The Conservative Party has suffered one of its worst results in forty years in the British municipal elections held on Thursday, confirming its Labor rivals as favorites to win the next general elections, not yet called. Some voices in the party, such as MP Andrea Jenkyns, acknowledged before the count ended that they would like the fall of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, but the prominent ‘Brexiter’ is not sure that her colleagues share her wishes. .
It is possible that this defeat, sprinkled with some outbreaks of optimism, will end the comedy of overthrows of the party that has governed the country since 2010. Former Prime Minister David Cameron, now responsible for the Foreign Affairs portfolio, has recommended Sunak to persist in his plan. It is clearly the only sensible thing that the parliamentary group can support.
There have already been 68 Conservative MPs elected in 2019 who have announced that they will not stand in the elections that Sunak has to hold this year. In many cases it is due to the conviction that they will lose their seat. Others do so perhaps because they know that, even if the leader’s fortunes improve, he is unlikely to obtain a majority and it is inconceivable that another party would support him to form a government coalition.
Municipal elections yield an enormous amount of data that only experts can frame. Polling analyst John Curtice stated this Friday afternoon that it is very possible that the Conservatives will lose 500 council seats, a figure that was cited as a reason for a rebellion. Jenkyns and other Tories are lamenting that the party unseated Boris Johnson.
Meanwhile, Sunak celebrated the re-election of the regional mayor of Tees Valley, which groups cities such as Middlesbrough, Redcar, Hartlepool and Darlington. The ‘major’, Ben Houchen, is a figure investigated by the media and public auditing bodies for his management of the lands on which regeneration projects will be developed, and has been accused of not presenting himself as a conservative during the campaign.
Labor warns that the percentage of votes by district – they have recovered, for example, municipal control of Hartlepool – makes them believe that, when the general elections arrive, they will recover the seats they have lost in this former left-wing bastion, which emerged Conservative navigating the complex politics of Brexit. The results in other regions indicate the partial return of the ‘red wall’.
This is the name given to a chain of cities and constituencies that traditionally voted for Labor candidates and that were captivated by Boris Johnson’s promises to regain control of their lives by leaving the European Union. Keir Starmer has dyed the electoral map of the northeast (Sunderland, Newcastle Durham), neighboring the Tees River valley, red.
Dubious forecasts
Political and administrative decentralization with the creation of new regional mayors has given the Labor leader a victory in the North Yorkshire and York region. He covers the constituency that elected Sunak MP, but more significantly there and in the East Midlands the Labor vote has recovered since the 2019 debacle.
The exception will be in the West Midlands, a large region with Birmingham as its main urban center, in which the left-wing party has recognized, before the results are known, that it will not unseat the ‘major’, Andy Street. The opposition blames it, as in other municipalities, on a Muslim boycott due to Starmer’s slowness in demanding a ceasefire from Israel in Gaza.
The participation percentages have been very low and the high abstention weakens the forecasts for the general elections. A feature of the results is the damage suffered by the Conservatives at the hands of the Reform UK party, of Brexiteer leader Nigel Farage. He came close to achieving the second most votes in the only election for a resigned MP, Blackpool South. Labor takes the seat from the Tories.
At the national level, Labor would have obtained an advantage of 9% of the votes, below the 20% given by voting intention surveys in the general elections. The Green party is also gaining support. Starmer has declared that the results obtained show “a clear message to the Prime Minister that people want change.”
Rishi Sunak has described the results as “disappointing” and has stuck by Ben Houchen’s victory, because Starmer would have said that winning in Tees Valley was necessary on the road to the generals. After the celebration rituals, Houchen recalled that Starmer has promised greater decentralization of powers and that he is willing to work together for the benefit of his region.
The mystery of London remains twenty-four more hours
The London results will be known this Saturday. The current mayor, Labor’s Sadiq Khan, wants to undertake a third term despite the friction he maintains with the leader of his party, Keir Starmer. The insistence of the capital’s highest mayor to establish closer relations with the European Union and the policy of eliminating vehicles with polluting engines, which has caused protests and loss of votes, separate them.
#debacle #Sunaks #tories #municipal #elections #predicts #disaster #general #elections #Basque #Journal
