Rishi Sunak can bury his head in the sand no longer: voters are sick to the back teeth of the Tories, and they want imminent change
The Tories have been swept aside in this set of local elections. But still, the Prime Minister will limp on, leading a divided party that governs a country demanding imminent political change.
If elections are all about sending messages which, of course, they are, then this set of local election results has certainly sent many. These were always going to be pretty terrible outcomes for the Tories, but the scale of this rout on display was something predicted by few — at least not by me, anyway.
Rishi Sunak’s time in Downing Street was meant to be so much better than this. When he became Prime Minister more than 18 months ago, allies of the Prime Minister were clear: after the chaos of Liz Truss, he could still pull back Tory opinion poll fortunes, in the hope of winning the general election and securing another (historic) five-year term. He still might win. Who knows? But according to polling guru after polling guru, polling organisation after polling organisation, that is as unlikely now as my booking a flight to Australia in the next day or two: very unlikely and nearly, but not definitively, unthinkable. Yet here we are. More than 18 months on, the opinion polls have not reversed, if not deteriorated, and Sunak’s status as Prime Minister is up for debate once again. With these results, is this really any astonishment?
Ben Houchen’s victory in the Tees Valley mayoral election was seen as an unlikely high point; in fact, now these elections are all declared and over, that was the only high point for the Tories. The Prime Minister’s presence on Teesside on Friday afternoon saw him in a spirited mood; but that’s as spirited (at least positively) as Sunak is following this set of local election results. But to say Sunak had any influence, if any, within the Houchen campaign would be to overegg the cake, so to speak — it was most definitely a ‘vote Ben’ campaign rather than a ‘vote Tory’ campaign, evidenced by his campaign literature.
The loss of Andy Street in the West Midlands mayoral election is nothing short of devastating for the Tories. He too, like Houchen, emphasised himself as the local candidate rather than being the Tory candidate. But Richard Parker’s victory for Labour by an extremely narrow margin of one thousand votes (in an electorate of three million) is all the more remarkable. There were hours and hours of recounts in key areas, such as Coventry and Sandwell, and there were times when I felt I was losing my mind with the endless talk of whether Labour had pulled it off, or whether Street had clung on. With the West Midlands mayoralty the very final result declared in this whole set of elections from across the country, it topped off an absolutely stonking set of results for Labour. For Sunak and the Tories, it is purely fatal; and there is no amount of explanation that can ignore that.
Sadiq Khan’s comprehensive victory in London by 11 percentage points returned him to the mayoralty for a historic third term. The way Khan fought during the campaign was admirable, especially when faced with a wholly unsuitable Tory candidate, Susan Hall — not to mention the numerous social media groups who viciously spread deceitful information about Khan. Throughout, some Tory insiders had argued that Hall’s selection as the Tory candidate had been the wrong decision, and these issues are undoubtedly set to reemerge now that the contest has concluded. Sunak’s lack of warmth and enthusiasm towards Hall was noted but unsurprising. Despite the Tory press’s attempts to undermine Khan’s candidacy and argue he was an unpopular fool with the capital’s electorate, Londoners were convinced; and reelected him with a substantial majority.
The victory for Labour in the York and North Yorkshire mayoral election, most notably containing Sunak’s own constituency patch of Richmond, continues the trend of the Tories’ remarkable destruction amongst some of its traditional core voter base. Claire Ward, once a Labour MP from 1997 to 2010, secured victory in the East Midlands mayoral election, winning in important general election battlegrounds for this year’s poll which will undoubtedly place greater pressure on incumbent Tory MPs in the region. In the Greater Manchester mayoral race, Andy Burnham was reelected, with the Tories performing worse than in 2021; the same to be said for the mayoral elections in South and West Yorkshire, as well as the Liverpool City Region.
In councils across the country, the same story is to be told: Labour dominance at the expense of Tory obliteration. Sir Keir Starmer’s party gained control of councils in key areas of the country where it needs to win come the general election, such as in Cannock Chase, Milton Keynes, Nuneaton and Bedworth, Redditch, and Thurrock. It also won control of Rushmoor, Hampshire, off of the Tories, which contains the home of the British Army — imagine that five years ago under the previous leadership? (No, me neither.) For Labour, Chris Webb’s comprehensive by-election victory in the Blackpool South constituency, held due to the previous Tory MP’s breaking of lobbying rules, saw a swing of 26 percentage points to Starmer’s party, the third-highest swing since the Second World War.
There is a key question as to how Labour’s position on the deepening conflict in the Middle East has hurt once-loyal Labour-supporting Muslim voters, in areas such as the West Midlands mayoral region. The issue plausibly cost the party the council in Oldham, and in Blackburn, Labour lost seats to independents but retained control. Only rightly, following the declaration of the West Midlands mayoralty last night, Starmer pledged to listen to those voters who turned elsewhere; but reiterated the party’s commitment to an immediate ceasefire, the release of hostages, and the need for more humanitarian aid to reach Gaza.
But the story is as bleak as it comes for the Tories and for the Prime Minister. The loss of nearly 500 Tory councillors will make Tory MPs think long and hard about how much longer they can tolerate of this shambles. They should think of the rest of us: how much longer can we, the public, tolerate of this? The truth is: Britain cannot tolerate any more of this chaos, division, and infighting. For 14 years now, the story has been one of endless decline, instability, and suffering. The economy is fragile; the NHS is on its knees; the criminal justice system is rife with endless backlogs; our railways are broken; our schools are witnessing a teacher recruitment retention crisis. What has Britain got to show after 14 years of the Tories ruling Britain?
There is only so long that Rishi Sunak can hide from reality. He has hitherto continued his tagline phrase that his “plan is working”, “we must stick to the plan”, and that “Labour would take us back to square one”. But what this set of local election results shows is that voters are sick to the back teeth of the Tories — the excuses that are peddled, the incompetence that grows, the infighting that persists — and they want imminent change through the calling of a general election. At present, a hefty Labour majority is on the cards. With the loss, in particular, of Street in the West Midlands and the cataclysmic outcomes from across the country, the Tory box-set drama rolls back into shape. Get the popcorn out and ready; these results look set to have written the final few episodes of this seemingly endless drama. It just seems that the Prime Minister and the members of his beleaguered government and party have simply yet to realise.