Labour can take some Tory citadels this week –
but don’t expect a clear-cut UK result
The party is fighting a tough local election map, but
could still benefit from symbolic triumphs in high-profile Tory strongholds
Robert Ford
Sun 1 May
2022 07.00 BST
Labour
heads into this week’s local elections with a spring in its step. The
government is in the doldrums, the prime minister is scandal-tainted and
unpopular, and the opposition is preferred on nearly all the major issues of
the day. Labour has led the opinion polls for months, and Keir Starmer has
opened up a lead over the diminished and beleaguered Boris Johnson, becoming
the first Labour leader in a decade to hold such an advantage over his Conservative
opponent. This sounds like a political environment in which Labour should
prosper at the polls.
Not so
fast. The bulk of this year’s English contests are being fought on Labour’s
strongest terrain – London and other big cities – meaning more seats to defend
and fewer opportunities for gains. Labour was also riding high when these seats
were last contested. The 2018 contest, fought in the wake of Jeremy Corbyn’s
2017 campaign surge, was Labour’s strongest local election showing in the last
decade.
Starting
from a high baseline on home turf means even a strong vote share may return a
mediocre haul of seats won and councils taken over. Labour’s rebound in the
polls may therefore have raised expectations the party will struggle to meet. A
tough map makes this a difficult contest for Labour to win decisively.
Even if
Labour struggles to advance on a broad front, it could compensate with symbolic
victories in high-profile Conservative strongholds. Several true-blue London
boroughs are now vulnerable including Barnet, Westminster and particularly
Wandsworth. The latter is an inner London borough that has been controlled by
the Conservatives for more than 40 years, and run for 19 of them as a
laboratory of Thatcherism by Sir Edward Lister, until recently Boris Johnson’s
chief of staff. Wandsworth matters to the Conservatives. Holding it shored up a
beleaguered Theresa May in 2018; losing it now would be a body blow for her
successor.
Labour
voting
Starting
from a high baseline may mean that even a strong vote share for Labour could
return a mediocre haul of seats won. Photograph: Cameron Smith/Getty Images
While the
blue London boroughs offer symbolic resonance, the contests of substance will
be fought outside the capital. Labour will be looking for signs of recovery in
Brexit-voting “red wall” areas such as Kirklees, Derby and Newcastle-under-Lyme
that deserted the party in 2019. Meanwhile, contests in perennial swing areas
such as Milton Keynes, Crawley and Southampton will also be closely watched for
signs of a shift in the balance of power.
The problem
for Labour is that matching its high-water mark of four years ago risks looking
like failure. The Conservatives, by contrast, could fall back on their strong
2021 result yet still improve on a weaker 2018 performance. The outcome could
be hard to interpret, and a messy outcome is better for the Conservatives,
relieving pressure on a beleaguered prime minister while denying Starmer the
clear-cut story of progress he needs to convince sceptics.
The Liberal
Democrats will also hope that advances this week will consolidate their status
as credible challengers to the Tories in their own electoral battleground: the
middle class, remain-leaning “blue wall” seats of southern England.
They made
gains in such areas in 2019 and 2021 and will hope to do so again. While there
are few opportunities for the Lib Dems to capture councils outright, they will
hope to deprive the Conservatives of control in Huntingdonshire and West
Oxfordshire – areas once represented in parliament by John Major and David
Cameron. Strong showings in the new unitary authorities of Somerset and
Westmorland and Furness would provide evidence of recovery in traditional Lib
Dem heartlands.
The Greens
will also be looking to build on record success in the last two local election
cycles with further gains in places such as Sheffield, Exeter and Wirral where
they are already an established presence.
The
political context is rather different in Wales and Scotland, where elections
for all the local councils also take place this week. The Conservatives had a
much stronger showing in 2017, when Welsh local elections last took place, so
Labour should find it easier to make gains in general election target areas
such as Wrexham and Flintshire.
Scotland’s
local elections also last took place in 2017, but Scottish local government
uses a proportional electoral system, and its SNP-dominated political
environment is largely decoupled from developments elsewhere. The Scottish
Conservative brand has fallen far since these councils were last contested by
Ruth Davidson in 2017. Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar will hope that a
rebound in votes and seats will help re-establish his party as the main
challenger to the SNP going into the next general election.
While there
is much for the governing parties to watch in this wave of local contests, the
most politically consequential elections will be in Northern Ireland, where
voters will elect members for a new devolved assembly. Polling points to a
seismic shift, with Sinn Féin overtaking its unionist rivals to become the
largest party in the assembly for the first time. With the DUP leadership
currently refusing to commit to serving under a Sinn Féin first minister, and a
long-running dispute over the post-Brexit Northern Ireland protocol still
unresolved, storm clouds are gathering over the province once again.
Whatever
this week’s local elections may signal for the future, a new Northern Ireland
crisis could swiftly shift political attention back to the unhealed wounds of
the past.
Robert Ford is professor of political science,
University of Manchester, and author of The British General Election of 2019
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