The leader of the opposition in the United Kingdom, the Labor Party Keir Starmer, urged this Friday the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, to immediately call general elections that allow the country to “turn the page”, after the collapse of the conservative vote in the municipal elections celebrated yesterday.
The Labor Party won a parliamentary seat in the north of England and control of several local councils on Friday. The resounding victory set the tone for two days of results in closely watched local elections ahead of a general election later this year that polls show could bring Starmer to power and end 14 years of Conservative rule.
Britons voted on Thursday for more than 2,000 seats in about a third of councils across England and Wales and several high-level mayoralties, including London.
The Blackpool South constituency was the only parliamentary seat up for grabs. Elected MP after the resignation of the conservative Scott Benton due to accusations of influence peddling, the winner was the Labor MP Chris Webb, who took the seat from the Tories with 10,825 votes, well above the conservative David Jones, with 3,218. The 26% gap in favor of Labor compared to the 2019 result was the third largest difference between candidates in the history of by-elections since the post-war period, according to polling expert John Curtice.
Both the defeat in Blackpool and early signs of deep Tory losses in the councils will boost Labour’s hopes of a landslide victory over Sunak’s Conservatives in the general election. “This seismic victory in Blackpool South is the most important result today,” stressed Labor Starmer. “This is the only contest in which voters have had the opportunity to directly send a message to Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives, and that message is an overwhelming vote for change,” he added.
Despite everything, in subsequent statements to the media, Starmer acknowledged that in some of the places where municipal elections were held yesterday (about a third of the councils in England and Wales) his party’s position regarding the conflict in Gaza has detracted from them. supports.
The Conservative Party chairman said it had been “a tough night”. “Obviously it hasn’t been a great result,” Richard Holden told Times Radio.
Sunak’s Conservatives are about 20 percentage points behind Labor in most opinion polls ahead of a general election that Sunak intends to call in the second half of the year.
The first 500 of more than 2,600 council results showed Labor winning at the expense of the Conservatives, in line with Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s pre-vote prediction of significant losses for the ruling party.
Although local elections do not always reflect what people will vote for in a national contest, a heavy defeat could trigger fresh anger in the Conservative Party over Sunak’s leadership and the prospect of losing power.
The extent of that discontent could depend on the results of two mayoral elections in which the Conservatives hope to show they can still hold power in central and northeast England. The result for the Tees Valley mayoralty will be known on Friday, while the West Midlands mayoralty will be announced on Saturday. Results will also be known on Saturday in London, where the current Labor mayor, Sadiq Khan, is expected to win another term.
