Senior Tories are braced for a catastrophic set of local elections that will see a collapse in council seats won at the peak of the “vaccine bounce” enjoyed by Boris Johnson. Rishi Sunak’s allies regard the results as the most dangerous moment remaining for the prime minister before the general election. While many of Sunak’s Tory critics have little appetite for removing him, some said they were asking themselves: “What is there to lose?” after a pre-election budget that has failed to increase Conservative support. Sunak, under pressure to explain how he would pay for his pledge to abolish national insurance contributions by the end of the next parliament, has expanded on the measures in the budget by announcing that he is preparing a new benefits squeeze to fund it. Thousands of council seats across England will be up for grabs this May, with most of them last returning councillors in 2021. At that point, Johnson’s government was enjoying a boost in popularity as a result of the Covid vaccine rollout, while Keir Starmer was on the verge of resigning after losing the Hartlepool byelection. On the morning after the results, one newspaper front page said Johnson was now eyeing a “decade in power”. According to an Opinium poll for the Observer, the Tory share of the vote has fallen from 42% then to 25% today. The poll slump means that May’s results are likely to be dire for the Tories, with some experts predicting the party could lose as many as half of its councillors up for re-election.
Party officials accept that the results will probably be bleak but are already pouring all their efforts into a push for a general election most likely to be held in the autumn. “No one’s disputing it’s going to be difficult,” said one senior source. “But it’s still going to be the second-most important set of elections this year.” In England, there will be seats up for grabs in more than 100 councils. There will also be elections for regional mayors and the London assembly. Andy Street, the Conservative West Midlands mayor, and Ben Houchen, the Conservative Tees Valley mayor, are among those facing re-election. Both became symbols of the “levelling up” agenda initially espoused by Johnson. Sam Freedman, a former senior adviser to Michael Gove and now a senior fellow at the Institute for Government, said: “Based on the expected swing from 2021, you’d expect [the Conservatives] to lose somewhere in the region of half their councillors and most of their remaining councils.”
While there is widespread acceptance that the results will be punishing, opinions within the party are split over any risk to Sunak’s position. One former cabinet minister said the threat to Sunak was being underestimated. “It’s clear the budget has had no traction at all,” he said. “A number of colleagues are pretty incandescent. The point they make is: what is there to lose? Frankly, it couldn’t get any worse than this.” However, even critics of Sunak said that most MPs were too demoralised to attempt to replace the leader. “If Boris was around, Rishi would have already gone – but as nobody else is obvious who can solve things, people are sticking with what we’ve got and praying,” said a former minister. “Everyone from MPs to members seems to have given up.” Sunak’s allies have been monitoring the party mood and are confident he will be in place to fight the general election. “Speaking to MPs, even the ones who are not fans of Rishi on the back benches – or were Boris people – most of those kinds of people have come round to the fact that it would be crazy to try to do anything and that the guy’s going to lead us into the election,” said one. “They may or may not love it, but they still want to win. I think the clock’s run down on anything like [removing him].”