The results of the local elections which took place on Thursday May 2 in England, the last electoral test before the general elections at the end of 2024, confirmed what the polls have been saying at the United Kingdom level for eighteen months. Despite the efforts of the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, to regain credibility, the Conservatives have still not recovered from the scandals of the Boris Johnson era and the catastrophic mandate of Liz Truss. Labor is no dream, but voters are prepared to give them a chance.
The Conservatives have lost almost 500 local councilor positions across England. The result is all the more alarming for the party in power for fourteen years as it is in decline everywhere, even in the traditionally “blue” lands (supported by its cause) in the south of England.
The Tories thus lost control of the town council of Basildon, east of London, in Essex, in the hands of the right for decades. They are failing in Blackpool, in the North West, and in Hartlepool, in the North East, former bastions of the “red wall”, these deindustrialized regions of the center and north of England traditionally voting left which had chose Brexit during the 2016 referendum and let themselves be seduced by Boris Johnson during the 2019 general elections. The charm did not work for long…
Perhaps the harshest defeat was that of Andy Street, mayor of the West Midlands, one of the poorest but youngest regions in England, including the cities of Coventry and Birmingham. This moderate Tory (he voted against Brexit in 2016) with an honorable record lost by a hair to the Labor candidate, Richard Parker, a political novice, former auditor of the accounting firm PwC.
Andy Street, former CEO of department store chain John Lewis, had held the position for two terms and did everything during the campaign to dissociate himself from the Conservatives. “I’m a Conservative, but my loyalty is first and foremost to the people of the West Midlands. I am not controlled by the party, I am independent”he confided to World half April. The unpopularity of the Tories still caught up with him.
Labor retains London
Arriving in Birmingham on Saturday evening, May 4, at the end of the count, Labor leader Keir Starmer welcomed a result “phenomenal”, going “beyond our expectations”. “Labour has changed, it is ready to serve working people and govern again. (…) The party will turn the page on fourteen years of conservative decline and usher in a decade of national renewal. The change starts today,” added Mr. Starmer, 61, who could well enter Downing Street before the end of 2024. The only glimmer of hope for Rishi Sunak: his party managed to retain the post of mayor of Tees Valley, in the north-east of England, Ben Houchen, a Tory renowned for his dynamism, securing a third mandate in a row.
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