Local elections in Great Britain resulted in the moderate victory of Labor and the catastrophic defeat of the Conservatives in Londonwhere they have almost disappeared, suffering limited losses in England and heavy in Scotland and Wales. The main opposition party swept the capital but made modest gains in the rest of the country and suffered losses at the hands of the Liberals. the forces of Boris Johnson resisted the call red wall, but they lost territory in the rich English southeast. Liberal Democrats and Greens made remarkable progress at the expense of the two main parties.
According to the BBC’s nationwide estimate, if there were a general election today, Labor would get 35% of the vote, Conservatives 30%, Liberal Democrats 19% and Others 16%. Johnson tried to dilute the defeat. “The results are mixed. We’ve had a rough night in some parts of England but, in others, we Conservatives have moved on and made significant improvements in places that haven’t voted for us for a long time or even never.
London a world apart
London again showed that it is different from the rest of England. The Conservatives suffered unprecedented punishment. Labor already dominated the capital, but they took over three emblematic districts. They won by surprise and for the first time since its creation in 1964 Westminster, an example of the wealth and opulence of the city, home to Buckingham Palace, the luxury shops of Mayfair or the Ritz hotel, something unthinkable. Also for the first time they prevailed in Barneta neighborhood with a large Jewish population, which in the last general election voted for the Conservatives as punishment for anti-Semitism in the party of the then Labor leader, Jeremy Corbyn.
“We have changed the Labor Party and now we are seeing the results”declared the current leader Keir Starmer, claiming their internal cleaning work. After 44 years they also won in Wandsworth, former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s district, south of the Thames. The debacle of the Conservatives in the capital is important in the face of the next general election. London has 70 seats in the House of Commons, more than all of Scotland, and some ‘tory’ deputies are beginning to see that the renewal of their mandate is in danger.
Labor won important councils such as Southampton, Cumbria, or Reddich in England, although they lost Hull to the Liberals. In Wales they also made gains and in Scotland they relegated the Conservatives to third place. The Scottish National Party (SNP) once again won prominently in first place.
insufficient victory
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The result of the elections “is a turning point,” said Starmer, who made the day bitter the decision of the police to investigate “potential violations” of the Covid regulations, when he was photographed last year during a work meeting in the city Hartlepool drinking a beer. His victory was not strong enough to win a majority in the next general election. 35% is the same percentage obtained by Corbyn in 2018. After 12 years of conservative governments, Johnson’s lies and scandals, and the spiraling cost of living, the Labor Party does not seem able to overcome the tremendous majority that its rivals obtained in 2019.
The election was seen as a test of Johnson’s popularity after the Partygate. Although some blamed his defeat on the Prime Minister’s lack of integrity, the setback, dangerous as it is, is not so devastating as to light the fuse that leads to a change of leadership. Johnson could be preparing a government reshuffle to try to revamp the team’s image of him.