Conservatives defy doubters and take control of key councils
THERESA May saw off a potential Jeremy Corbyn electoral breakthrough as the Conservatives confounded predictions of a ballot box meltdown yesterday.
A Tory surge in Leave-supporting areas dashed Labour’s English local election hopes and raised fresh questions about Mr Corbyn’s leadership and failure to deal with his party’s anti-semitism crisis.
Labour councillors rounded on their leader and blamed his handling of the row for the party failing to make significant gains.
Mrs May enjoyed a much better night than expected and said voters were attracted by the party’s reputation for competence and low tax.
According to a projected estimate of national vote share, which uses key wards to show what a national vote would look like, Labour and the Tories were tied on 35 per cent, with the Liberal Democrats on 16 per cent.
It was a humiliating night for Ukip, which suffered a near wipeout, with one of its senior figures comparing the party to the Black Death.
Labour councillors said it should be a matter of ‘shame’ that the Conservatives had regained control of Barnet Council in north London, which had been a target for Mr Corbyn’s party.
Barnet has a large Jewish population and Labour councillors said they had been ‘punished’ by voters for the party’s anti-semitism crisis.
One defeated councillor, Adam Langleben, launched a blistering attack on Mr Corbyn, saying it ‘should shame us’ that Jewish people felt unable to vote for Labour.
He said: ‘We must never have another election like this. No community group should have their vote dictated by their safety.
‘Every Jewish Labour household we visited, people said, “not this time”.
‘Activists were being told, “this is a racist party, an anti-semitic party”, doors were slammed in their faces. We, as Jewish Labour activists, were told we were endorsing anti-semitism.’
London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who had earlier bragged that Labour would ‘paint London red’, admitted that lots of Jewish voters no longer felt comfortable voting for the party.
He told the BBC: ‘There are lots of voters, Jewish people in London, who don’t feel comfortable voting Labour, that can’t be right.’
Speaking in Barnet, Mrs May said: ‘People of all faiths have rejected antisemitism which has gone unchallenged in the Labour Party for too long.’
The Tories made a string of breakthroughs in the Midlands, seizing control in Redditch and Peterborough and helping rob Labour of its majorities in Derby and Nuneaton and Bedworth.
They also made gains in Walsall, Dudley and Birmingham, where local Conservatives had feared a complete wipeout at the start of this year.
The results defied expectations for a government that has been rocked by rows over Brexit and Windrush and seen a string of cabinet ministers forced to resign.
Earlier this year ministers had even feared that the results would be so grim they would spark a challenge against Mrs May’s leadership.
Boris Johnson said: ‘This is one of the times when you would expect the governing party to take a bit of a hammering, but actually when you look at what’s happened we have done well in Peterborough, we have done well in Dudley – all sorts of places where we are doing very well.’
On a campaign stop in Dudley yesterday, Mrs May said: ‘What we have seen is people recognising that
‘Doors were being slammed in faces’ ‘Causes disruption like Black Death’
Conservative councils deliver good local services, but also keep council taxes low.’
The Tories were helped by the collapse of the Ukip vote and continuing support for Brexit. Many of the areas where the Tories polled strongly had also backed Leave in the referendum.
Paul Oakley, UKIP’s general secretary, said the party was ‘dormant’ like the bubonic plague as more than 100 councillors were axed.
Mr Oakley told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘Think of the Black Death in the Middle Ages. It comes along and it causes disruption and then it goes dormant, and that’s exactly what we are going to do.
‘Our time isn’t finished because Brexit is being betrayed.’