Disaster For Labor and Tories in English Local Elections |
Photograph Source: Lauren Hurley / No 10 Downing Street – OGL
In England last week, in addition to a byelection for a parliamentary seat in Runcorn, Cheshire, there were 6 mayoral elections, elections for 24 local councils. and 1,641 seats in these 24 councils. All seats on 14 county councils and eight unitary authorities in England were up for election. Most of these seats were last contested at the 2021 local elections. The 2025 local elections were the first to follow the general election 10 months ago.
The Runcorn byelection was caused by the resignation of its Labour MP, Mike Amesbury, who quit after receiving a suspended prison sentence for punching a constituent to the ground when drunk, and following up the initial assault with 5 further punches (according to CCTV video of the incident).
Labour lost the Runcorn byelection to Nigel Farage’s hard-right Reform party by a mere 6 votes, surrendering its previous majority of 14,700 votes in one of its safest seats. Many customary Labour voters– vexed by having to go to the polls on account of the fisticuffs of their bibulous ex-MP— stayed at home this time and thus made all the difference. Moreover, Starmer’s decision not to visit Runcorn in the run-up to the byelection was an obvious contrast to Farage who visited the constituency 3-4 times and knocked on doors on polling day. Labour was largely passive while Reform turned out its electoral machine.
Overall, Labour lost two-thirds of the seats it was defending– its vote fell on average by as much as 19 points.
The Labour postmortem indicated clearly that its lacklustre record........