As dawn breaks on Friday, we have about a third of the council results in – and what is clear is Labour is on the march. What is still to be determined is whether Rishi Sunak has any glimmers of hope for his MPs to cling onto.
Sir Keir Starmer‘s party has gained control of councils in areas where voters had been comprehensively turned off by Labour – in Thurrock, seen as the Brexit capital of the south; in Hartlepool – the scene of catastrophe in 2021 when the loss of a by-election to the Conservatives saw him consider resigning.
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Even in Rushmoor in Hampshire – the home of the British Army, where Labour hasn’t been in power for 24 years, they won the council.
Labour points to their advances in areas where the parliamentary constituency will be crucial to a majority – Redditch, where they won directly from the Tories, gains in Plymouth and Lincoln, although they didn’t manage to take the council in Harlow, where the Conservatives narrowly hung on.
Many of these parliamentary seats now look vulnerable.
Friday morning: From 7am Anna Jones will present Breakfast joined by deputy political editor Sam Coates and election analyst Professor Michael Thrasher. She will interview the Conservative Party chairman Richard Holden, Labour’s Pat McFadden and Lee Anderson of Reform UK.
Friday: From 10am lead politics presenter Sophy Ridge and chief presenter Mark Austin will be joined by political editor Beth Rigby and Sam Coates throughout the day, as well as economics and data editor Ed Conway and Professor Michael Thrasher.
Friday night: From 7pm until 9pm, Sophy Ridge will host a special edition of the Politics Hub, offering a full analysis and breakdown of the local elections.
The weekend: Sophy Ridge will host another special edition of the Politics Hub on Saturday from 7pm until 9pm. And Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips will take a look back over what’s happened from 8.30am until 10am.
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And the Electoral Dysfunction podcast with Beth Rigby, Jess Phillips and Ruth Davidson will go out on Friday, and Politics at Jack and Sam’s will navigate the big question of where the results leave us ahead of a general election on Sunday.
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The party also triumphed in the only parliamentary by-election of the night, in Blackpool South – gaining it with a swing of 26%, the third largest Conservative to Labour swing in modern times; and point to it as the most important result of the night in terms of indicators for the general election.
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The Conservatives say in contrast that they had an MP, Scott Benton, embroiled in a lobbying scandal; followed by the MP in nearby Fylde having a separate scandal during the campaign.
As a senior Conservative put it: “The stars could not have been more aligned against us.”
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For the Conservatives, the nail-biting results are yet to come.
Mr Sunak, who is under pressure just months from a general election, will be looking for two contests which have not declared yet – the mayoral contests in Tees Valley and the West Midlands, where the Conservatives managing to hold on – defying the national trend – could save him from mutinous Conservative MPs.
Even holding on in one of them would be a good result, says one minister, even if the broader picture in terms of council seats is bleak, with party bosses braced for more than 500 losses.
The message from the Conservatives this morning will be that if the polls were right, they should be taking a hammering from Labour in these two key areas.
They may still take one. Ben Houchen achieved a staggering 73% of the vote in the 2021 mayoral election. Even if his majority is slashed, Labour could still be on course for recovery.
But as senior Tories see it, holding on despite the odds and running Labour’s Sadiq Khan under 15 points in London would give hope to their MPs in outer London and the Birmingham marginals that they are still in contention.
The number crunching will need to continue all weekend to work out Labour’s National Equivalent Share in a general election, and whether it is enough to take them to a majority.
There are warning signs for Labour emerging – with the loss of 10 seats in Oldham, mostly to independents, where Muslim voters have wanted the party to take a different stance on Gaza.
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A couple of striking Labour losses to the Green Party in Newcastle were similarly put down to this.
They are not seats Labour would be worried about on a parliamentary level, and voters there may well return to Labour at a general election, but it’s a trend worth watching.
If Mr Sunak hangs onto enough to avoid a leadership challenge, the question strategically for the Conservatives is what he does with these results.
This week the government has focused on immigration – with footage released of Home Office staff rounding up asylum seekers for deportation to Rwanda.
Reform, the right-wing party deeply critical of the government’s migration record, stood very few candidates in these elections, which will have been a relief to the prime minister.
Although they did finish in a close third place in Blackpool South.
In one of the few areas they did run, in Sunderland, leader Richard Tice said they had beaten the Tories in 16 out of 25 seats.
A lurch to the right on immigration to meet the challenge of Reform, which achieved vote shares of 14/15%, could alienate the Tory voters in the blue wall areas where the Tories are seeing losses to the Liberal Democrats.
The prime minister still hopes to seize on results which suggest it’s not all over – to show there is hope of “turning a corner”.
But at this stage, it looks very encouraging for Labour.
We’ll find out in the coming days if Tory MPs intend on doing anything about it.
The prime minister still hopes to seize on results which suggest it’s not all over – to show there is hope of “turning a corner”. But at this stage, it looks very encouraging for Labour. We’ll find out in the coming days if Tory MPs intend on doing anything about it.
