Keir Starmer was advised by his team to get an early night on Thursday before the first election results started to come through at dawn the next day. They booked the Labour leader into a hotel at a secret location in the north-west, so he could be bright and breezy when celebrating an anticipated parliamentary byelection win in Blackpool South. But the early-to-bed plan didn’t work out quite as expected. Labour’s campaign chief Morgan McSweeney took calls from his anxious boss throughout the early hours until Starmer was told the result from Blackpool soon after 4.30am. In their sleep deprived state, the main consideration for Starmer and McSweeney was not so much confirmation of the win – a Labour victory was pretty much assured – but the size of the swing. McSweeney told Starmer the figure. It was huge – 26%. In the same call he also told his boss how he had now achieved four out of five of the biggest byelection swings to Labour from the Tories, in the past 12 months alone. The other three were in Selby and Ainsty (21.3%), Tamworth (20%) and Wellingborough (19.3%). While Starmer was, apparently, mildly put out to hear he had not surpassed the record 28% swing in Dudley West in 1994, it was in every other respect the best news possible. Everyone knew Labour would do well in Blackpool and in the local elections, and the Tories would take a hammering. But the question – given that the overall trend of Labour wins had been factored in – was how well and how it would play out in the media. Momentum was vital. As the Blackpool results were followed by those for 2,636 council seats, 10 mayoralties and 37 police and crime commissioners, Starmer’s party was in pole position from the outset. A senior Labour figure said: “What we had to do was get off to a good start, and then allow the Tories as little room as possible to go into TV and radio studios and say: ‘well Labour fell short of expectations here, didn’t do as well as everyone thought there’.We had to win big at the start to show the wind continuing to build in our sails.’ That’s what we did.”
By early Friday morning the omens, long term and short, were pretty dire for the Tories. A big factor was not just the collapse of their vote, but also the performance of Reform UK which had polled more than 3,000 votes (16.9%) in Blackpool South. It was Reform’s best performance in a parliamentary byelection to date. Although it failed by just more than 100 votes to push the Tories into third place, the party’s performance was evidence of how this new force, which could soon be led by Nigel Farage, could split the rightwing vote with devastating effects for Rishi Sunak’s party at the general election. On his victory lap in Blackpool, Starmer was looking ahead: “This seismic win is the most important result today. This is the one contest where voters had the chance to send a message to Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives directly, and that message is an overwhelming vote for change.” When the first council results came in, the pattern of Labour gains was confirmed. And the trend was, with a few exceptions, mirrored nationwide. Not only was Labour seizing back areas it had ceded to Boris Johnson in 2019, but it was also winning in once untouchable Tory strongholds. In Rushmoor, Hampshire, which includes Aldershot, it gained seven seats, all at the expense of the Tories, to end with 21 of 39 seats, taking control for the first time in the council’s history. Labour councillor Gareth Williams rubbed salt into Tory wounds: “That we have won this seat, the home of the British army, shows the Labour party has changed under Keir Starmer..” In heavily pro-Brexit areas Labour was also taking back control, including in Thurrock, Essex and on Hartlepool borough council. In North East Lincolnshire – another Brexit stronghold – the Tories lost full control. In Redditch, in the West Midlands, Labour took back power.
But it was not all plain sailing for Starmer and his party, particularly in areas with large numbers of Muslim voters. Independent candidates were making strides. The Greens were surging, scoring a historic result on Bristol city council where they gained 10 seats, mostly from Labour, to become the largest party. Labour lost control of Oldham council after a number of independent councillors ran on a pro-Palestine ticket. Labour had run Oldham council for 13 years but anger at Starmer’s approach to a Gaza ceasefire, combined with local factors, hit the Labour vote. The party hung on in nearby Blackburn but only just, with independents gaining eight seats. Labour activist Michael Chessum said there were some warning signs the party should heed: “While Thursday’s results point towards a Labour win at the general election, two developments ought to act as a brake on the party’s hubris. “The first is the success of the Greens and some independents, who have patchily carved out an electoral space to Labour’s left. The Greens are now the largest party in Hastings and Bristol, and frustrated Labour’s hopes of winning in Norwich. Starmer’s support for Israel’s Gaza war has cost Labour dearly among Muslim voters.” He added: “Usually, electoral alternatives to Labour spring up when the party turns right in government. For them to gain so much traction with it still in opposition is unprecedented.” Much to their relief, the Tories narrowly retained control in Harlow, and they milked it for all it was worth. Local MP Rob Halfon described the outcome as “the biggest comeback since Lazarus”. Suddenly some Conservatives were starting to see a faint hope that overall the results might not be that bad, and a possibility that they might emerge with a story to spin of Labour falling flat. The Tories’ damage limitation effort went into overdrive when news came through that Ben Houchen had held the Tees Valley mayoralty for them, albeit after a campaign in which he dissociated himself almost entirely from the national party.
Houchen’s vote was down since 2021 from 73% to 54% and Labour’s up 14% to 41%. Even in his victory speech and interviews Houchen did not wear a blue rosette and said his party had to do better nationally. “We need to give [voters] the reason to vote for us and we haven’t given them that yet,” he said. But this did not stop former Tory Cabinet minister Andrea Leadsom from hailing the Houchen result as a sign of Labour’s essential frailty, and Tory strength. She called him an “archetypal” Conservative. “I don’t think Labour has much to be smug about when we see the result in Tees Valley which is at the heart of levelling up,” she added. The Transport Secretary Mark Harper argued that he did not see how Labour could win a general election if it could not win in areas like Tees Valley. Buoyed by Houchen’s success the Tories turned their minds to the West Midlands mayoralty and hoping above hope that their mayor, Andy Street, would also cling on. Rumours began to spread on social media – many spread by Conservatives – of Labour’s London mayor Sadiq Khan being in trouble as a result of anti-Ulez feeling and Muslim voters being furious with Starmer over Gaza. But it all had the feel of Tories clinging on to a life raft that was fast sinking, and a desperate effort to cloud Labour’s successes by denying reality in a way that was reminiscent of Donald Trump. By Friday afternoon more results were coming in that were more terrible news for the Tories and very good for Labour. Tory MPs who had threatened to try to oust Sunak were suddenly putting up the white flag and resigning themselves to the fact that there was nothing they could do. David Skaith took the inaugural mayoralty of York and North Yorkshire for Labour, which covers Sunak’s own constituency of Richmond. Labour also won inaugural mayoral contests in the North East and East Midlands. Elections guru John Curtice said the Tories’ overall vote tally had equalled record lows in 1995 and 2013. Support was down 11 points in votes for police and crime commissioners compared with 2021.
Meanwhile the Liberal Democrats took control of Dorset council and headed the popular vote share in a number of parliamentary constituencies in Surrey and the home counties, held by Tory big beasts. It means Ed Davey’s party will go into the general election campaign increasingly confident of ousting the likes of Jeremy Hunt, Michael Gove and others. Then Saturday afternoon, with Andy Street rumoured to be on the brink of defeat in the West Midlands mayoral race and bundle recounts ordered, all the talk of Khan being in trouble turned out to be no more than rumour as he romped home comfortably to take a third term. The Street rumours, however, were true: Labour’s Richard Parker clinched the vote. As expected, Andy Burnham also won in Greater Manchester. All the big mayoralties are now under Labour control. Overall, Labour had done what it set out to do in the last set of local elections before a general election later this year. A senior member of Starmer’s team said: “We have got some problems like losing support over Gaza but I think we will deal with that. We are achieving what we set out to achieve which is to be a party for the whole country.”