Britain’s Conservative Party suffered sharp losses on Friday in local elections, early results showed, in voting viewed as a harbinger of its grip on power. But the scale of the setback remained unclear, with thousands of regions still to declare winners.
The vote to determine control over hundreds of municipalities, which took place on Thursday across England, could be the biggest test of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s popularity before a general election that is likely to take place in the fall of 2024 and could spell the end of 14 years of Conservative government.
With more than a quarter of the results declared, the Conservatives had lost more than 220 seats early on Friday, with the main opposition Labour Party gaining more than 120 seats and the centrist Liberal Democrats also performing well, adding almost 60.
Conservative leaders, hoping to manage expectations, had predicted that an anti-incumbent mood would make some losses inevitable. Pollsters are tracking the results to assess the size of the swing away from the Conservatives and to extrapolate whether it would be enough to propel the Labour Party to victory in a general election.
Mr. Sunak’s technocratic leadership has steadied his party’s nerves after a series of scandals last year forced the resignation Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and economic turmoil then upended the government of his successor, Liz Truss, who quit after just 44 days in Downing Street.
In recent weeks the Conservative Party’s position in the polls has improved after some political successes for Mr. Sunak, including a deal with the European Union over post-Brexit trade rules in Northern Ireland.
But his party is still trailing Labour by double digits in many polls as inflation surges and the economy stagnates, while the country faces persistent labor unrest and a crisis in its National Health Service.
There were early signs of trouble for the Tories on Friday. Labour seized control of two municipalities in the south of England previously held by Conservatives: Plymouth on the southwestern coast, and Medway, east of London.
Significantly, Labour also won in Stoke-on-Trent, in the middle of the country, and was victorious in a mayoral contest in Middlesbrough in the northeast — both in regions known as the “red wall,” which switched to the Tories from Labour in the last general election.
Voters in these deindustrialized areas were drawn by Mr. Johnson’s upbeat, populist rhetoric and promise to “Get Brexit done” in 2019, and Labour is fighting hard to regain them, which would be a stepping stone to reclaiming power.
But while it was shaping up to be a bad day for the Conservatives, it was unclear whether Labour would pick up enough of the spoils to put it on course to win a clear majority in a general election.
The leader of the Liberal Democrats, Ed Davey, told the BBC that its performance was exceeding all expectations. That would deepen the woes of the Conservatives without necessarily ensuring a Labour victory next year.
