This week in Brexitland, April 20, 2023

A preview of the local elections - are the Tories going to be electorally massacred come May the 4th?

Part of me would like the Tories to have a bad day on May 4th because it will give us some indication that this government is going to lose the next general election, something which I am rooting for. I think a bigger part of me just wants a few weeks’ rest from the “Sunak is leading the Tories to victory” bullshit; the puff pieces in Conservative adjacent publications, desperately searching for any signs of life. It’s tiresome; it makes it a drag to pay any attention to British politics. It would be nice to shut them up for at least a little while.

That leads us to the question, what is going to happen at this year’s local elections? Let’s start by saying what elections are happening where first. They are all in England this time round, with nothing in Scotland or Wales (the Northern Ireland elections are taking place exactly two weeks later, on May 18th). There are no elections in London, but across most of the rest of England, there is a lot going on. The entirety of nine metropolitan boroughs are up for grabs, including Liverpool, 32 whole unitary councils, over 100 district councils, and a host of the councils who elect their representatives by thirds (meaning, a third of the council is up for election each year as opposed to the whole council facing election at the same time). There are around 8,000 seats up for grabs in total across England on May 4th, 2023.

The last time the majority of these council seats were contested was the May 2019 local elections. That was during the nadir of Theresa May’s premiership and predictably, the Tories did very badly. They lost a net total of 1,330 seats. Amazingly enough, despite the huge Tory losses, Labour managed to net lose seats themselves, which is one of the great electoral miracles of all time. The Lib Dems did incredibly well, racking up over 700 gains, while the Greens gained almost 200 as well.

Given all this as background, a strange dynamic exists. On one hand, it’s tempting to say that the Tories lost so many seats last time, they might not lose that many in 2023, simply because there are, in theory, fewer that will be available to lose. On the other hand, May 2019 was a low point for Labour as well, so using the same logic, this should be an election cycle Labour cleans up in, given the state of the national polls.

What do I think is going happen? Predicting these things is a fool’s errand - what I will do is lay out what I think are the three most likely scenarios to unfold on May 4th and what I think they will all mean.

Scenario 1: The Tories do really badly, losing more than 500 seats, the Lib Dems do very well, gaining more than 200 seats - while Labour mostly tread water, greatly underwhelming us all

This one is very possible, although I will be surprised if Labour don’t do spectacularly well, given they really, really should. However, Labour haven’t been able to pick up local seats in quantity for the last decade. Most official oppositions tend to gain seats at local elections as a matter of course, while governments usually lose them - this has not been the case since 2013 at least. Labour are due a huge windfall of local seats.

If the Tories do badly and Labour underperform, expect a political media that is desperate to spin a “Sunak is bringing the Tories back to their winning ways” narrative already to talk endlessly about how Labour’s poor haul of local seats in 2023 is a sign of it all going to hell for them. Don’t believe it. Yes, Labour should do well in a fortnight’s time, but local elections are in fact fairly unreliable harbingers of general election results. 2017 gives us the best example of this: the Tories gained over 550 seats, while Labour lost almost 400. This was a mere five weeks before a general election in which May lost her majority and Labour gained 30 MPs.

Don’t believe the hype, in other words, whatever happens.

Scenario 2: The Tories do really badly, the Lib Dems flop - and Labour wins mountains and mountains of seats

This is what should happen and if I was a betting man, what I’d have a punt on. The only reason I don’t rate it more likely is because of how badly Labour have underperformed at local level for so long. It’s like I can’t quite bring myself to believe it’s possible that they could have a decent local election night ever again.

If this scenario unfolds, it will send the right-wing end of the press into a tizzy. If there’s no way to spin it as positive for the Conservative party, even with the greatest imaginations on the right working tirelessly on the problem, there could be a notable lack of analysis about this set of local elections. They could blame it on Sunak, say he’s been given a chance to turn the ship around and it hasn’t happened, and some of them will reach for this button. However, it’s a tricky one given Boris Johnson’s position, awaiting a possible suspension and by-election, and it’s not like there is anyone else waiting in the wings who has the slightest chance in hell than doing any better in the current circumstances than Sunak. It will be fun for the rest of us, though.

Scenario 3: The Tories don’t too badly, their losses kept to less than 200, while the opposition gains across the board are underwhelming

This is in fact a broad spectrum of possible outcomes, anything from the Tories losing less than 200 to them actually standing still or net gaining a handful. If that happens, expect mayhem for a while. The Labour Party will probably flip out and go further to the right on the culture war stuff. The right-wing press will start planning for another ten years at least of Tory government. They might even think about handing Sunak a modicum of respect here and there.

In summary, the Tories should do badly, very badly in fact, at this year’s local elections; it should finally, finally after a decade of dross locally, be Labour’s time to shine. The country feels poised to give the Conservatives a kicking. Whether it does or not will tell us a story, just not the one you’re going to read about in most places.

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