Rishi Sunak’s governing Conservatives on Friday faced crushing losses in UK local elections as voters in many parts of England turned against the party after a tumultuous year.
The Tory prime minister woke up to news that his party was on the ropes, with Labour making inroads in key target seats in the North and Midlands and the Liberal Democrats advancing in rich areas of the south.
Early results suggested the Conservatives could possibly lose as many as 1,000 seats compared with their standing before the elections. Such losses would match or exceed some of the most pessimistic projections.
However, counting in only about a quarter of the 8,000 council seats up for grabs took place overnight, and Sunak and his rivals will wait for more results to come in through Friday to assess the full picture.
In the early hours of the morning, Labour 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 on Friday were shared by exuberant Lib Dems and the Greens also made gains.
By 6am, the Conservatives had lost overall control in five other councils — Brentwood in Essex, Tamworth in Staffordshire, Hertsmere in Hertfordshire, East Lindsey in Lincolnshire and North West Leicestershire.
Labour also took the position of elected mayor of Middlesbrough, with the party’s Chris Cooke winning over independent Andy Preston.
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 after 6am, Labour had gained 101 seats compared with its position immediately before the elections, while the Lib Dems had gained 36 and the Conservatives had lost 110.
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.
A Labour spokesperson insisted at 6am: “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.”
Munira Wilson, the Liberal Democrat MP for Twickenham, told the BBC it was looking like a “fantastic night” for her party. “We’re making gains across the country,” she said.
The full picture from the results will not emerge for some hours. Most of the 230 councils that held elections will only start counting votes on Friday morning.
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