Kemi Badenoch faces her first big electoral test in this week’s local elections. The Conservative party has much to lose. Of the 1,642 council seats up for grabs, 940, accounting for boundary changes, were won by the Tories back in 2021. For Badenoch, the only path on Thursday is down.
Four years ago, Boris Johnson was at the peak of his ‘vaccine bounce’. Those were halcyon days, pre-Partygate, Trussonomics, and Toryism’s worst defeat since James II’s exile. In May 2021, the Conservatives poll ratings were at 45 per cent. Today, they barely top 20 per cent, falling back from last summer’s defeat. Amongst party members, Badenoch’s leadership is increasingly unpopular.
Nigel Farage’s party is predicted to pick up more than four hundred seats
Thursday’s local elections should be inconsequential. Thanks to nine councils taking up Angela Rayner’s offer of delaying facing the voters for a year, fewer councillors are up for election than at any set of council elections since 1975. Even then, it is an open secret that English local government is an absurdity – confusingly organised, crippled by statutory obligations, and increasingly bankrupt – not to be taken too seriously. But too big an upset could spell trouble for Badenoch.
Central to Conservative woes is Reform UK. Nigel Farage’s party is predicted to pick up more than four hundred seats – an epochal transformation from the grand total of zero they won the last time these elections were contested. Of the 23 English local authorities up for election, the Tories won 19 in 2021. They are on track to lose around half their seats and control of most of their councils.
Thursday’s contests are predominantly taking place in rural, provincial areas. The Tory vote should be substantial here, not under seige from multiple directions. Labour might be plumbing unprecedented depths of unpopularity for a new government, but they only have one council up for election. The Conservative over-performance in 2021 leaves them confident of gains in swing counties like Derbyshire and Lancashire as the Tory tide goes out.
The Liberal Democrats aim to replace the Conservatives as the second party in local government. In the south-west, the Tories won a majority in both Devon and Cornwall in 2021. The Lib Dems will hope to turn both to No Overall Control. The Conservatives council leader in Cornwall is stepping down, while the Lib Dems won back Mid Devon, Teignbridge, and South Hams councils in 2023.
Shropshire also possesses a Tory majority and has been under the party’s control since 2005. But the Lib Dems won North Shropshire with a majority of over 15,000 last summer, and the Tories only clung on in South Shropshire by 1,624 votes. Davey’s Yellow Peril also aim to leapfrog the Conservatives in Gloucestershire and Wiltshire on the back of strong performances last year.
Reform’s threat is concentrated in the Midlands and East of England: Lincolnshire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Kent. Despite a substantial majority in the latter, the Tories are squeezed from both sides – by the Lib Dems in Tunbridge Wells, and Reform in Margate and Sevenoaks.
Lincolnshire, England’s most pro-Brexit county, has long been a happy hunting ground for Farage. Reform took Boston and Skegness at last year’s election and are predicted to take all the seats on the county’s coast. It also hosts the Greater Lincolnshire Mayoral election. Andrea Jenkyns, the former Tory MP, is set to win this for Reform, according to polling from More in Common and YouGov.
With Paul Bristow predicted to win the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough mayoralty, Thursday shouldn’t be a total washout for the Tories. Expectations are so low that a better-than-expected showing could even be spun as a small success. Badenoch only became leader last Halloween. MPs understand that anyone would have struggled to repeat 2021’s success. Yet Thursday’s results still look set to confirm just how much trouble the Conservatives continue to be in.
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