UK Politics

Disgruntled Tory MPs have told Boris Johnson that momentum behind a challenge to his leadership is now “unstoppable” after the Conservatives lost almost 400 councillors and a string of flagship councils. The prime minister admitted the Tories had experienced a “tough night” in London and the south but insisted that the party had made “quite remarkable gains” elsewhere in the country as Keir Starmer’s Labour failed to make a breakthrough in the so-called red wall heartland.Tories were also buoyed by Durham Police’s announcement of an investigation into an alleged breach of Covid regulations by Starmer, which they hope will offset future attacks on Mr Johnson over Partygate.But this did little to settle nerves among MPs in traditionally rock-solid Tory seats in the affluent capital and the southeast, where the party saw Wandsworth, Westminster and Barnet fall to Labour after decades under Tory control – and Woking captured by the Liberal Democrats.Public anger over Downing Street parties was now permanently “baked in” to voters’ views of the prime minister, acting as a drag on the party’s performance across the country, warned Conservative MPs.The Tories lost overall control of John Major’s home council of Huntingdonshire and David Cameron’s West Oxfordshire, as well as Wokingham in Buckinghamshire – long represented in the Commons by John Redwood – as Lib Dems made big inroads into the so-called blue wall, with their overall tally of councillors boosted by more than 180.Celebrating successes that also saw the Lib Dems take Hull from Labour and gain control of new unitary authorities in Westmorland and Somerset, Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey said: “The tectonic plates of British politics are shifting. Now it is up to Conservative MPs to shove the prime minister into the abyss.”Mr Starmer said that results in London – as well as Crawley and Southampton, which they snatched from Tories, and Kirklees, Rossendale and Worthing, where they gained overall control – marked a “massive turning point” for Labour, whose overall gains topped 260.But elections guru Sir John Curtice calculated that Sir Keir had performed worse outside the capital than predecessor Jeremy Corbyn did the last time the seats were contested in 2018.Prof Curtice said that the BBC’s projected vote share of 35 per cent for Labour, 30 for Conservatives and 19 for Lib Dems from Thursday’s votes would give the Tories “no prospect of being able to remain in office” after the next general election, and would set the scene for Mr Starmer to enter No 10 propped up by Mr Davey’s party.One Conservative former minister told The Independent that shoring up support in red wall areas cannot compensate for the crumbling of traditional strongholds.“These are the Boris heartlands, but they are not the Tory heartlands,” said the MP, who is mulling a no-confidence letter for the PM. “It’s no good saving the soup if you lose the meal.”Another ex-minister said that it was clear that the party had been gearing up for a leadership contest in recent days, and that the result of the local elections would make no difference to that process.And another said that, while the investigation into Mr Starmer may stave off a challenge to Johnson’s position for some time, it was now “probably a question of when not if”.Veteran backbencher Sir Roger Gale, the first Tory to announce no confidence in Mr Johnson, suggested a challenge could come within as little as three weeks, telling The Independent: “There’s a tide that’s flowing that’s unstoppable. Something has got to happen.”While he avoided meltdown in this week’s election, Mr Johnson faces “danger ahead”, with the prospect of further police fines, the Sue Gray report into Partygate and difficult by-elections in Wakefield and Tiverton and Honiton, all against the backdrop of inflation soaring as high as 10 per cent and “catastrophic” increases in energy bills, said Sir Roger.With the Ukraine conflict now settling down into what could be a lengthy war of attrition, Sir Roger said that he no longer believed the crisis required Tories to hold back from a change of leadership.Some 54 Tory MPs must send a letter of no confidence to the chair of the backbench 1922 Committee, Sir Graham Brady, to trigger a leadership challenge, which requires a majority of MPs to succeed.Prominent backbencher Tobias Ellwood said that it was now time for all of the party’s MPs to confront the question of whether they want Mr Johnson to stay on in the face of evidence that Tories are “haemorrhaging” votes.The former defence minister agreed it was “a huge ask” for Tory MPs to consider dumping a charismatic leader who had won them a big majority in Westminster.But he told the BBC: “It’s now a requirement because the trust has been breached with the British people. And it is the duty of every single Conservative MP to make that assessment and then act accordingly.”Across the country, regional and national Tory leaders blamed Mr Johnson for undermining support for the party locally.In Cumberland, where Labour swept to an overwhelming majority in a council area represented by Tories in Westminster, former Carlisle City Council leader John Mallinson said voters no longer had “confidence that the prime minister can be relied upon to tell the truth”.Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross, who saw his party slump from second to third place north of the border, said there was “absolutely no doubt” that voters were sending a message about Partygate.Mr Ross did not restate his earlier call for Johnson to go – which he retracted after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – but warned: “The PM simply can’t ignore the message that’s been sent by voters not just in Scotland but across the UK.”Tory leader in Wales, Andrew RT Davies, blamed the “national picture” for undermining a Welsh Conservative brand that he insisted had been warmly received on the doorstep.One senior Tory backbencher told The Independent it was now “clearly very much in the interests of both Labour and the Liberal Democrats to keep Boris in place”, said the MP. “He is clearly leading us down not up.”And another senior MP said anger and mistrust were now “baked in” into many voters’ views of Mr Johnson.“Once you lose faith in somebody it’s very hard to get it back,” the former minister said. “I think he will get to the autumn. My hunch is the moment of maximum danger for him will be party conference, because there will be a feeling that the dip in the polls is permanent and we’re running out of time to get a new leader before the next election.”One Tory MP in a red wall area said results may not be “catastrophic” enough to see a flurry of no-confidence letters next week, but could persuade some supportive backbenchers to change their minds.“Some MPs in the south will be thinking, ‘Bloody hell – we can’t carry on like this’,” said the backbencher. “It’s clear now some voters will never forget or forgive Partygate. I think the Sue Gray report is still a moment when more MPs get tipped over the edge and will make their minds up with letters.”David Simmonds, whose Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner seat in northwest London borders Mr Johnson’s own constituency, said that the prime minister had serious questions to answer.And he warned that the police investigation into Sir Keir would not take the pressure off the prime minister, because “two wrongs don’t make a right”.Mr Simmonds would not say whether he was considering a letter, but told The Independent: “What people won’t forgive is if we’re seen limping on in government.“If we’ve got bogged down because of the actions of the leader in respect of Partygate, then that needs to change.” More

The Conservatives suffered a “tough night” at the hands of voters in parts of England Boris Johnson has admitted, as a series of flagship councils fell amid public anger over partygate and the cost of living.But while Labour took control of three Tory-led councils in London in the local elections the party struggled to make a similar impact in other areas of the country.There was cause for joy for the Liberal Democrats who made significant gains, winning more than 175 new council seats.Among the key Tory councils to fall was Wandsworth in London – reputedly Margaret Thatcher’s favourite – as well as Westminster, Tory since it was created in 1964. Mr Johnson insisted that across the country the picture was mixed. But with most councils in England declared the Conservatives had lost more than 300 seats, Labour had gained 50 and the Lib Dems more than 190The results led to warnings from Conservative MPs that a leadership challenge against Mr Johnson, whose behaviour during the partygate scandal was a major issue on the doorsteps, was inevitable.While the party could point to gaining Harrow council in London, it lost Castle Point, Gosport, Huntingdonshire, Maidstone, West Oxfordshire and Worcester.Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer declared the results as a major “turning point” for his party.As well as in London, his party took councils including Cumberland, Kirklees, Rossendale, Southampton, and Worthing.The Lib Dems, meanwhile, won control of councils in Somerset, Westmorland and Furness and Kingston-upon-Hull.The Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey predicted his party would take “Blue Wall” constituencies from Tory MPs at the next general election, as he declared the party was “winning across the country again”. The term ‘blue wall’ signifies Tory held seats mainly in the south of England and is a riff on the ‘red wall’ of seats further north that the Conservatives won from Labour at the last general election.Tory MPs are increasing worried about the security of ‘blue wall’ seats and a resurgence in support for the Lib Dems across the south and south west, following a disastrous showing for Sir Ed’s party in 2019.North of the border the Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross, who saw his party slip from second to third place behind the SNP and Labour, said he was in “absolutely no doubt” that voters were sending a message to the government over partygate. The SNP topped the poll in Scotland, while former leader Alex Salmond’s Alba party failed to secure any council seats.The Conservative leader in Wales, Andrew RT Davies, also blamed the “national picture” for undermining a Welsh Conservative brand, which has been resurgent in recent years, with voters. In Northern Ireland Sinn Fein look on course to create history as the first nationalist party to top the polls and win the right to nominate a first minister. Opposition from the unionist DUP, however, looks set to plunge Northern Irish politics into a stalemate, potentially lasting many months, yet again. More

