Big losses for PM’s party in UK voting

‘Disappointing’ for Conservatives

LONDON — Britain’s Conservative Party endured big losses Friday in results from local elections being viewed as a test of support for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government as a national election approaches.

The left-of-center main opposition Labour Party made gains that raised its hopes of winning a national election that is due by the end of 2024. Labour leader Keir Starmer said “we are on course for a Labour majority at the next general election."

The Conservatives acknowledged it had been “disappointing” election for the party.

With about half of results from Thursday's voting in, the Conservatives had lost more than 400 seats in elections for more than 8,000 seats on 230 local councils across England. The right-of-center party lost control of several councils, including Medway in southeast England, which it had run for a quartercentury, and the naval city of Plymouth in the southwest.

Labour gained more than 200 seats and won control of several new councils, while the centrist Liberal Democrats also made gains and grabbed control from the Conservatives in Windsor, an affluent town west of London that is the location of royal residence Windsor Castle.

The BBC projected that if the results were replicated nationally, Labour would have a ninepoint lead, likely enough to win a majority in Parliament.

While many contests turned on local issues such as potholes and garbage collection, voters appeared to punish the Conservatives for the turmoil that engulfed the party under former Prime Minister Boris Johnson. He resigned amid multiple scandals and was replaced by Liz Truss, whose rash tax-cutting plans spooked financial markets, hammered the value of the pound and roiled the wider UK economy.

Truss was forced to resign after six weeks in office, becoming Britain’s shortest-serving prime minister. The party chose Sunak, a former banker, to try to restore stability to the economy and the government.

Worryingly for Sunak’s party, the Conservatives lost ground both in working-class northern areas that they previously won from Labour — largely by championing Britain’s exit from the European Union — and in more affluent southern districts where anti-Brexit voters have turned to the Lib Dems or Labour.

Sunak said Friday that “it’s always disappointing to lose hardworking Conservative councilors.” But he said he was “not detecting any massive groundswell of movement towards the Labour Party or excitement for its agenda.”

The Conservatives have been in power nationally since 2010, years that saw austerity following the world global banking crisis, Britain’s divisive decision to leave the European Union, a global pandemic, and a European war that has triggered the worst costof-living crisis in decades.

Labour said the results showed many voters are eager for change. But University of Strathclyde polling expert John Curtice said that Labour so far didn’t have the scale of lead achieved before its landslide 1997 election victory under Tony Blair, the peak of the party’s popularity.

“Labour are going to have their biggest lead over the Conservatives in terms of votes than at any point since 2010, but it’s going to be as much to do with the Conservatives being down as much as it is Labour being up,” he said.

The results aren’t a complete snapshot of the United Kingdom. There were no elections in London, Scotland, or Wales, while Northern Ireland will vote on May 18.

The election was the first to be held since the government changed the law to require voters to show photo identification at all UK polling stations.