The British prime minister, Rishi Sunak, faces a critical test ahead of the United Kingdom’s upcoming general elections planned for later this year. On Thursday, more than 2,600 council seats will be decided across 107 local authorities in England, along with 37 police and crime commissioners and 10 mayors, including London’s. The results will gauge the level of support Sunak enjoys among voters nearly two years after taking office and reveal the mood within his Conservative Party.
Recent polls show momentum for Labour, which already posted a strong performance in last year’s local elections that produced over 8,000 council seats. Those vote counts made Labour the largest party by representation for the first time since 2002, with about 35% of the total versus roughly 33% for the Conservatives. Labour gained more than 500 council seats in those elections, and current surveys suggest they will widen that advantage on Thursday, signaling significant wins in the north and the Midlands, according to the latest YouGov poll.
Mayors in the balance
The focal point will be the two large metropolitan areas still controlled by Conservatives: the West Midlands, which includes Birmingham, and Tees Valley in the northeast. The incumbents have attempted to distance themselves from their own party to secure reelection, yet polls point to a tight outcome in both cases. Beyond contesting Conservative rule in these two mayors and three new mayoralties, Labour is expected to hold on to power in the five major metropolitan regions they already control, such as Liverpool, Manchester, and London.
In the capital, current polling places Labour’s Sadiq Khan well ahead of his Conservative challenger, Susan Hall. A YouGov survey suggests Khan could secure about 47% of the vote to Hall’s 25%, paving the way for Khan to seek a third term as head of the Greater London Authority, which wields substantial influence and a yearly budget exceeding 20 billion pounds. Khan, whose family emigrated from Pakistan, has been one of Labour’s most outspoken critics of Israel’s airstrikes in Gaza, a stance that has won support among Muslim residents.
Although projecting local results onto national outcomes is tricky—the 2023 local election turnout was around 32% compared with 67% in the 2019 general election—major polling firms indicate Labour could reach around 40% nationally, with Conservatives below 30%. The Conservatives have seen the lead they achieved in the 2021 local polls fade amid the Partygate scandal and Liz Truss’s brief tenure as prime minister, a collapse in national support that has persisted into this year’s forecasts.
Internal party tensions
Should Conservatives lose the two remaining large mayoralties and repeat last year’s disappointing tally that included over a thousand council seats lost, Sunak could face a renewed challenge to his leadership from within his own ranks. The prime minister has tried to shore up confidence by backing deportation policies to Rwanda and launching the first rounds of detentions for migrants, yet hardline voices within the party have questioned the strategy’s effectiveness and the ability to reverse the polling slide.
A faction of the party, including figures like Suella Braverman and Robert Jenrick, has signaled openness to debating a potential leadership change ahead of the general election. While this scenario seems unlikely for now, it could gain steam in the coming days if polling trends hold.[YouGov]—attribution available from the polling firm.