| Mayoral races The most visceral loss for Sunak would have been the newly established mayoralty of York and North Yorkshire. “It would have been a big slap in the face as that was in his own back yard,” Kiran says. Elsewhere, Andy Street’s seven years in power as the Conservative mayor for West Midlands came to an end over the weekend after losing to Labour by the narrowest of margins – the results were confirmed after a partial recount. Labour’s Richard Parker beat the incumbent by 1,508 votes, a result that left Street “devastated”. In 2021, he won 54% of the vote to Labour’s 46%, indicating just how narrow the political situation has become in the last few years. “Street losing is going to really infuriate a lot of One Nation Tories who feel the party has drifted too far to the right,” Kiran says. It was the Tees Valley win that kept the anti-Sunak rebellion at bay in Westminster, though Ben Houchen’s vote share fell significantly from an extraordinarily high 73% in his last race to 53.6% this time around. It’s also important to acknowledge that Houchen ran a campaign that barely acknowledged the Conservatives or their brand, so the win may not be indicative of support for the broader party. The other significant result was in London where, despite much fervour and speculation, Sadiq Khan won a record third term with 43.9% of the vote. The Conservative candidate Susan Hall managed to attract just 32.6%, after a campaign which a former Tory mayoral candidate described as “narrow” and “negative”. “Khan’s win is, in a way, a lesson for how Labour can win in urban areas,” Kiran says. “He’s taken stances on the war in Gaza that have been more vociferous, I would say, than national leadership, so I think they’ll have to pay a bit of attention to that. And, again, I think those moderate Tories are going to be angry about the fact that they managed to end up with Susan Hall as their candidate.” As expected, Andy Burnham swanned to a landslide victory for Labour in Greater Manchester, winning almost two-thirds of the votes available. Steve Rotheram in Liverpool and Tracy Brabin in West Yorkshire also secured Labour victories, meaning that all of the big mayoralties are under Labour control. But Kiran says it’s important not to read too much into what the mayoral races say about the national picture. “Each one of those contests was different and each one of them in a way has their own consequence,” he says. Local elections also tend to attract a lower turnout and voters are more likely to vote for independent or third-party candidates than they would in a general election. Things aren’t all good for Labour Although Labour trounced the Conservatives overall, there were still issues that have led to nervousness in the party of late. Keir Starmer’s stance on the war in Gaza has continued to hurt Labour’s popularity among Muslim and more progressive voters – the party unexpectedly lost Oldham council and there was an almost 18% drop in the Labour vote in areas of England where more than a fifth of people identified as Muslim. Labour’s candidate beat Andy Street in West Midlands by such a narrow margin in part because independent candidate Akhmed Yakoob won nearly 43,000 votes with his Gaza-focused campaign. Pat McFadden, a senior Labour figure, said the party would “work to get people’s support back”. “Pollsters tell me that these dips will not make a difference over the next election as Labour are getting more moderate or right-of-centre voters and so that’s the calculation they’ve made,” Kiran says. But there will be parts of the country where these margins will matter and any kind of splintering of the Labour vote will stop them taking some seats from the Tories. “There’s also a central belt in Scotland, where voters tend to be just a little bit more progressive than the average English vote. If Labour are now slightly counting on Scottish seats for their majority, then that’s going to be challenging,” he adds. What next for the Conservatives? These calamitous results will only invigorate calls for the party to change its tack for the upcoming general election. On one side, more centrist Conservatives like Street will be urging his party’s leadership to move towards a more “moderative, inclusive, tolerant conservatism”. On the other, those on the right flank of the party, like former home secretary Suella Braverman, will be pressuring Sunak to adopt even more hard rightwing policies. The prime minister is likely to continue on with his plan to focus the party’s campaign on the economy, with the hope that inflation continues to come down and GDP goes up so people’s pockets will feel slightly heavier before they head to the polls. “A lot of this, particularly on Braverman’s part, is about posturing for after the election,” Kiran says. Taking more hardline stances on trans rights and crime will not make an election victory more likely for the Conservatives, but a leadership election could be won by culture war issues. “In a way, it’s the worst of both worlds for the Tory party,” adds Kiran. “They don’t have another candidate or a plan to rally behind and yet nobody’s really getting behind the plan that they do have.” | 