Election boosts May ahead of Brexit talks
LONDON British Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservatives have cruised to a landslide win in local elections, in a foretaste of a potential victory in the June 8 general election, which would give May a domestic boost going into Brexit talks.
With the bulk of the results in, the Tories won almost 1800 of the 4851 council seats being contested in England, Scotland and Wales – a net gain of more than 500, according to a BBC tally – and gained overall control of 11 counties and districts.
The main opposition Labour Party had just over 1000 seats, a net loss of 340, and lost control of five councils.
Most surprisingly, the Tories won both the election for the first regional mayor in Tees Valley in northeast England, a traditional Labour area, and the contest in the West of England, centered on Bristol.
They profited from the nearannihilation of the UK Independence Party, created to fight for Brexit.
The BBC projected the national vote share at 38 per cent for the Tories and 27 per cent for Labour, whose leader Jeremy Corbyn failed to inspire supporters.
May said in Brentford, west London – a Labour district in her sights – that ‘‘we have taken votes from across the whole of the political spectrum.’’
Painting the EU as a bogeyman and making the election about Brexit has been an effective way for May to drum up support among vote-weary Britons, given that Corbyn is a deeply unpopular political figure. Ensuring a strong turnout in the local elections was key to her plan to enlarge her parliamentary majority from the current 17 seats.
Labour lost about a fifth of its seats in its heartland of Wales, as well as overall control of Glasgow for the first time since 1980.
While none of this bodes well for Corbyn, votes were not held in some areas, including London, which voted to remain in the EU and traditionally leans toward Labour.
‘‘It could be the worst projected national share by an opposition party since the BBC started producing them in 1982,’’ said Rob Ford, professor of politics at the University of Manchester. ‘‘For an opposition party to be polling in the high 20s in local elections is dismal. And look at where they’re losing: they’re losing everywhere.’’
Corbyn’s allies insisted there were positive signs among the defeats.
The results were ‘‘tough’’ for Labour but not the ‘‘wipeout’’ some polls were predicting, said the party’s finance spokesman, John McDonnell.
The Liberal Democrats, who are trying to use their opposition to Brexit to appeal to voters angry at the referendum result, showed no signs of a breakthrough. They had about 420 seats, a net loss of more than 30.
Scotland’s nationalists failed to gain ground as the Conservatives cemented themselves as the biggest threat to their dominance, after campaigning against another independence referendum.
The Scottish National Party (SNP) lost seven council seats and the Conservatives gained 164. The SNP also lost control of the city of Dundee, one of the few places that backed breaking away from the UK in the 2014 plebiscite.
The vote in Scotland was framed as a chance to protest First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s plan for another independence referendum following the Brexit result.
The results suggest the SNP will retain its command over Scotland’s parliamentary seats next month, though the question is by how much, as the Tories have returned to levels of support not seen since the 1980s.
Sturgeon said the result was nothing short of a ‘‘clear and emphatic victory’’ for the SNP, which won the largest number of seats overall, and showed its share of the vote had held up.
‘‘It’s not the SNP losing ground to the Tories,’’ she said. ‘‘The real soul-searching in Scotland has to be done by the Labour Party.’’
The problem for the SNP is that next month will be more about defending its position than strengthening it.
The party took 56 of Scotland’s REUTERS 59 districts in the British Parliament in 2015, in what had been one of the biggest Labour capitulations. This came less than a year after Scots voted 55 to 45 per cent to remain in the UK and the nationalists went on to build support up to unprecedented levels.
Scots voted against Brexit last year, and Sturgeon has said they should get the chance to decide their future after the terms of leaving the EU become clear.
She won the backing of MPs in the Scottish Parliament to seek the legal means from the UK government to hold another referendum, though May rebuffed the demand. Washington Post-Bloomberg