2023 UK Local Elections

[oldtimer]

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-64722070

This has a risk of being a major  up - lots of people don't seem to be aware of the new ID laws and may end up with no valid ID in time for the elections.

In theory it shouldn't have that much of an effect, 32 million voted in the last G.E. , so 2 million is not that high and I suspect that most of them usually don't vote anyway.

But if they voted they would probably be Labour voters and that's the controversy, could shave at max.5 points of a Labour lead, but probably only half of that.

The next election though is unlikely to be a close one at this point.

[oldtimer]

I said in another thread that the fact they are now starting to talk about *2000* losses suggests that around half that is now a genuine possibility - though I will still believe it when I see it.

Though I pitty the councillors because they are in most cases innocent bystanders of their party leaderships, I hope they do.

[oldtimer]

It's very early, Conservative losses could be anywhere between 450-1400 council seats.

Anything over 1000 and we should expect renewed pressure for a leadership challenge, because you would have had real votes not just opinion polls to prove that Sunak's sunk.

[oldtimer]

Isn't it almost certain that the Tories will lose 1000 seats, perhaps even 1500?

The possible range right now looks like 800-1150.

[oldtimer]

I guess the assumption, as of now, is that the results are much more a Tory defeat than an actual Labour victory, right? Labour isn't gaining that much, despite the Tories big fall.

It looks like Labour are winning the ex-UKIP vote that has been the swing vote for 10 years now, while the LD are gaining mostly upscale Conservatives.

[oldtimer]

1000 loses crossed.

We have real votes that Sunak sucks.
 
And Sunak sucks more than Theresa May, since he won 1000 less than her, in her final days in 2019.

[oldtimer]

This is actually a really impressive performance by the Lib Dems — they’ve only gained slightly over 100 fewer seats than Labour have (which is obviously a much bigger proportional gain) — and that’s despite the fact that in a lot of the relevant councils (especially those where the Tories are their main opponents), they already had exceptionally good results in 2019.

The expectations for the Lib Dems were also fairly low because of the high floor they had from 2019 going into these elections. Really strong overperformance for them. Labour of course also doing well, but more like meeting what were definitely very high expectations going in than exceeding them.

And the Greens are putting up as much of an overperformance as the Lib Dems or more, although even more than the Lib Dems it's hard to necessarily think of them as a nationally cohesive party at local elections. I can't imagine the newly elected majority in Mid Suffolk would agree with the Green caucus in Brighton on almost any issue beyond some very localist preservationist concerns. Is Mid Suffolk the first council to elect a Green majority?

Indeed. Rather a funny place for it to happen too — I suspect most would have bet on Brighton or Bristol being the first!

In local elections when people are dissatisfied they tend to vote for the most known opposition that hasn't been tried yet, hence smaller parties are more favoured.

[oldtimer]

Also to consider is that the Conservatives started from the very low base of the 2019 local results.

So their vote getting depressed even further into record low territory will give weird results, as the small parties start to beat them in a lot of random places.

It's worse than 1997, because they already where scrapping at all time lows in the final days of Theresa May.

[oldtimer]

Whenever Amber Valley finishes it may end up being one of if not the place with the raw largest tory loss of councilors - redistricting made a mess of the wards, the Tories were at a historic high point, and everyone is up on the ballot. Labour are already fmaking mass flips.

Good God, Labour are sweeping Heanor. The Brexit Era really is dead.

In the 1970's the swing voters where Enoch Powell and his followers.

Whoever they supported, or at least not opposed to, won.
You could see it clearly with the swings in 1970, 74 and 79 in Powell's territory.

For the past 10 years or so the swing voters are Farage and his followers.

They currently hate the current version of the Conservative government so much they vote Labour to get rid of it.

I've seen this thing before.