Local elections 2022: voters have lost confidence in Boris Johnson

I have been involved in overnight broadcast coverage of local elections since the 1980s. Usually, the pattern is the same — something for every party to cling to somewhere in the trends. Or, at worst, ready excuses from inescapable losers that the elections are not significant to the big picture of the next election.

Usually, having listened to every member of a panel suggest that “on balance it has been a goodish night for us,” I’ve forgotten the whole event by the weekend. 

The 2022 local elections are different. This year there is an unavoidable story. The Conservatives did badly. Explaining this fact is an equally obvious “narrative”: voters have lost confidence in Boris Johnson, the Conservative leader and Prime Minister. 

Last night, I watched the results come in for Times Radio — high up in the “Baby Shard” skyscraper, appropriately looking down on the main scene of action, nighttime London. 

Since the main anchor was Matt Chorley, there was plenty of humour. But no one won the Local Election Bingo game he’d prepared. Since the spokespeople we interviewed did not have the temerity to deploy the usual election night time-wasting cliches such as “it’s too close to call”, “we’ve heard the voters” and “hard fought campaign”, none of us were able to cross every square on our scorecards. 

Projecting from council elections is an inexact science. Turnout is low, typically well under half what it is in a general election. Not all areas vote in any one year, so even though the size of the electorate is massively bigger than any opinion poll, it is not complete. 

This year, for example, there were no elections in shire counties. With the contests focussed on cities and towns, Labour was defending many more seats than the Tories — making further “gains” much more difficult for Labour to chalk up. 

At a rough approximation, the Conservative vote was down by up to 10 per cent, while Labour stood still and the Liberal Democrats and Greens recorded increases in their vote share. The Tories lost council seats while the other parties gained them. 

This two-way traffic helped Labour to spectacular gains in London. Labour took control of two councils, Wandsworth and Westminster, which had been totemic models of Conservative local government since 1978 and 1964 respectively. 

Labour captured Barnet and immediately claimed vindication for Keir Starmer’s tough stance against anti-semitism and Jeremy Corbyn. With similar swings in his London constituency, Boris Johnson would most likely have lost his parliamentary seat in Uxbridge.

The Liberal Democrats consolidated their hold on South West London and took control of Kingston upon Hull from Labour. 

The drop in support for the Conservatives was much larger in “the south” of England than in the East, the Midlands or the north. This confirmed that there is a strategic realignment of the electorate underway. 

Relatively more affluent city dwellers, with higher education levels, are more inclined to censure the Prime Minister for his reported bad behaviour busting pandemic lockdowns than those living further from the capital. 

Johnson’s heaviest detractors tend to live in areas that voted to remain in the European Union while his character seems to matter less to people who backed Brexit. Away from London Labour’s share of the vote was slightly up rather than down.

No matter where they live, disappointed Conservative councillors blamed the Prime Minister’s personal failings for their losses. Labour won the new unitary authority in Cumberland, leading John Mallinson, the Tory leader on Carlisle council, to call on local Tory MPs to consider whether to keep Johnson in his position. 

For now, Boris Johnson’s future lies in the hands of his parliamentary party – 54 Tory MPs have it in their power to send in letters asking for a vote of no confidence in their leader. 

Hitherto Conservative MPs have concluded that Boris Johnson is an electoral asset. Still, as they pick through the details of voting in their particular patch, some of them will have grounds to conclude that for them he has become a liability. 

The Prime Minister will fight to hold his position, but his MPs may conclude he needs them more than they need him. If Johnson tries to reshuffle his government to consolidate his position, he could undermine his reservoir of loyal support. But if he ups the ante with right-wing policies to woo his MPs, he may alienate the electorate further.

As results come in from the other nations, evidence is mounting that Labour will have the largest share of the votes cast in Great Britain. The Conservatives in Scotland conceded that they had been beaten into third place by Labour in Scotland before the counts began. In Wales, Labour first Minister Mark Drakeford is harvesting the goodwill generated by his handling of the Covid pandemic. 

The decline of the DUP in Northern Ireland further illustrates the proposition that those who throw their lot in with Johnson seldom prosper. The party backed the Conservative government over the will of their electorate over the EU. 

Their reward was for Johnson and David Frost to agree on a protocol on trade which they say they cannot accept. Yet the Prime Minister is backing off from rejecting the protocol, insisting that preserving the Good Friday Agreement is his priority. 

Throughout their local election campaign, the Conservatives have claimed that the public “on the doorstep” is not interested in partygate, but is concerned instead with the “real issues”. 

Opposition parties deny this. Whoever is right, the government may find little solace in “concentrating on what concerns ordinary people” in the coming months since by common agreement that is the cost of living crisis. 

Given the prospects outlined by the Bank of England on polling day, talking about the Prime Minister and his parties may soon be the softer option.