Boris Johnson’s premiership has come under increased pressure after the Conservatives lost more than 300 councillors in Thursday’s local elections.In a bad set of results for the Tories, they failed to retain some of their London strongholds, including the boroughs of Wandsworth and Westminster, which were won by Labour, putting an end to decades of Conservative rule.As the scale of its losses became apparent on Friday, Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood said his party had “serious issues” and was “haemorrhaging support in parts of the country”.Meanwhile, Tory backbencher Roger Gale called on Mr Johnson to go. He had previously said the prime minister should remain in office because of the geopolitical challenges presented by the war in Ukraine.As well as facing criticism from some of his MPs, Mr Johnson was blamed by local Tory campaigners, who suggested that scandals such as Partygate had tarnished their campaigns.The prime minister, however, attempted to downplay his party’s losses during a visit to his constituency on Friday morning.“We had a tough night in some parts of the country,” he admitted, before claiming that the Tories had made some “quite remarkable gains” elsewhere.However, the BBC projected that, based on Friday’s results, Labour would win 291 seats if a general election were held now, compared to 253 for the Conservatives.Although this would still leave Labour without a majority, it signals a large reversal in fortunes from the 2019 general election, when the Tories gained a large majority.Opposition parties celebrated their gains in the local elections, with Labour’s Keir Starmer describing the results as a “turning point”, while the Liberal Democrats’ Ed Davey said they would send an “almighty shockwave” through British politics.With almost all councils now declared, here are the five biggest moments from Thursday’s local elections:Westminster City Council turns redSince its creation in 1964, Westminster City Council had, until this week, always been controlled by the Conservatives.Labour’s remarkable victory here came just two hours after the Tories lost Wandsworth, Margaret Thatcher’s favourite council, which they her party had run since 1978.The Conservatives also lost Barnet, with its former council leader saying the defeat should be seen by the government as a “warning shot”. Jonathan Carr-West, the chief executive of the Local Government information Unit (LGiU), said the loss of Barnet, Wandsworth and Westminster councils had dealt a “big blow” to Conservative morale.Labour flips Wandsworth CouncilIn one of its biggest victories in this year’s local elections, Labour managed to seize control of Wandsworth Council, a Tory stronghold for the last 44 years.Leading Labour figures including Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, celebrated the historic win on Friday.“Boris Johnson losing Wandsworth is monumental. This was the Tories’ jewel in the crown,” one Labour source said. More

Sinn Fein is on course for its best ever result in a Northern Ireland Assembly election after receiving the most first-preference votes.With counting for the 90 Stormont seats continuing late into Friday the republican party had won 16 seats, well ahead of the Alliance on four and the DUP and UUP on three.Sinn Fein received 250,388 first preferences, compared with the 184,002 returned for the DUP and 116,681 for the Alliance Party.The party’s vice president Michelle O’Neill was elected on the first count in Mid Ulster, with Alliance leader Naomi Long topping the poll in East Belfast. More

Disgruntled Tory MPs have told Boris Johnson that momentum behind a challenge to his leadership is now “unstoppable” after the Conservatives lost almost 400 councillors and a string of flagship councils. The prime minister admitted the Tories had experienced a “tough night” in London and the south but insisted that the party had made “quite remarkable gains” elsewhere in the country as Keir Starmer’s Labour failed to make a breakthrough in the so-called red wall heartland.Tories were also buoyed by Durham Police’s announcement of an investigation into an alleged breach of Covid regulations by Starmer, which they hope will offset future attacks on Mr Johnson over Partygate.But this did little to settle nerves among MPs in traditionally rock-solid Tory seats in the affluent capital and the southeast, where the party saw Wandsworth, Westminster and Barnet fall to Labour after decades under Tory control – and Woking captured by the Liberal Democrats.Public anger over Downing Street parties was now permanently “baked in” to voters’ views of the prime minister, acting as a drag on the party’s performance across the country, warned Conservative MPs.The Tories lost overall control of John Major’s home council of Huntingdonshire and David Cameron’s West Oxfordshire, as well as Wokingham in Buckinghamshire – long represented in the Commons by John Redwood – as Lib Dems made big inroads into the so-called blue wall, with their overall tally of councillors boosted by more than 180.Celebrating successes that also saw the Lib Dems take Hull from Labour and gain control of new unitary authorities in Westmorland and Somerset, Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey said: “The tectonic plates of British politics are shifting. Now it is up to Conservative MPs to shove the prime minister into the abyss.”Mr Starmer said that results in London – as well as Crawley and Southampton, which they snatched from Tories, and Kirklees, Rossendale and Worthing, where they gained overall control – marked a “massive turning point” for Labour, whose overall gains topped 260.But elections guru Sir John Curtice calculated that Sir Keir had performed worse outside the capital than predecessor Jeremy Corbyn did the last time the seats were contested in 2018.Prof Curtice said that the BBC’s projected vote share of 35 per cent for Labour, 30 for Conservatives and 19 for Lib Dems from Thursday’s votes would give the Tories “no prospect of being able to remain in office” after the next general election, and would set the scene for Mr Starmer to enter No 10 propped up by Mr Davey’s party.One Conservative former minister told The Independent that shoring up support in red wall areas cannot compensate for the crumbling of traditional strongholds.