Local elections: Boris Johnson faces his first post-partygate test

The polls have now closed in this year’s local and devolved elections. The parties – and their leaders – face a nervous wait for the results. For Boris Johnson, this is the first electoral test since he was fined by the police for breaking his own Covid rules. Tory MPs will be watching nervously to see how much damage has been done.

CCHQ have done a canny job of expectation management, suggesting that the loss of 800 seats – which would be a truly diabolical night for the party – should be seen as par. But there is real Tory nervousness about how bad results might be in the south. I suspect that Tory MPs in Lib Dem facing seats will be more nervous once these results are in. Johnson’s allies are hopeful that there will be some reasonable results in the north and the Midlands to take some of the sting out of these loses.

For Keir Starmer, this is a chance to show that Labour is on track to, at the very least, deny the Tories a majority at the next election. He has had rather a scratchy run up to polling day, with various testy media interviews. Life would be made easier for him if he could point to some clear successes in areas where Labour lost in 2019. There is also the question of how well Labour do in Scotland. Under Anas Sarwar, Labour look set to beat the Tories to second place. Time will tell if this is the beginning of a Scottish Labour revival that will see them begin to challenge the SNP. If it is, then that would ultimately strengthen the Union in the medium term.

The most interesting, and consequential, of these elections though is taking place in Northern Ireland. The polls suggest that Sinn Fein are on course to become the largest party. This would give them the right to nominate the first minister. But it remains to be seen if the power sharing executive can be got up and running. The DUP have been clear to the UK government that they won’t nominate for either first minister or deputy unless their concerns on the protocol are addressed.

There’ll be full updates from Coffee House as the sun comes up and the results come in.