Katy Balls: Rishi Sunak’s recovery narrative has taken a hit
Few in the Tory party expected the local election results to be anything other than painful. Yet the first wave of results still managed to be worse than anticipated internally as the party lost support to Labour in various red wall areas and to the Liberal Democrats in the traditional Tory shires. “You know something’s gone wrong when the expectation management figure becomes the reality,” sighed one Tory MP – following early morning suggestions from the polling expert John Curtice that the Conservatives could be on course to lose 1,000 seats.
The hope in CCHQ is that later results, including gains in the Midlands, create more of a balanced picture – and if that fails the king’s coronation quickly moves the news agenda on. But even if this comes to pass, Rishi Sunak will not emerge unscathed from his first significant electoral test since entering No 10. Sunak’s recovery narrative has taken a hit. The prime minister and his team have been trying to build up a sense of momentum that they are closing the gap with Labour. Widespread losses across the board – including in several cabinet ministers’ home territories, such as those of Oliver Dowden and Grant Shapps – show how far the party still has to go to have a chance of turning the tide.
One ray of light for Tory MPs is that while the Conservative party is suffering most, the votes aren’t all going to Labour – with Liberal Democrats, Greens and independents enjoying a good night. Now this could pave the way for anti-Tory tactical voting come the general election. But it could also be read as a sign the electorate is not yet sold on Keir Starmer. In the 1989 European election, the Green party won 14% of the vote and Labour came out on top. In the 1992 election that followed, the Tories won. The prior vote was an indicator that the voters were not sold on Neil Kinnock.
In the meantime, some in the party are trying to see the positive by reminding themselves of 2017 – when Theresa May excelled in the local elections only to lose her party’s majority in the general election that followed. It’s not a happy memory for the Conservatives – but it does suggest that things can change quickly.
John McDonnell: The elections haven’t confirmed that there is strong, motivated support for Labour
The next general election will be a contest between the two most basic slogans in politics. It will be “Stick with what you know” versus “It’s time for a change”.
In both 1992 and 2019 the Tories used a change in leaders to combine the two and win. In 2023, after 13 years of Conservative rule, the unmitigated disasters of the Boris Johnson and Liz Truss leaderships look as if they have put beyond Rishi Sunak the chance of pulling that off again.
Even with the blatant attempt to suppress the vote via the introduction of voter ID, the local elections have confirmed that there is a strong anti-Tory vote that can be mobilised. People are so fed up of wage cuts, run-down public services and little light showing at the end of the tunnel under this government that they are desperate to get rid of it.
This has produced a robust performance by Labour, but wiser heads in the party will respect the caution of our premier psephologist, John Curtice. What the elections haven’t confirmed yet is that there is an equally strong, motivated support for Labour. Hence the diversion of a sizeable element of the anti-Tory vote to the Liberal Democrats, the Greens and the spectrum of independent candidates.
On current polling it looks near certain that the Conservatives will lose the next general election, confirming for some the old saw that governments lose elections, oppositions do not win them.
Some Labour supporters will say: “So what, if we win anyway?” The importance of winning with a bloc of motivated support and not by default comes in the mid term of the next Labour government when things start getting tough and the next election comes into sight. That’s when a mass of convinced support built up on a strong policy offer now will be needed.
Martin Kettle: The opposition parties can beat Sunak – but perhaps only together
There are two important political consequences of the 2023 local elections. One for the Conservatives, the other for the opposition parties.
Tories first. Memories can be short. So don’t forget why these elections matter for Rishi Sunak – and it’s not because he cares about local government. This week has been in his diary for months as his potential moment of greatest personal vulnerability before the general election. A Tory collapse could trigger a grassroots revolt in a party that did not vote for him as leader, leading to calls to bring back Boris Johnson. A lot of rightwing Tories want that to happen.
A few of the usual suspects still sniff an opportunity. But neither John Redwood nor David Campbell Bannerman, both of whom have gone public with their criticisms of Sunak today, is a political rainmaker. It therefore looks as though the Johnson moment really has passed. Tory chair Greg Hands even chided the ex-PM today for not campaigning in these elections. So the big story for Tories is that Sunak will lead them in the general election, whether they like it or not.
The big story for the opposition parties is that they can beat Sunak – but perhaps only together. These results clearly punish the Tory party for the chaos and hardship of 2022. But there’s been vanishingly little in the results to suggest that Sunak’s Toryism has game-changing voter appeal either.