“These are the Boris heartlands, but they are not the Tory heartlands,” said the MP, who is mulling a no-confidence letter for the PM. “It’s no good saving the soup if you lose the meal.”Another ex-minister said that it was clear that the party had been gearing up for a leadership contest in recent days, and that the result of the local elections would make no difference to that process.And another said that, while the investigation into Mr Starmer may stave off a challenge to Johnson’s position for some time, it was now “probably a question of when not if”.Veteran backbencher Sir Roger Gale, the first Tory to announce no confidence in Mr Johnson, suggested a challenge could come within as little as three weeks, telling The Independent: “There’s a tide that’s flowing that’s unstoppable. Something has got to happen.”While he avoided meltdown in this week’s election, Mr Johnson faces “danger ahead”, with the prospect of further police fines, the Sue Gray report into Partygate and difficult by-elections in Wakefield and Tiverton and Honiton, all against the backdrop of inflation soaring as high as 10 per cent and “catastrophic” increases in energy bills, said Sir Roger.With the Ukraine conflict now settling down into what could be a lengthy war of attrition, Sir Roger said that he no longer believed the crisis required Tories to hold back from a change of leadership.Some 54 Tory MPs must send a letter of no confidence to the chair of the backbench 1922 Committee, Sir Graham Brady, to trigger a leadership challenge, which requires a majority of MPs to succeed.Prominent backbencher Tobias Ellwood said that it was now time for all of the party’s MPs to confront the question of whether they want Mr Johnson to stay on in the face of evidence that Tories are “haemorrhaging” votes.The former defence minister agreed it was “a huge ask” for Tory MPs to consider dumping a charismatic leader who had won them a big majority in Westminster.But he told the BBC: “It’s now a requirement because the trust has been breached with the British people. And it is the duty of every single Conservative MP to make that assessment and then act accordingly.”Across the country, regional and national Tory leaders blamed Mr Johnson for undermining support for the party locally.In Cumberland, where Labour swept to an overwhelming majority in a council area represented by Tories in Westminster, former Carlisle City Council leader John Mallinson said voters no longer had “confidence that the prime minister can be relied upon to tell the truth”.Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross, who saw his party slump from second to third place north of the border, said there was “absolutely no doubt” that voters were sending a message about Partygate.Mr Ross did not restate his earlier call for Johnson to go – which he retracted after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – but warned: “The PM simply can’t ignore the message that’s been sent by voters not just in Scotland but across the UK.”Tory leader in Wales, Andrew RT Davies, blamed the “national picture” for undermining a Welsh Conservative brand that he insisted had been warmly received on the doorstep.One senior Tory backbencher told The Independent it was now “clearly very much in the interests of both Labour and the Liberal Democrats to keep Boris in place”, said the MP. “He is clearly leading us down not up.”And another senior MP said anger and mistrust were now “baked in” into many voters’ views of Mr Johnson.“Once you lose faith in somebody it’s very hard to get it back,” the former minister said. “I think he will get to the autumn. My hunch is the moment of maximum danger for him will be party conference, because there will be a feeling that the dip in the polls is permanent and we’re running out of time to get a new leader before the next election.”One Tory MP in a red wall area said results may not be “catastrophic” enough to see a flurry of no-confidence letters next week, but could persuade some supportive backbenchers to change their minds.“Some MPs in the south will be thinking, ‘Bloody hell – we can’t carry on like this’,” said the backbencher. “It’s clear now some voters will never forget or forgive Partygate. I think the Sue Gray report is still a moment when more MPs get tipped over the edge and will make their minds up with letters.”David Simmonds, whose Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner seat in northwest London borders Mr Johnson’s own constituency, said that the prime minister had serious questions to answer.And he warned that the police investigation into Sir Keir would not take the pressure off the prime minister, because “two wrongs don’t make a right”.Mr Simmonds would not say whether he was considering a letter, but told The Independent: “What people won’t forgive is if we’re seen limping on in government.“If we’ve got bogged down because of the actions of the leader in respect of Partygate, then that needs to change.” More

