Grassroots anger at Tories suffer ‘tough
BORIS Johnson is facing a Tory backlash after the party suffered a string of losses in the local elections amid voter anger over lockdown parties in Downing Street.
Welsh Conservatives hit out at the national party after an election night that saw the party lose control of the only council it had overall control of in Wales.
Monmouthshire Conservative leader Richard John kept his seat, but told ITV Wales: “The public has spoken loudly and clearly and has sent a message that the party needs to consider.”
Cllr Adrian Robson, leader of the Conservatives in Cardiff council, said MPs needed to decide whether to keep Boris Johnson on as Prime Minister or face more election losses.
“Conservative votes are splitting all over the place,” he said. “The MPs in Westminster need to make a decision and decide what that decision is. It’s not up to me to say who the Prime Minister should be.
“It’s for the MPs to get together and say, ‘Right, we’re going to back the current Prime Minister and come up with a strategy for how we’re going to win the general election, how we’re going to win the Senedd election, and how we’re going to win local elections in Wales’.
“If they decide they can’t do that, then they need to make the change, but we can’t have another two years of what we’ve had because that’ll just mean we’ll lose the general election and continue to haemorrhage councillors.
“It’s quite obvious that the national picture has had a massive impact on the voters here, and they’ve decided to stay at home or turn out to vote against the Conservatives in seats that we held going into this election. They’re sending a message.
“What it does mean, of course, if those seats go to Labour, it means you have a stronger Labour council in the city. Actually, what was quite good in the last council was that Labour had a small majority but they were kept in check by different parties. My worry for the city is that rampant Labour will take us back to the administration that we saw pre2017 when there were divisions and splits, and that won’t do any favours to the city at all.”
Welsh Conservative leader Andrew RT Davies, who has until this election been a Vale of Glamorgan councillor as well as Senedd Member, told the BBC: “It’s been a hard night at the office. The counts are still continuing. The picture will become far clearer. The national message was a difficult one for us to walk through.”
He says they fielded a record number of candidates this election, but “the national picture was very difficult for us to deal with”.
Mr Davies says in 2012 it was all about “difficult headlines” about pasty tax and caravan tax and this time there were “different” topics.
“Across Wales we’re getting reports in of challenges at various counts,” he said.
He said it’s important to remember that the “Welsh Conservative brand” is very strong and the welcome they have received has been warm, but that the voters were telling their campaigners they wanted to send a message to Downing Street.
Meanwhile, Welsh Secretary Simon Hart agreed with Mr Davies that it reminded him of 2012.
The MP for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire told the BBC: “We got a stern ticking off then and we were told by voters to get our stuff together by the next election. Our task and our instructions from the electorate is to do the same again.”
He said there is a job to “restore confidence and restore trust”.
Speaking about Monmouthshire, the Welsh Secretary said: “It was very much a warning rather than a terminal separation of the ways”, adding that voters had told him it was their “only chance” to express their frustration but said voters had said they would return to his party.
The Prime Minister admitted it had been a “tough night” as the
Conservatives lost more than 300 councillors, Labour strengthened its grip on London and the Liberal Democrats made gains in Tory heartlands.
He insisted, however, that he would not be deflected from the task of dealing with the “economic aftershocks” of Covid, despite renewed calls from some Tories for him to stand down.
An analysis for the BBC by Professor Sir John Curtice calculated that if the whole country had been voting Labour would have gained 35% of the vote – five points ahead of the Tories on 30% – the party’s biggest lead in local elections for a decade.
However, allies of Mr Johnson argued that it would still not translate into a Labour victory at a general election.
Labour also suffered a blow with the announcement that police are going to investigate whether a party event last year in Durham attended by Sir Keir Starmer and his deputy, Angela Rayner, breached Covid regulations. The party insisted no rules had been broken after Durham Police said an inquiry was under
way after it received “significant new information”.
Labour’s most striking gains came in London, where it took the totemic Tory authority in Wandsworth, won Westminster for the first time since its creation in 1964 and clinched victory in Barnet.
It also took Southampton from the Conservatives and Worthing in traditionally Tory West Sussex from no overall control.
The Liberal Democrats took the new unitary authorities of Somerset – also traditional Conservative territory – and Westmorland and Furness and dislodged the Tories in West Oxfordshire, pushing the council into no overall control.
Sir Keir said the results were a “turning point”, while Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey said they would send an “almighty shockwave” through the government.
Speaking to broadcasters during a visit to a school in his Uxbridge and South Ruislip constituency, Mr Johnson said it had been a “mixed set of results” for the Tories.
“It is mid-term,” he said. “We had a tough night in some parts of the country, but on the other hand in other parts of the country you are still seeing Conservatives going forward and making quite remarkable gains in places that haven’t voted Conservative for a long time, if ever.”
He said the “message from voters” was that they wanted the government to focus on getting the country through the economic aftermath of Covid.
“This government is absolutely determined to keep going with
every ounce of compassion and ingenuity that we have, get people through the economic aftershocks,” he said.
However, David Simmonds, the Tory MP for neighbouring Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner, said the issue of lockdown rulebreaking in Downing Street had kept coming up on the doorstep.
“He (Mr Johnson) needs to find a way to restore confidence in the government and there’s a number of ways he might do that,” he said. “A change of leader would be one of them. Alternatively he needs to demonstrate what the alternative plan would be.”
Mr Johnson could face a leadership challenge if 53 Tory MPs – 15% of the parliamentary party – write to the chairman of the 1922 Committee, Sir Graham Brady, calling for a vote of no confidence.
Some MPs who previously called for him to step down have since backed off amid the crisis in Ukraine, but the results may prompt a new round of soulsearching within the party.
Veteran backbencher Sir Roger Gale, who had previously called for rebels to back off because of Ukraine, said the strength of feeling against Mr Johnson may become an “unstoppable tide”.
Most of the Prime Minister’s critics at Westminster were, however, keeping a low profile as they pondered their next move.
Among grassroots Tories there was anger and frustration that local councillors were paying the price for what they said were the failures of the national leadership.
John Mallinson, leader of Carlisle City Council, hit out after Labour took control of the new Cumberland authority which will replace it, telling the BBC: “I think it is not just Partygate, there is the integrity issue. I don’t feel people any longer have the confidence that the Prime Minister can be relied upon to tell the truth.”
Ravi Govindia, leader of the Wandsworth Tories, said: “Let’s not be coy about it, of course national issues were part of the dilemma people were facing.”
That did not deter a jubilant Sir Keir from proclaiming clear evidence of a Labour revival following its crushing defeat in the 2019 General lection. “This is a big turning point for us,” he told cheering supporters in Barnet. “We’ve sent a message to the Prime Minister: Britain deserves better.”
Sir Ed said the Lib Dems stood poised to make further gains at the general election following recent by-election successes. “What began as a tremor in Chesham and Amersham became an earthquake in North Shropshire, and is now an almighty shockwave that will bring this Conservative government tumbling down,” he said.
After full results were declared from 175 councils across England, Scotland and Wales, the Tories had lost control of 11 authorities and suffered a net loss of 317 councillors.
Labour had a net gain of eight councils and 177 seats, the Lib Dems had gained five councils and 166 councillors, and the Greens had put on 37 councillors.