King Charles’ coronation this weekend was a publicity boon for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. Without all the festivities in the UK, much more negative media attention would have been given to the blow the Conservative Party suffered in local elections. Sunak’s party lost 1,063 of its 2,296 seats at the polls in municipalities and counties in England on Thursday, as it turned out after the weekend when all votes were counted.
Read also Elections in England are a barometer of Prime Minister Sunak’s popularity
Party leader Rishi Sunak called the result “disappointing”. But he immediately said he would continue with what he is doing: fighting inflation, boosting the economy, eliminating government debt, tackling healthcare waiting lists and “stopping the boats”. With the latter he meant boats with asylum seekers. It was spun from his party that this loss was expected and that it was in a sense better than expected. After years of scandals under Boris Johnson and Liz Truss’s short-lived failed premiership, Sunak’s position does not appear to be in immediate danger.
His party members are trying to market him as ‘steady Sunak’, hoping that it will soon be forgotten that three ministers have already resigned in the six months that he has been prime minister. And that there is a lot of social unrest, partly due to a series of strikes in healthcare and education. Lucy Frazer, Secretary of State for Culture, told the BBC that her party must evaluate the result carefully, but she also saw that voters are slowly but surely giving more credit to Sunak and the government. “Especially if we are going to deliver.” The question for the coming period is whether the right-wing squadron in the party, especially backbenchers who have grouped around Boris Johnson, will leave Sunak alone.
Progressive middle party
Labor performed well as expected. Keir Starmer’s party won 537 seats on top of the 2,674 seats it already had in the municipalities where the elections were held. Starmer, who has been party leader since 2020, said voters who turned away from the party after Brexit and under previous leader Jeremy Corbyn are starting to come back. For example, Labor was now strong in the north and center of England, areas where a surprising number of left-wing voters voted for Brexit in 2016.
“The hardest part is yet to come,” Starmer said Tuesday morning. Labor must show in the coming period that it could form “a great reform cabinet” that, with serious plans, can restore confidence in politics and bring back hope in the British for better times. It is clear that Starmer wants to present his party as a progressive middle party that mainly wants to tackle the problems in education, healthcare and housing. He tries to minimize the influence of what he considers to be too left-wing flanks. For example, he has prevented Jeremy Corbyn from getting a role within the party.
Also read a profile of Rishi Sunak: He is much more right-wing than is visible to the public
Referendum
Still, the result was not entirely positive for Labour. This was mainly due to the good result of the Liberal Democrats. That party won more than 407 seats on top of the 1,628 that the LibDems already had. The Greens did well too.
Because the election was only in parts of England, the BBC calculated what would have happened in a nationwide election. Labor would get 35 percent, the Conservatives 26 percent and the LibDems 20 percent. So no absolute majority for Labour. The party had that in the polls six months ago.
National elections are only a year to a year and a half away. Then perhaps more of a conflict will arise and the number of seats that Labor in Scotland manages to steal away from the Scottish National Party will become of great importance.
In any case, an absolute majority for Labor now seems a long way off. The LibDems are already speculating on a coalition. The word ‘referendum’ is used cautiously, as in: a new referendum on Brexit. LibDem leader Ed Davey has argued for this before, but not anymore. Such a referendum would be a bridge too far for Labour. The LibDems will then in any case make a case for better relations and good trade agreements with the European Union.