Lutfur Rahman has been elected mayor of Tower Hamlets in London, seven years after he was removed from the same post for multiple breaches of electoral law.He beat Labour incumbent John Biggs in the second round by 40,804 votes to 33,487.Mr Rahman was banned from politics for five years after an electoral commissioner ruled he had “driven a coach and horses through election law” and had run a “ruthless and dishonest campaign” in 2014 that included “corrupt and illegal practices”.The commissioner said Mr Rahman had built a political career on “ignoring or flouting” the law and silencing his critics with accusations of racism or Islamophobia.However, a lengthy police inquiry decided there was insufficient evidence for a criminal prosecution.He was later struck off as a solicitor and handed an £86,400 legal costs order. A separate judge also ruled he had misled mortgage lenders and failed to declare income from rental properties to the taxman, after he declared himself bankrupt in the face of legal bills. Andrew Wood, an independent councillor for Canary Wharf, said Mr Rahman’s remarkable comeback had in part been caused by Mr Biggs, who he said had isolated white working-class voters by introducing low-traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs), which limit car access to roads in residential areas. More

Far-right and conspiracy theorist political parties have so far won zero seats in the local elections.Extremist groups attempted to win places on councils across Britain as voters went to the polls in 200 local authorities on Thursday.But with almost all the results declared on Friday evening, none of their candidates had been elected and few had received more than a handful of votes.Counter-extremist group Hope Not Hate called the results “disastrous”, adding: “The UK’s electoral far right have been roundly rejected at the polls.”The anti-Islam For Britain party, headed by former Ukip leadership candidate Anne Marie Waters, had targeted 14 seats from Exeter to the Wirrall.Its national manifesto proposes policies including banning the burqa, scrapping hate crime legislation and stopping “anti-white discrimination”.Ms Waters received the highest number of votes out of For Britain’s candidates – 203 – but still came third with only 14 per cent of the vote in Hartlepool.Some representatives received as few as 11 votes and the party has not yet made any statement on the results.Britain First, which was allowed to re-register as a political party last year despite leader Paul Golding having convictions for a terror offence and hate crimes, fielded three candidates.It won no seats but celebrated the 508 votes for its party chair Ashlea Simon, after she finished second in a Salford ward.On its social media channels, the group said Ms Simon “trounced” the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Green Party, although the winning Labour candidate won more than twice as many votes.Britain First said it was “onwards and upwards” for its political ambitions, adding: “Rome wasn’t built in a day, so the saying goes, and the same is true for Britain First as a political party.”Boris Johnson responds to election resultsIts official policies include deporting asylum seekers, banning abortion, castrating rapists and jailing journalists for “false reports”.The British Democrats, who purport to “defend and preserve the distinctive identity of the British nation” and claim the “very existence of the indigenous population is under unprecedented threat”, lost in the four seats they contested.The party’s candidates came bottom of the list in Bexley and Basildon, and third in Bradford and Maidstone, having received between 100 and 253 votes each.The fascist National Front also failed to win any seats, finishing with just a handful of votes in Derbyshire and West Yorkshire. Several new conspiracy theorist groups also fielded candidates, following an explosion in activity during the coronavirus activity.The anti-lockdown Let London Live group, fronted by prominent activist Piers Corbyn, saw poor results in Southwark, Hillingdon and Camden.Mr Corbyn, the brother of former Labour leader Jeremy, came 9th of 12 candidates in the seat he contested, with 200 votes.The Freedom Alliance, which purports to “provide real opposition to the state’s Covid narrative”, fielded a significant number of candidates across England but received under 1 per cent of votes in all council areas so far declared.Save Us Now, which focuses on 5G conspiracy theories, won a total of 63 votes in two wards in Gateshead. More

As a former Tory councillor in Wandsworth, James Cousins is still getting used to the idea of voting against his old party. But he decided to cast his ballot for Labour on Thursday, backing the Conservatives’ nemesis in local elections for the first time.Wandsworth council, his former employer, had been a blue stronghold for 44 years before it turned red this week, after Labour gained 12 seats and the Conservatives lost 18 there.This central London borough was far from alone in changing allegiance to Labour. Keir Starmer’s party also won large victories elsewhere in the capital, including in Westminster, which until Friday had only had a Conservative-run council. More