Boris Johnson hit as Tories suffer losses in UK local elections

Boris Johnson will face renewed pressure on his leadership on Friday after the Conservatives suffered significant defeats in local elections across the UK, including big losses in London.

Labour seized Johnson’s two flagship London councils: Westminster, a Conservative stronghold since 1964, and Wandsworth, beloved of former prime minister Margaret Thatcher and run by the Tories since 1978.

But while Sir Keir Starmer’s party made striking gains in London, also winning the borough of Barnet, it made less progress in traditional “red wall” areas in the north of England.

Sir John Curtice, elections expert, told the BBC that outside London “Labour’s vote is actually down slightly” compared to the party’s performance in the same elections in 2018, under former leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Elsewhere, the Conservatives lost ground to the Liberal Democrats, who have opened up a second front for Johnson in some of the more affluent “blue wall” seats across southern England.

Local Tory leaders turned on Johnson as the results came in. John Mallinson, Tory leader of Carlisle council, said after Labour won the new Cumberland authority: “I just don’t feel people any longer have the confidence that the prime minister can be relied upon to tell the truth.”

Almost 150 councils held votes across England on Thursday, including the 32 boroughs in London. Council seats were also contested in Scotland and Wales, while there were crucial elections to the Northern Ireland assembly, with results expected later on Friday.

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Tory MPs will pore over the results for any signs that Johnson, who has been sharply criticised over the partygate scandal and his handling of the cost of living crisis, has been permanently damaged as party leader.

The prime minister signalled in a WhatsApp message to colleagues on Thursday night that he was going nowhere, thanking them for their work in the local contests and declaring: “Onward!”

Early results suggested that the Tories would lose about one in six of the seats they were defending. But many Tory MPs have said that a bad midterm result was already “in the price” and Johnson would survive a drubbing at the polls.

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With around half of all results in, there were signs that voters were turning against the Conservatives across the country, with the Lib Dems on course for sizeable gains.

Sir Ed Davey’s party seized the northern city of Hull from Labour and was performing well against the Tories in the south in councils such as West Oxfordshire.

The elections are also a big test for Starmer, who needs to show that Labour is regaining ground from the Tories in the north, and wants to overtake the Conservatives as the main opposition to the SNP in Scotland.

While Labour did well in London and took Southampton from the Tories, the party was faring less well elsewhere and it was clear Starmer has much ground left to recover if he hopes to win the next election.

Labour claimed that it was on course to win 16 seats where voters backed Brexit from the Tories at the next election, arguing that the party had progressed since the 2019 general election drubbing.

Shabana Mahmood, Labour’s campaign chief, said: “This is a turning point. After the disastrous results of 2019, these early results are showing the progress we have made thanks to Keir’s leadership.”

After weeks of local campaigning, many Conservatives were deeply frustrated that national events — including partygate scandal and reports of sexual misconduct by Tory MPs — had cost them votes.

Simon Bosher, Tory leader in Portsmouth, where the party lost four seats, said Johnson should “take a good, strong look in the mirror”.

Ravi Govindia, leader of the Wandsworth Tories, said: “Let’s not be coy about it, of course national issues were part of the dilemma people were facing.” He added that people “raised the issue of Boris Johnson” on the doorstep.