Labour says it is “on track” to win the next general election as it celebrates local council gains at the expense of the Tories.
Sir Keir Starmer’s party seized control of a number of key local election battlegrounds in England on a bruising day for Rishi Sunak’s Government – though the picture in the North East was somewhat of a mixed bag. With Labour already dominant in the five Tyne and Wear councils where voters went to the polls, much attention here was on fights in the Tees Valley to judge whether their national poll lead would translate into substantial gains at the ballot box.
In Darlington, Labour overtook the Conservatives to become the largest party – but fell short of winning control of the council. The party also came in one seat shy of a majority in Hartlepool, where one key ward went in the Tories’ favour by just two votes, but celebrated ousting Middlesbrough’s independent mayor and winning a council majority there too.
There was little danger of Labour’s rule coming under threat in Newcastle, Sunderland, Gateshead, North Tyneside, or South Tyneside. But overnight results produced a positive picture for the party in Sunderland in particular, where it gained two seats after having suffered some major losses over recent years. The Lib Dems also overtook the Tories there to become the city’s main opposition.
There were a handful of gains from Labour for the Lib Dems in Gateshead, Greens in South Tyneside, and both Lib Dems and independents in Newcastle.
Kim McGuinness, Labour’s police and crime commissioner (PCC) for Northumbria, was buoyed by Labour’s national results that saw it take control in target areas such as Plymouth and Medway – with the prospect of a general election next year looming. With BBC analysis saying the local election results would give Labour a nine-point poll lead if replicated nationally, Ms McGuinness said her party was “on track to win the next general election”.
She added: “I think we have had some really great results. We have made absolutely massive gains despite not winning overall control in a couple of places [in the North East]. We have still made massive gains in those areas and across the country. The Tory Party nationally has completely imploded, they have presided over a disastrous government – people know that and they can feel it in their pockets.”
Labour’s North of Tyne mayor Jamie Driscoll, who is vying with Ms McGuinness to be the party’s pick to stand for the new North East mayoral role next year, called the 2023 local elections a “clear verdict on how badly the Tories have run the country”.
However, he warned against overconfidence. Mr Driscoll said: “I am not one for complacency – I remember what happened in 1992. What we have is a Conservative Party being run quite badly in the way that they just are not supporting working people and their families in this country. They aren’t offering solutions, they are sticking two fingers up at working people…As long as we get the message out there that we have a plan to fix this then we will win elections.”
Mr Sunak conceded that losing control of more than 20 councils across England was “disappointing”. However, the Prime Minister insisted that he was “not detecting any massive groundswell of movement towards the Labour Party or excitement for its agenda”.
The Tories’ leader in Sunderland, Antony Mullen, saw his group reduced by two but also insisted that he did not believe voters were switching to Labour. He said: "Clearly the story of the night is not that Conservative voters have turned Labour, it is that they haven't turned out at all and we have seen huge drops in our support simply because Conservatives haven't voted.
"So in my ward (Barnes) for example, Labour actually got fewer votes than they did last year and won, we lost 500 because those people didn't turn out at all. So I think the drop in turnout across the city is Conservatives who have decided that they have no enthusiasm to vote for us but equally, they have no enthusiasm to go elsewhere either".
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