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Early results tonight suggest the local election could be worse than expected for the Conservatives.
In Blackpool South, a huge swing of 26 per cent from the Conservatives to Labor can be taken for granted after Rishi Sunak’s party had a similarly disastrous run of results in the recent Westminster by-election.
But the collapse of the Conservative vote share in the constituency by more than 30 percentage points to the extent to which support for the Conservative Party has plummeted.
This is the third largest swing from Conservative to Labor ever seen in a post-war by-election.
The Conservative Party came in second place, but with a narrow vote share of less than 1% over Reform Britain.
The fact that Mr Sunak’s party almost lost the seat it had defended to third place to an unusually reformist party should be a serious warning ahead of the upcoming general election.
However, this strong performance for the Reformers appears to be due more to the complete implosion of the Conservative vote than to a particularly strong campaign by the party launched by Nigel Farage.
Despite the threat of disruption, the reforms continue to underperform when compared to similar attempts by Ukip in previous parliaments.
Elsewhere, early council results showed the Conservatives’ vote share had fallen by around 19 per cent since 2021, with initial narratives suggesting a significant Conservative defeat.
Pollsters have already estimated that the Conservatives could lose even more seats than their expected 500 seats. This could be one of the worst results the party has seen in local government in decades.
The party is defending a high bar after performing well the last time these seats were up for election, but the early pattern is that it is losing about half of the seats it defends. It shows.
It’s difficult to decipher local elections and determine what they suggest about national polls, especially in the early stages of results.
But the numbers suggest that polling headlines showing Conservative support collapsing and Labor gaining appear to be reflected in the results so far.
Mr Sunak appears to have made little progress in closing that gap over the past year.
The top winner so far has been Labor, which likely protested its stance on the Israel-Gaza conflict and gained votes in key target areas despite losing some votes to independents, particularly in Oldham. It’s stretching.
But local elections are an opportunity for smaller parties to make strides, and that’s clearly evident in the first set of overnight results.
The Green Party in particular has had good results and is currently on track to match or beat its best results ever in local elections.