“The fightback has begun.” That was the refrain from Tory MPs, candidates and party sources reacting to the Westminster and Wandsworth results in today’s local elections. In one sense, they are right – though they should not get carried away.
They are right because, if any Conservative recovery is to be credible, these London successes had to be banked. Without them, any talk of shifting up a gear and “coming back” would have rung hollow. The only story would have been one of heartland losses.
At the time of writing, the Conservatives have already lost more than 300 seats. Which is why what Kemi Badenoch said at her City Hall rally earlier today after the London results must prove true if the party is to regain serious footing: “This is the beginning, not the end.”
Within Conservative circles, it was privately acknowledged that Westminster and Wandsworth had to be won back. They were to serve as the clearest evidence of progress – the first sign of a possible revival.
Ahead of polling day, CCHQ knew London was where the party could make its statement. Badenoch would appear there early on results day to project momentum and renewal before the more painful results from elsewhere in the country rolled in.
That is exactly what happened. Scarcely had Badenoch declared at her Westminster rally that one could “see those signs of renewal everywhere that we are standing” than the Conservatives lost Essex County Council for the first time in a quarter of a century.
Essex is home turf for several senior Conservatives: Badenoch herself, Sir James Cleverly, Priti Patel, Alex Burghart, Richard Holden and chief whip Rebecca Harris among them. To lose control of the council in one’s own political backyard – a county long regarded with deep Tory affection – is hardly ideal, particularly considering 24 seats were still left to declare when the result came through.
Or consider Hampshire, where the Conservatives have lost overall control of the county council for the first time in nearly 30 years, even if they are the party with the most seats. True, Fareham Borough Council remained blue in Reform defector Suella Braverman’s patch, with Reform making only one gain while the Conservatives held every seat in Hamble Valley. But the broader pattern remains troubling. In Suffolk, meanwhile, Reform captured the county council as the Conservatives fell back by 21 seats.
Given that the party’s electoral presence in the North is already diminished, one might have expected the South to hold firmer. It has not.
As one Tory MP affected by the losses put it to me: “At least it doesn’t feel as dramatic as it did last year in Kent.” Yet these areas have long been considered Conservative heartlands, and they are now being eroded by a rival party on the Right.
There had, of course, been extensive expectation management before polling day. Party figures repeatedly stressed that many of these seats were last fought at the height of the vaccine bounce, and argued that the Conservatives were now approaching their electoral low-water mark. From here, they insisted, things could only improve. Even so, the scale of the losses remains stark.
Indeed, one LOTO source suggested that even the London successes risk becoming a “double-edged sword” for the Conservative narrative. “Reform will weaponise it,” they told me, “to say we no longer represent working people.”
Another Tory MP observed drily: “We win where it’s red versus blue and die where there’s too much Reform … at the risk of stating the obvious.”
That strategic dilemma explains why the party is now keen to emphasise victories in places such as Bexley and Harlow, both top Reform targets. According to another LOTO source, CCHQ intends to study these campaigns closely for lessons about how to counter Reform more effectively.
The excitement within Conservative ranks over the London gains also extends to the next mayoral election. There is growing hope that the right candidate could mount a serious challenge. James Cleverly’s name continues to circulate. One LOTO source also mentioned both Seb Coe, former MP and Olympic athlete, and even the Apprentice star and former West Ham vice-chairman Baroness Brady’s name have been spoken about, after she recently hosted an away day for Tory peers.
Results are still coming in, not least from Scotland and Wales. In Scotland, Conservatives had been nervous about the regional vote under the Additional Member System, where dynamics seem to not suit them so well in a broader collapse of support. There have, however, been a couple of encouraging results on a constituency note in Dumfriesshire, Aberdeenshire West, alongside Galloway and West Dumfries. Where they narrowly miss out, party strategists are already making the argument that Reform votes effectively handed seats to the SNP. In Aberdeen Deeside and North Kincardine, for instance, Stephen Flynn held on for the SNP by little more than 1,000 votes over the Conservatives; Reform’s 6,000 votes, Tories argue, denied them what would have been a major scalp.
In Wales, matters were always likely to prove difficult given the absence of sitting Tory MPs. Even so, a few Conservatives have already been declared to the Senedd, including Andrew RT Davies and Natasha Asghar.
The party had hoped this year’s performance would ultimately be judged by national vote share compared with last year. On that measure, at least according to Sky News, the Conservatives are up slightly while Reform is down. It is hardly a picture of robust political health, but, as one southern Tory MP put it to me: “We are going to be okay… in our part of the world at least.”
Yet every councillor lost weakens the party’s local machine, drains the voluntary base and blunts future campaigning efforts. London may offer a template for renewal, but activists and candidates across the country will still need to be rallied. And having spent months arguing that this contest represented the final reckoning for the old vaccine-bounce victories, the Conservatives can scarcely afford any more rounds of losses. The pressure remains very much on.