Cabinet will rally round Boris Johnson after local elections test

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Local Tories are demanding Boris Johnson quits after the party suffered a string of blows in council elections following the Partygate scandal – including a bloodbath in London. 

The Tories lost the flagship Wandsworth Council to Labour after having controlled it since 1978, while Keir Starmer’s party also claims to have taken the totemic stronghold of Westminster – where the PM himself voted – for the first time in six decades. 

The Conservatives also lost Barnet and Southampton to Labour and West Oxfordshire and Worcester to no overall control.

Furious local leaders have already been turning on the PM, with one calling on Mr Johnson to ‘consider his position’. 

But so far the results have not been as apocalyptic as some had predicted, with voting guru John Curtice saying Labour does not look in a position to win a majority at the next general election. 

Instead the biggest winners have been the Lib Dems and the Greens, who have been taking seats off both main parties. 

The Tories are on track to lose between 200 and 300 councillors – a grim toll but lower than the 800 some had feared. 

MPs have been relatively muted in their criticism of Mr Johnson, with former minister Stephen Hammond saying he must ‘prove his integrity to the country again’. 

The PM was said to be pessimistic about his party’s chances of avoiding a drubbing before the counts began, with the BBC reporting he yesterday told aides: ‘We are going to get our a*** kicked tonight.’ 

Conservative leader of Carlisle City Council John Mallinson urged Tory MPs to decide whether they wanted Mr Johnson to lead them into the next general election.

He told Sky News the PM ‘must shoulder an awful lot of the blame’ for a poor local elections performance and described how Partygate and the cost-of-living crisis were key concerns of voters.

Mr Mallinson said there was a feeling among the public that ‘the Government are not in touch and, sadly I have to say, the PM cannot be relied upon to be telling the truth’.

He said he expected Sir Graham Brady, the chair of the Tory 1922 Committee, to soon receive more letters of no confidence in Mr Johnson from MPs.

The councillor added: ‘Whether it gets to 54 or not (the number of letters needed to trigger a confidence vote in the PM), I’m not sure. But I rather feel that’s they way it’s going.’

Simon Bosher, the Conservative group leader on Portsmouth City Council, said: ‘Those in power in Westminster really do need to take a good hard look in the mirror.

‘Because it’s the rank-and-file grassroots members who they rely on who are actually losing their seats tonight.’

He also called on the PM to reflect on the Tories’ local election performance as he hit out at ‘too many mistakes, too many mismanged situations’ from the party’s leadership.

Barnet Conservative leader Daniel Thomas said Labour’s victory in the London borough ‘does not bode well’ for the Tories ahead of the next general election. 

‘I think this is a warning shot from Conservative supporters and I think our loss today is not only due to the fact that I have just mentioned but also a fair number of Conservative voters who just didn’t go out to vote, stayed at home,’ he said. 

‘Clearly if Labour are to get a majority in Parliament they need to win Barnet. They won the council, if they win our parliamentary constituencies as well.’

Marc Bayliss, the Tory leader of Worcester City Council, told reporters he was heading home early from the election count and is anticipating a disastrous night for his party.  

Mr Bayliss blamed Partygate and said the public had found the Government’s performance ‘wanting’. 

He added: ‘I think it is fair to say we are having a bad night.’ 

His comments were echoed by the leader of the Conservatives on Sunderland Council, Antony Mullen, who called for Boris Johnson to step down.

He told the BBC: ‘It’s been Partygate – it’s suppressed our turnout. Quite clearly that’s the only thing that has changed nationally that has affected this’

‘The best chance of reviving the Conservative Party’s fortunes will be with a new leader. If there is no improvement in the party’s reputation, then clearly something has to change.’

Despite the chaos, Labour also saw several surprising losses across the country.

Sir Keir Starmer’s party lost Kingston upon Hull City Council to the resurgent Liberal Democrats, who appeared to be the early winners and were making gains across the country. 

The Lib Dems also ‘99% sure’ that the Tories will lose control of West Oxfordshire – which includes ex-prime minister David Cameron’s former seat Witney. 

