Council elections used to be a reliable beacon for a national government in trouble, as disgruntled voters showed their displeasure by voting for the opposition party. Under Thatcher, Major, and Blair, the opposition parties tended to do well at Council elections, indeed Blair never won a single election, losing thousands of seats and many councils to no overall control during the course of his term in office. This pattern stayed in place until 2015, when Labour not only lost the election but many of the council seats they had gained while Ed Milband was leader.
During the Corbyn years, election results were more volatile. Labour gained seats in 2016 and 2018 and lost seats and councils in 2017 and 2019, while the Tories lost in 2016, 2018 and 2019 but gained in 2017. Of the smaller parties, UKIP, a dominant force since 2010, lost in 2016 and ceased to matter. The Lib Dems gained seats in all years, bar 2018, and the Greens gained significantly in 2019.
One explanation for these differences would be Labour generally doing well in years when metropolitan districts and councils in Labour areas were up for election, but less well in the counties and Tory districts and vice versa for the Tories. Generally speaking most councils were lost to No Overall Control (NOC) and it often takes 2 cycles to gain a council (for example the Tories in Derby). But it may also be due to the demographic changes that have enabled the Tories to gain seats in the ‘Red Wall’ areas (with older, socially conservative, house owning voters), while Labour has made similar gains in the south (younger, more progressive voters with precarious jobs and housing).
2019 was the exception as both Labour and the Tories, which can be attributed to Brexit, where the smaller parties benefited from strong feelings about Leave and Remain. A similar pattern was shown in the final Euro Elections which were evenly divided between the ‘Leave’ Brexit Party and the ‘Remain’ Lib Dems and Greens.
Sir Keir Starmer’s council performance needs to be seen in this context. Despite a 1% increase in vote share, he lost slightly more seats, and several more councils than Jeremy Corbyn in his worst year (2017). Additionally, due to 2020 elections being delayed we had elections in metropolitan, unitaries, districts and county councils. Had elections been held in 2020, we might have seen better results for Labour with worse this year. Nonetheless, when even party adviser Luke Akehurst considers the overall losses bad for Labour, something needs to change.
In trying to understand what Labour could learn from these results, we need to see where councils were lost and where seats were lost and gained.
Council losses
Predictably, the Tories did well in the County Councils, retaining all their councils and gaining Nottinghamshire, once a Labour stronghold, from NOC. The one exception was Oxfordshire, which has been under NOC led by a Tory minority since 2013, and is now NOC run by a ‘progressive alliance’ of Labour, Lib Dems and Greens. The massive loss of Tory votes in a traditional ‘One Nation Tory’ area, suggests local disaffection with the current Tory party leadership,
Labour held all its metropolitan councils except Sheffield which was lost to NOC, and the Tories gained Dudley from NOC. It faired worse in the unitary authorities, losing Southampton to the Tories and Bristol, County Durham and Plymouth to NOC. Similarly in the districts it lost Amber Valley and Harlow to the Tories, and Rossendale to NOC. The Tories also gained councils in these areas from NOC.
These losses can be attributed to two factors. In the metropolitan unitaries, the Greens have grown stronger and organized well, benefiting also from Labour failings. In Sheffield, the past history of the council destroying local trees is still not forgotten. In Bristol, the decision by Labour central office to suspend the leadership of the CLP and the regional group over their support for Jeremy Corbyn, resulted in many leaving the party or refusing to canvas. And in Lancaster, the Labour minority didn’t recover from the loss of several pro Corbyn councillors who stood as Eco Socialists, resulting in a Green leader of the council, though it remains under NOC. While in the counties and districts, the losses can be attributed to the demographic factors cited above.
Seat losses and gains
Much has been made of the losses Labour incurred on Super Thursday. The majority of seats were lost in the areas cited above. However, Labour did make gains in some surprising places including Cornwall, Canterbury, Sussex, Witney, and Chipping Norton, former home of David Cameron’s famous ‘set’. Labour’s wins here can be seen as being part of a trend that stems back to the Lib Dems losing seats after the collapse of the coalition, strong local organizing and the demographic changes noted above.
What can Labour learn from all of this?
There are several lessons Labour can learn from these results:
Understanding local issues is key. Where Labour has done well, it’s because the party has a listened to people and tried to reflect their wishes.The also Greens point to this factor as being important in their success. If Labour really wants to start winning again it needs to go out to the areas where councillors have done this successfully and see how they did it.
Suspending members has had a cost. This played a major role in Bristol, where key figures in the SW Region and the CLP were suspended following criticism of Sir Keir Starmer. As a result, members refused to campaign and many left, possibly for good, leaving a constituency that has always had a strong green presence vulnerable to the Green Party at the next election. It is time that Labour stopped its war on its membership and started reinstating people. A party in conflict will never win, and one that treats its members with such disrespect will continue to find it hard to enthuse them at election time, particularly when they see there is a realistic alternative to vote for.
Demography plays both ways. While many have been lamenting the loss of the ‘red wall’, they have neglected to see the party can make inroads in the so-called ‘blue wall’ when Labour offers a clear and positive message, and is well organised.
It is possible to reach communities in the ‘red wall’ with the right approach. Salford is one of the communities vulnerable to Tory control and yet Labour won a convincing victory there on a strong, coordinated left wing ticket. Preston Council also retained all its seat with a similar vision, putting a lie to the idea that it is impossible to win by moving to the left.
It does seem as if some of these messages may be starting to get through. Anneliese Dodds, the new Party Chair has pledged to visit communities where Labour has been doing well. Since she is also leading Labour's policy review, it is to be hoped that she might learn which are the more successful policies so that Labour can learn from them.
But alas, with recent attacks on Jeremy Corbyn from MPs such as Neil Coyle and Lisa Nandy, even if Labour develops its vision there is still has a long way to go before the party will be united enough to benefit.