The opposition parties have a lot to celebrate. Labour confirmed that it can win back the seats that Johnson captured in 2019 and succeed in southern counties too. That’s key. Meanwhile the Lib Dems did better this week than at any time since 2010. They confirmed that, even facing Sunak not Johnson, they can win Tory seats that Labour cannot. In some places, such as East Hertfordshire where they are now the largest single party, the Greens have done the same.
With as much as 18 months still to go before the general election, with Scotland unexpectedly up for grabs (there were no elections there this week) and a lot of economic hardship still to come, these elections don’t tell us what the result will be in 2024. But they surely pave the way for the return of significant tactical anti-Conservative voting when the moment comes.
Caroline Lucas: Taking action on the climate emergency is now a clear vote-winner
This is a massive breakthrough moment for the Green party. From record-breaking results last time these seats were contested four years ago, we’ve leaped even further forward. From South Tyneside in the north to Bath and North East Somerset in the south, from East Hertfordshire in the east to Worcester in the west, Green gains are flashing up right across the country.
And though the results are not yet fully in, rumour has it that in Mid Suffolk, we are about to secure a majority-controlled Green council – a first not only in the country, but in the entire northern hemisphere.
This may come as a surprise to some in the media who tend to turn a blind eye to the Green party – but it won’t to voters electing and re-electing Greens in their communities across the country. That’s because first and foremost, Greens are active and hardworking all year round – providing both a listening ear and a powerful voice. With local government budgets being slashed by Tory austerity, putting crucial services from libraries to youth programmes under massive pressure – just as soaring food prices mean the cost of living scandal continues to bite – anger at the national government is clearly filtering down to a local level. That’s why having a Green in that council chamber, to challenge and scrutinise every decision, is vital.
And it’s been more evident at this election than ever before that environment and climate issues have well and truly entered the mainstream. Sewage and water pollution blighting our rivers and seas has been coming up on the doorstep over and over again. It epitomises a sense that communities are under-funded and uncared for not only by local politicians, but by this national Tory government too.
Taking action on the climate emergency is now a clear vote-winner – and when the government approves a new coal mine, flirts with a return to fracking and gives the green light to 100 new oil and gas licences, people can see that the Tories simply can’t be trusted to deliver it.
As we break through on to more new councils and the party goes from strength to strength, voters know that the best way to secure fairer, greener communities is to vote Green.
Moya Lothian-McLean: Britain’s disengaged and disenfranchised slip further from view
What a drubbing. Results are still trickling in from local elections that saw 8,000 seats contested across England, but the writing on the wall is stark. “The clear headline,” said polling guru John Curtice early on Thursday morning, “is the Conservatives are in trouble.” At that point, Tory seat losses were sitting at a rate of one out of three; key battlegrounds such as Medway, Stoke-on-Trent and Plymouth had already turned red.
But Curtice also cautioned that this wasn’t a full-throated Labour victory. The party, he noted, was not up on the advance it made in last year’s local elections. Yet competitors such as the Liberal Democrats and the Greens were. The results see voters expressing their distaste for a Tory party in terminal decline, but it’s not accompanied by any great passion for Keir Starmer’s Labour, which seems to be organising its political ambitions for the next general election around the mantra: “we’re the only other option”.
For their part, the Tories are locked in internal war over where blame for the losses lie – in Medway, Tory MP Kelly Tolhurst blamed a backlash over housebuilding targets. Meanwhile her colleague Charles Walker was on Times Radio with the opposite take, stating that the Tories were being punished for their U-turn on compulsory housebuilding goals. It’s a reflection of the divisions around housing policy that have riven the party this week, as reported via leaked WhatsApp messages in the Times. Tory cohesion in the face of an uphill electoral battle seems a pipe dream.
These, of course, were the elections that made even more of a mockery of democracy in Britain. New voter ID laws, brought in by the beleaguered Tories to tackle the non-existent problem of ballot fraud, meant “countless” people were turned away from casting their vote. We may never know how many were prevented from participating in their democratic right, thanks to a sleight of hand in the system being used to count those newly disenfranchised.
With local elections historically seeing a far lower turnout – and engagement – than national ballots, the furore over the legislation has been worryingly muted. By the time we reach the looming general election, the horse may have bolted entirely and the harshest restrictions on suffrage in Britain since 1969 will be permanently entrenched, with no repeal movement able to gain traction. Labour looks certain to cinch a win – but Britain’s disengaged and disenfranchised slip further from view.
