hidden positives in these results but whether they can turn it around,” he added.

He said that unlike last year where former Prime Minister Boris Johnson and COVID-19 parties dominated, these local elections “were not as personal a vote on the party leaders.”

“Indeed, these election results were almost despite the existence of Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer. The focus groups and national polls suggest that in a general election contest with those two as the choice to be next PM, especially when factoring in a lesser role for independents and Lib Dems, things could yet look very different indeed,” said Johnson.

People leave after casting their vote at the polling station in Bridlington Priory Church, Yorkshire, England, on May 4, 2023. (Danny Lawson/PA Media)

Polling expert Professor Sir John Curtice said it is too soon to say that Labour is on course to win a majority at the next general election.

The political academic told the PA news agency: “The swing in the national polls since 2019 is 5 percent, the swing in the sample of results we have is 4 percent, therefore it’s a little bit lower.

“In our sample at least Labour’s vote is not up on last year, so it’s not the kind of performance Blair was achieving before ‘97.

“Labour are going to have their biggest lead over the Conservatives in terms of votes than at any point since 2010 but it’s going to be as much to do with the Conservatives being down as much as it is Labour being up,” he added.

PA Media contributed to this report.