Local elections in Great Britain
Sunak’s Tories are heading for a bitter defeat
May 3, 2024, 10:32 a.m
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The polls already suggested that it wouldn’t be a nice election day for the British Conservatives. But if vote counting in the local elections continues like this, the Tories will record their worst result in 40 years. Prime Minister Sunak’s future doesn’t look bright.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his Conservative Party are facing a bitter defeat in the local elections. According to election researcher John Curtice, the party is heading for one of its worst results in 40 years. “So far they’re basically losing half the seats they’re trying to defend,” he told the BBC Morning. If this continues, they could end up losing around 500 seats.
The result could affect the political future of Prime Minister Sunak, who has been in office since October 2022. It was still early in the day, Curtice said. It could be that the results in the West Midlands region of central England and the Tees Valley in the north-east could provide some comfort to the Tories. But it can be said that the message from the polls from the last twelve months – that the Conservatives under Sunak have not made any decisive progress in narrowing the gap to Labor – has been confirmed so far, said Curtice.
The polling stations closed late Thursday evening. A total of eleven mayoral positions, more than 2,500 local councilors, the 25 members of the London City Assembly and 37 so-called Police and Crime Commissioners in England and Wales, a political office responsible for overseeing the local police authority, were elected in England.
In addition, a member of the British Parliament was re-elected – Sunak’s party lost the mandate for Blackpool South to the opposition Labor party and received only a few more votes than the right-wing populist Reform UK party. Labor has been well ahead of the Conservatives, who have been in power in Great Britain for 14 years, in polls for the next general election for months. The British must elect a new parliament by January 2025 at the latest; Sunak had promised a date in the second half of the year.