The Conservatives face losing their majority in the House of Commons if local election results are replicated in a general election, according to a Sky News projection.
Analysis suggests it would mean a divided parliament with Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservatives the largest party in Westminster, but 48 seats short of the overall majority.
The projection is based on local election results from 1,700 districts and an analysis of the change in vote share since 2018 in 87 local authorities. He predicts the Conservatives would have 278 seats, just seven more than Labor with 271.
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Figures come after Johnson admitted it was a “tough night” for his party after losing some key local councils in London to Labour, although the opposition party had mixed results outside the capital.
Some local Conservative leaders were blaming the Prime Minister for the shocking losses, as partygate and cost of living dominated comments at the gate.
A southern Conservative MP told Sky News: “It’s pretty bleak. The PM is to blame, nobody else, and now there are 19 Conservative MPs from London who will be crying for blood. The PM is killing our traditional vote.”
Separately, David Simmonds, a Conservative MP for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner in north-west London, told Sky News that partygate was the “number one problem I’ve ever heard of on the gate”.
He added, “It has far outpaced issues like cost of living.”
Simmonds said voters were “clearly sending a message to my party, to the government, to say there needs to be some change, we need to show that we have that sense of control.”
But Johnson’s allies warned it was not time to change leaders, insisting Labor’s gains fell short of what was needed for the party to secure a general election victory.
The prime minister said: “We had a rough night in some parts of the country, but on the other hand, in other parts of the country, you still see the Conservatives moving forward and making quite remarkable gains.”
He said local election results were “certainly mixed” after the Conservatives lost WandsworthMargaret Thatcher’s “Favorite Advice”, westminster Y barnet to work.
However, Labor gains in the rest of England were more modest.
The party was also shaken by Friday’s announcement that the leader Sir Keir Starmer will be investigated by the police in Durham for “beergate,” the allegation that he broke lockdown rules while drinking with colleagues in April last year.
Live local elections: Lib Dem gains could scare Conservative MPs weighing PM’s future
The Conservatives were hit hard in Somerset, where the Liberal Democrats won a large majority and regained control of the council 13 years after losing it to the Conservatives.
Lord Keirspeaking from Barnet on Friday morning, he said the results represented a “major turning point for the Labor Party”.
“From the depths of 2019, we are back on track now for the general election, showing the change that we have made, the hard change that we have made in the last two years, the difference that it has made,” he said. aggregate.
Emily Thornberry, Labour’s shadow attorney general, told Sky News: “We still have a mountain to climb, we’re not pretending we don’t.
“We’re back, and we’re on the right track to become the next government.”
Labor sources were particularly jubilant at seizing the Tories’ “crown jewel” in Wandsworth, the London borough that has been in party hands since 1978.
But Iain Duncan Smith, the Conservative MP and former party leader, told Sky News: “No midterm council election is positive in any way… You can’t really extrapolate from here.”
But he admitted that “London has not been good.”
Outside the capital, Labor triumphed in the new Cumberland unitary council, covering seats held by the Conservatives, and took the leading council from Southampton of the Tories.
But in high-profile places where Labor needed to make progress, such as hartlepool, peterborough, Redditch Y ipswichthe party failed to take such advice.
Maidstone, whose MP is a Conservative, saw Labor and Greens take one seat each to make the Conservative-led council have no overall control.
While the Conservatives have seen a substantial drop in support in the south of England, Labor has seen a bigger drop in the north.
A surge in Lib Dem support in England has seen the party win Hull from Labour, winning from the Tories in merton and in west oxfordshirethe constituency previously represented by former Prime Minister David Cameron.
Local election results could also prove key to the prime minister’s future, and if rumors of discontent from the backbenches turn into a chorus of opposition triggering a no-confidence vote.
They will also shed light on whether Sir Keir has been able to gain ground amid the pressures the prime minister is facing as a result of partygate, the cost of living crisis and questions about culture at Westminster.
Reference-news.sky.com