Reform seems to be thriving, and Labour seems to be losing, but what can actually change?
At the time of writing — 4.30am, since you ask — the local elections look to be playing out along broadly the lines that everybody expected, but with the volume turned up to 11. Reform UK is once again sweeping broad swaths of England, especially in the North, whilst Labour is taking absolutely shattering losses. As it stands, they’re losing four seats in five that they’re defending. If the Greens hit them as hard as Reform has, these are extinction-level results.
But sometimes just as interesting are the things people aren’t talking about. The Liberal Democrats exist, for example, and would historically have expected this sort of election to be something of a turkey-shoot — but seem to be sliding gently backwards. The SNP look set to win a fifth term of office in Scotland, but nobody thinks this makes a second independence referendum remotely likely.
As for the Conservatives… well. As I set out earlier this week, the basic fact that they are still going backwards at this election is very, very bad. Despite Kemi Badenoch’s rising personal ratings, the collapse in the Government’s popularity, the generally good (if sparse) media coverage, the Tories are still well down on their 2024 vote share.
The question is whether or not they have to confront this fact. They aren’t going to be the biggest story once the dust settles, that’s Labour. Nor the second biggest (Reform) or perhaps even the third biggest (depending on how the Greens do). External scrutiny is going to be relatively light. If the Party is determined to grit its teeth and pretend all is well, it might get away with it.
Given that, perhaps the most important thing about these results for the Conservatives will be whether or not they get a big, face-saving win upon which Badenoch can try to build a positive narrative. And it looks as though they might: Westminster City Council, a long-time Tory stronghold lost to Labour four years ago, looks set to return to the fold.
Readers of an historical bent might find that a familiar tune, for it was Westminster (and neighbouring Wandsworth, although Labour seems to be performing better there this time) which did Margaret Thatcher just that service during the Tory town-hall rout in 1990. Of course, that didn’t end up saving her premiership.
But Badenoch is not subject to the rigours of office, nor has she so thoroughly alienated her colleagues as had the Iron Lady by that point. With Robert Jenrick having defected, there is no obvious challenger around whom disaffected Tories might rally. The idea that victory in Westminster heralds national recovery — especially if it arises from a collapse in the Labour vote rather than any surge in Conservative support – would be pure cope.
But the party might be prepared to swallow it, at least for a while. One former minister reportedly described these results to fellow journalists as “mid-term”, which is a curious use of language for a party in opposition. But beyond giving voters the chance to deliver a mid-term kicking, or even the neglected question of, you know, running the local authority, these results are washing the ground from beneath the feet of both the major parties.
In an age of withered memberships, councillors (and their long-suffering friends and relations) are the ground machine. For an MP, it is overwhelmingly councillors who not only deliver their leaflets but crucially, canvas the constituency and collect crucial intelligence. If we are entering a period of highly fragmented five-party politics, the sort of edge provided by accurate canvas returns and a well-staffed knocking-up operation (where your supporters visit your voters to make sure they’ve voted) could be more valuable, in more seats, than it has been in a generation. Yet the essential machinery of that sort of campaign, for both Labour and the Tories, is being washed away before our eyes.
It doesn’t necessarily follow that either Reform UK or the Greens will build equivalent operations overnight: political skills, and the habits of regular campaigning, take time to build up, and UKIP historically had difficulty getting its members, happy to deliver leaflets until they dropped, to knock on doors and talk to people. But then UKIP was always, even at its height, a relatively fringe force; Reform UK is anything but.
Yet it isn’t obvious that either the Conservatives or Labour have room to respond: like many a dying institution before them, they are caught in a vice between external circumstances and their own internal dynamics. I touched on the Tory dilemma in a previous article, but Labour’s is if anything more acute.
The parliamentary party is itching to give in to its id and plunge off to the left. Yet despite the rise of the Greens, the rout the party suffered at Reform’s hands yesterday makes the wisdom of this too obviously absurd; not for nothing has Andy Burnham cancelled the “keynote speech” he was due to deliver this morning. This is good for Sir Keir Starmer, inasmuch as it makes a challenge from his left that much harder.
But even if Labour MPs end up prepared to grit their teeth and tolerate Shabana Mahmood’s bare-minimum attempts to tighten the immigration system, they aren’t going to budge on spending, meaning the Government is locked into the cycle of tax rises which are crushing both the consumer economy and its poll ratings. If Starmer survives, he faces a Rishi Sunak-style political afterlife, staggering towards a catastrophic election without the means or the will to change course.
The basic fact of local government today is that almost half the average council’s budget (and climbing) is committed to statutory obligations set by Westminster
As for those town halls, the nominal subjects of this contest… very little will change there, regardless of who wins. There may be more or less motions about Palestine, or attempts to put up Union Jacks, but the basic fact of local government today is that almost half the average council’s budget (and climbing) is committed to statutory obligations set by Westminster — on social care and special educational needs, mostly — over which it has no control.
Council tax will thus go up, discretionary services will be cut further, roads will continue to deteriorate, and voters will be furious that their new councillors are just as bad as the old lot and their vote for change doesn’t appear to have done anything, because until Parliament stops using town halls to hide bits of the welfare state from the accountants voting for change in local government isn’t actually possible.
