Early results in U. local elections suggested Theresa May’s Conservatives are on course for a sweeping victory, boosting the prime minister’s bid for a larger parliamentary majority next month to help her navigate Brexit.
As of 9 a. in London, May’s Tories had won 561 council seats, a net gain of 155, and controlled 10 local authorities, according to the BBC. Labour won 404 seats, a net loss of 125, and controlled five authorities. The results are still partial, with only about 1,400 of the 4,851 seats declared.
The Conservatives also won the election for the first regional mayor of the West of England, centered on Bristol. Independence Party, which was created to fight for Brexit, was the biggest loser of the day, failing to hold any of the 41 seats where results have been announced.
The outcome appeared to confirm polling that shows UKIP voters have been rallying to the Conservatives since last year’s Brexit vote, while Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has failed to inspire supporters. The trend suggests May can achieve her goal of a large parliamentary majority in the national election on June 8.
“We’ve seen a very strong swing from Labour to the Conservatives, averaging around 7 percentage points,” John Curtice, professor of politics at Strathclyde University, told the BBC. “The Conservatives are way ahead of Labour nationally. Their best local election results for 10 years, maybe for 25 years.”
Turnout, though, is lower in local elections, and votes weren’t being held in areas including London, which voted to remain in the EU and traditionally leans toward Labour. With different areas counting at different times, however, the results offered some hard blows to Labour. The party lost almost a quarter of its seats in its heartland of Wales.
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“It’s going to be a difficult election,” Philip Johnson, Labour’s candidate for the general-election target seat of Nuneaton, in central England, told the BBC. He’d just lost his council seat in a county that fell to the Tories. Asked if he thought Corbyn would be a good prime minister, he paused, before replying: “That’s a difficult question.”
Corbyn’s allies insisted there were positive signs among the defeats. The results have been “tough” for Labour but not the “wipe-out” some polls were predicting, the party’s chief finance spokesman John McDonnell said. “We are winning the argument on policy and we are beginning to change attitudes towards Jeremy Corbyn as well,” he told Sky News television.
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 143 seats, a net loss of 28.
For May, a favorable result comes with some risk. Her election message has been built around the idea that votes for Labour or the Liberal Democrats threaten to put Corbyn in power. A sweeping win in the local elections could make that look less plausible, and undermine her efforts to ensure a strong turnout on June 8.
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May has already been warning that polls showing her ahead could be wrong. Conservative Defense Secretary Michael Fallon said the results were “encouraging,” with voters switching to the Tories from UKIP, the Lib Dems and Labour, but “these are very early days.”
“This is not a prediction of the general election. We have got to be very cautious about that,” Fallon told BBC radio’s Today program. “We have still got to get out there and campaign for every vote.”
Elections were taking place in councils across large areas of England and all of Scotland and Wales, with results due to arrive through Friday evening. The winners will have responsibility for local schools, trash collection and planning decisions. As well as in the West of England, there were also elections for five other new regional mayors, including in the key swing region of the West Midlands, centered on Birmingham.
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