Voters went to the polls on Thursday in 200 local authorities across Britain, with early results going against the Conservatives
Boris Johnson faced a backlash from local Tory leaders as his party lost major London authorities to Labour and suffered setbacks across England after Britain went to the polls.
Early overnight results went against the UK prime minister’s party, with the Conservatives braced for even more bad news as counting was due to begin on Friday morning in many counties across England, Scotland and Wales.
Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party strengthened its grip on the capital, taking the key authority in Wandsworth, a low-tax Conservative stronghold since 1978 and famously Margaret Thatcher’s favourite blue council. Labour also made significant breakthroughs by taking control of Barnet and Westminster councils, the latter for the first time since its creation in 1964. It was part of a trend in the British capital in which voters used the elections to express anger over the rising cost of living and fines imposed on the prime minister for breaking his own Covid-19 lockdown rules.
The overall tally due later on Friday will offer the most important snapshot of public opinion since Mr Johnson won the Conservative Party’s biggest majority in more than 30 years in the 2019 general election.
The ballot is the first electoral test for Mr Johnson since he became the first British leader in living memory to have broken the law while in office. He was fined last month for attending a birthday gathering in his office in 2020, breaking social distancing rules then in place to curb the spread of Covid-19.
As dozens of Tory councillors lost their seats, some local Conservative leaders criticised the prime minister.
John Mallinson, leader of Carlisle City Council, hit out after Labour took control of the new Cumberland authority that will replace it.
He told the BBC: “I think it is not just partygate, there is the integrity issue.
“I just don’t feel people any longer have the confidence that the prime minister can be relied upon to tell the truth.”
In Portsmouth, where the Tories lost four seats, Simon Bosher, the leader of the Conservative group, said Mr Johnson should “take a good, strong look in the mirror” because “those are people that are actually bearing the brunt on the doorstep of behaviour of what’s been going on in Westminster”.
Ravi Govindia, now the former Wandsworth Council leader, said: “Let’s not be coy about it, of course national issues were part of the dilemma people were facing.”
‘Big turning point for Labour’
Labour’s ability to take Barnet Council from the Tories will be seen as a sign the party has moved on from the days of being blighted by anti-Semitism rows under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn. The north London area has a large Jewish population — a voting bloc Mr Starmer had reached out to immediately after becoming party leader in a bid to win back trust.
Before the final results were declared in Barnet, the Conservative group leader Daniel Thomas conceded defeat, saying the loss of the council “does not bode well” for the Tories and summing it up as a “warning shot” from his party’s supporters.
Speaking during a visit to Barnet on Thursday morning, Mr Starmer lauded the party’s “brilliant” result in the area and said there would be “more to come as the day goes on”.
“We’ve turned a massive corner in the Labour Party here,” he told reporters. “We’re winning in London, we’re winning north and south as well in Cumberland, we’ve won in Southampton, we’ve got more results to come.”
“This is a big, big turning point for us. This is a massive turning point for the Labour Party.
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