It was a similar story for the Green Party who chipped away at Conservative and Labour seats in England.

Cabinet ministers will today rally round Mr Johnson as the ‘right leader’ to steer Britain through the economic crisis and war in Ukraine despite the local election results.

They will hit the airwaves to argue he should stay on as PM – no matter how bad the poll results are. 

Number 10 had feared for weeks that a dismal set of local election results would ratchet up the pressure on Mr Johnson’s position in Downing Street in the wake of the Partygate scandal. 

As polling stations closed last night and vote counting began, the Conservatives were braced to lose hundreds of councillors around the country.

This was despite hopes their support might hold up in Red Wall areas.

But allies of the PM are preparing a counter-offensive in case rebel Tories seek to use bruising results as an excuse to pounce. 

They will try to soothe nerves among backbenchers by arguing the PM has got the ‘big calls right’ and is the best person to navigate the economy through ‘choppy water ahead’.

A Cabinet source said: ‘Boris delivered Brexit, got us through Covid, and is now right at the front of the global response to the invasion of Ukraine.

‘He is absolutely the right leader to take Britain forward.’

Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis was the first Cabinet minister out in support of the PM last night, as he dismissed suggestions that a poor election result could pile pressure on Mr Johnson.

‘I absolutely think we can win the next general election and I do think Boris Johnson is the right person to lead us into that,’ he told Sky News.

‘He’s got those big decisions – through Covid and internationally with Ukraine and other areas – right since he’s been PM and he has my full support to continue to do that.’

But Mr Lewis also admitted it was set to be a ‘difficult set of elections’ for the Tories.

‘We came into these elections with Labour having a consistent lead in the polls,’ he added. 

‘It’s the elections where the particular seats and councils up for election are the ones that tend to favour Labour.’ 

Millions of voters cast their ballots on Thursday as council seats in large swathes of the country were up for grabs.

In England more than 4,000 council seats were contested across 146 councils including in Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham and all 32 London boroughs.

All 32 councils in Scotland and all 22 in Wales also held elections.

Polls suggested the Conservatives could do badly in the so-called Blue Wall, their traditional heartlands in southern England. 

But most telling will be whether the party manages to prevent Labour making a significant comeback in the Red Wall areas, which switched from red to blue for the first time at the 2019 general election.

A failure by Sir Keir Starmer to reverse Tory advances in these areas could fuel questions about his leadership.

Early results were not overwhelmingly convincing for Labour, with the party losing control of Kingston upon Hull city council to the Liberal Democrats.

Lib Dem sources were confident of an overall strong performance and were also expecting the party to gain Gosport Borough Council from the Tories.

Pre-election forecasts pointed to the Tories losing control of flagship councils such as Wandsworth and Westminster in London, as well as Southampton and Thurrock.

The Tory loss of Wandsworth was a seismic result, as the London borough was famously Margaret Thatcher’s favourite and had been a flagship Conservative council for more than 40 years.

As he celebrated at the Wandsworth count, London Mayor Sadiq Khan told Sky News: ‘This council first went Tory in 1978 when Margaret Thatcher was leader of the opposition.

‘Margaret Thatcher, John Major, William Hague, Iain Duncan Smith, Michael Howard, David Cameron, Theresa May – at all those times this was a Conservative council.

‘But the combination of Boris Johnson as the Conservative Prime Minister and Keir Starmer as our leader has brought this seat home to Labour.’

A Labour source said: ‘Boris Johnson losing Wandsworth is monumental. This was the Tories’ jewel in the crown. 

‘Voters in Wandsworth have put their trust in the change Keir Starmer’s Labour represents.’ 

Shadow health minister Rosena Allin-Khan, the Tooting MP, claimed that ‘people are absolutely fed up of 44 years of Tory governance in Wandsworth, and they are fed up Boris Johnson’s lies and deceit and it is time for change’.

Her fellow shadow minister, Tulip Siddiq, had earlier highlighted Labour’s holding of Sunderland City Council as an early success for her party as council election results started to come.

