In the first mood test since Sunak took office in October last year, the Conservatives lost around 800 seats net, while the Liberal Democrats, traditionally strong in local elections, made gains, winning almost 400 more seats net.
In several communities, however, Labor was able to regain a majority for the first time in decades. Labor was the evening’s big winner with a net gain of around 580 seats. The Social Democrats not only recaptured several old bastions that are considered Brexit strongholds and had recently switched to the Tories. Some communes that had supported the Tories for decades were also flipped.
Sunak was accordingly “disappointed” on the Sky television channel on Friday. “It’s always disappointing to lose hard-working, conservative local councillors,” Sunak said. However, he does not see “massive growth in a movement towards Labor,” said the Prime Minister.
Labor on the up
Some drew comparisons to the 1996 local elections, which preceded the overwhelming Labor victory under ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair in the general election a year later. The vote was seen as the first mood test for Sunak – and this time, too, a parliamentary election will follow in just over a year.
With the bitter defeat, the prime minister, who had actually stabilized the party again in his almost 200 days in office, is also coming under pressure. After the scandals of his predecessors Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, Sunak managed to get topics discussed again and not just people and their missteps. The election result has clouded the mood again.
Johnson is lurking
Critics within the party accuse Sunak of lacking the campaign strength of his predecessor Johnson. Since his forced departure from Downing Street, he has apparently still been lurking for a chance to regain leadership of the party. A conference for the party base is planned for next week. Several Johnson supporters have announced themselves.
Former Brexit Minister David Davis, on the other hand, is targeting the ex-prime ministers. “It is obvious that we are paying the price for the end of the Boris Johnson and Liz Truss era,” Davis said.
Look at upcoming parliamentary elections
Conservative politicians had already put the figure of 1,000 lost seats into play before the election – according to media observers in the hope of being able to classify a not-so-bad result as a success afterwards. But now the fears of the Conservatives have come true. It remains to be seen whether the results indicate that Labor will have its own majority in the next general election, elections expert John Curtice from the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow told BBC 4 radio.
Labor leader Keir Starmer, on the other hand, saw his party on the way to a clear majority in Parliament. The Conservatives are already trying to use the poor result as a wake-up call. Tory General Secretary Greg Hands wrote in a newsletter: “If we are to stop Keir Starmer, we must be united.”
