Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives faced crushing losses in UK local elections on Friday as voters in many parts of England turned against the party after a tumultuous year.
The prime minister woke up to news that his party was on the ropes, with Labour making inroads in the north and Midlands and the Liberal Democrats advancing in rich areas of the south.
Early results suggested the Conservatives could lose as many as 1,000 council seats compared with their standing before the elections, matching some of the party’s most pessimistic predictions.
But overnight counting only took place in about a quarter of the 8,000 seats up for grabs, and Sunak and his rivals will have to wait for more results to come in to assess the full picture.
Labour took control of Medway Council in Kent, seizing it from the Tories for the first time in 20 years. The party also took control of south-west England’s Plymouth City Council, along with Stoke-on-Trent, part of the former “red wall” which fell to Boris Johnson’s Tories at the 2019 election.
Labour said the results showed the party was making gains in the kinds of seats it needed to win back at a general election expected next year. “These results show that we are on course for a majority Labour government,” Shabana Mahmood, Labour’s campaign chief, said.
But the early results suggest that Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer still has much work to do; the spoils were shared by the Lib Dems and the Greens.
By 7am, the Conservatives had lost overall control in a number of other councils, including Brentwood in Essex, Tamworth in Staffordshire, Hertsmere in Hertfordshire, East Lindsey in Lincolnshire and North West Leicestershire.
Although there was no official confirmation, the Lib Dems said they were “confident” they had taken control of Windsor and Maidenhead council, an area that includes the solidly Conservative parliamentary constituency of former prime minister Theresa May.
By just before 7am, Labour had gained 107 seats compared with its position immediately before the elections, while the Lib Dems had gained 42 and the Conservatives had lost 134.
Polling expert Sir John Curtice wrote on the BBC website it was possible the Conservatives would reach the threshold of 1,000 seat losses but added the gains were being more evenly divided than expected between Labour and the Lib Dems.
“Labour will be disappointed that it looks as though their vote is simply on a par with their performance in last year’s local elections, although the Conservatives are still five points down on 12 months ago,” Curtice wrote.
Since the last set of local elections, the Tories have had three prime ministers — Johnson, Liz Truss and Sunak — and have presided over a period of political and economic chaos.
“On the results declared so far, we are confident Labour will have an equivalent vote share lead of at least eight points which would represent our best result since 1997,” a Labour spokesperson said at about 6am.
Munira Wilson, the Liberal Democrat MP for Twickenham, said it was looking like a “fantastic night” for her party. “We’re making gains across the country,” she said.
The Conservative party, in charge at the national level in Westminster, accepted they faced significant losses.
“This will be a tough night for the Conservatives,” the party said. “Any government which has been in power for 13 years is highly likely to lose seats.”
Veterans minister Johnny Mercer, who represents Plymouth Moor View, said it had been a “terrible night” for the Conservatives.
The local elections are likely to be the last big test of public opinion at the ballot box before the general election, expected in the summer or autumn of 2024.
Elections for the wards being contested on Thursday were last held in 2019, when the Conservatives under May and Labour under Jeremy Corbyn both did poorly.
Curtice has said Labour needs a double-digit vote-share lead in the elections to be sure of a parliamentary majority at the general election.
Data and graphics by Oliver Hawkins, Ella Hollowood and Martin Stabe
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