She claimed the Tories had ‘thrown the kitchen sink at it’ and highlighted how the PM had visited the area on Monday.

Sir Keir had sought to make the local elections campaign about the Partygate row after Mr Johnson and Chancellor Rishi Sunak were fined by police.

But this appeared to backfire in recent days as he struggled to answer questions about a lockdown gathering in Durham last year when he was pictured swigging beer.

The PM yesterday appeared to be in good spirits as he arrived to cast his vote in Westminster accompanied by his dog Dilyn.

Sir Keir voted in Kentish Town, north London, while Sir Ed Davey voted in Surbiton, south-west London.

The Liberal Democrats leader said the Conservatives would be punished in the local elections for their handling of the cost of living crisis.

Sir Ed expressed confidence his party would ‘gain ground in areas across the Blue Wall where voters are fed up of being taken for granted by the Conservatives’.

As polling stations closed at 10pm last night, Labour chair Anneliese Dodds was downbeat about her party’s chances of picking up a swathe of new council seats. 

‘It’s going to be a long night and there will be ups and downs – we hold the majority of the seats up for election in England, so never expected big gains, ‘she said.

‘These results will show the progress we have made thanks to Keir’s leadership since the disastrous 2019 election result. 

‘Labour is a renewed and confident party, making headway in England, Scotland and Wales.

‘As we have shown throughout this campaign: Labour is your side, and we have the plan to deliver the security, prosperity, and respect that the British people deserve.’

Mr Johnson will attempt to get on the front foot next Tuesday as his Government’s legislative agenda is set out in the Queen’s Speech. 

The PM is expected to delay a reshuffle of his Cabinet until the summer as it is believed he wants to be clear of the Partygate scandal before resetting his team.

But yesterday there was speculation he could call a snap general election before the end of this year over fears the economic picture could get much worse.

Elections guru Professor Michael Thrasher said that Labour would need to poll ‘as well as, if not better’ than 2018 in its traditional heartland councils if it is to unseat the Conservatives at the next general election.

He told Sky News that Labour was ‘really trying to defend a very high position’ in many areas, but added it was ‘also trying to stop the rot that set into the party’ in the 2019 and 2021 local elections.

Prof Thrasher said that growing the vote share was important for Labour, adding: ‘In places like for example Barnsley, Sandwell, which are normally very reliable for the Labour party, their vote share fell in the council elections in both 2019 and 2021, so it is really important for Labour to recover the position that they had in 2018.

‘They have to poll as well as, if not better, in these kinds of places if they are to demonstrate any chance of unseating the Conservative at the next general election.’

The prospect of Mr Johnson being forced out of Number 10 over the local election results was gleefully seized upon by Dominic Cummings, the PM’s estranged former chief aide, yesterday.

The ex-No10 adviser made a sensational polling day plea for voters to force ‘regime change’ as he launched a blistering attack on the ‘intellectually, politically, and organisationally rancid’ Tories.

Referring to Mr Johnson as ‘the trolley’ and a ‘clown’ in a Twitter tirade, Mr Cummings claimed it was ‘irrational’ for Tories to ‘prop up’ the PM any more.

Although the first results in England began to arrive last night, counting in council elections in Wales and Scotland was not due to begin until 9am today.

The Scottish Tories were braced for ‘heavy losses’ and expected to suffer their worst election result in Scotland in at least a decade.

There were concerns Conservative supporters in Scotland failed to turn out due to anger at the PM and Downing Street parties.

A senior Scottish Tory source said: ‘The phones have been bad, very bad.

‘It looks like we are going to suffer fairly heavy losses and we fully expect to finish third.

‘Tory voters are not going to Labour, but a lot of them are staying at home because of Boris and Partygate.

‘We expect it to be a poor election for us, our worst election in a decade or more.’

However, despite the expectation of a gloomy result, Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross was ready to insist he will not stand down.

A source close to Mr Ross said: ‘Douglas is going nowhere, he is definitely not resigning. Voters have sent a message to Boris, not Douglas.

‘He is fully focused on the long term job here: the next Westminster and Scottish Parliament elections.’