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Boris Johnson Braces for Local Poll Backlash Over ‘Partygate’

Boris Johnson Braces for Local Poll Backlash Over ‘Partygate’

Boris Johnson has been engulfed by scandal for months and came close to being ousted by members of his Conservative Party. On Thursday, voters across the U.K. are likely to give him their own kicking. 

Local election results typically deliver losses for ruling parties, especially if they’ve been in power for 12 years as the Tories have. That’s because voters use the polls -- which are ostensibly about issues such as potholes and bin collections -- to send the government a broader message. 

Yet the stakes are higher for Johnson this time. While the focus on the Ukraine crisis has taken some of the pressure off the prime minister, some Tory members of Parliament are still looking for proof he’s the vote winner they want leading into the next general election due by 2024.

Boris Johnson Braces for Local Poll Backlash Over ‘Partygate’

Johnson is facing an uphill battle, given his Tories have trailed Labour in most polls this year and are currently about six percentage points behind. 

There are almost 7,000 council seats up for grabs, including all those in London, Scotland and Wales, and a third of the seats in most of the rest of England. ElectoralCalculus on Tuesday predicted the ruling party will shed 548 councilors in England and Wales, and lose control of seven councils.

Still, that’s far lower than its earlier prediction of an 800-seat loss. According to John Curtice, professor of politics at the University of Strathclyde, a debacle on that scale is unlikely to materialize because of which areas are in play.

Lucky Johnson

The English seats were last voted on in 2018, the high watermark for Labour under former leader Jeremy Corbyn -- who benefited from dissatisfaction with Theresa May’s Tory government -- rather than having a baseline of the 2019 general election, Labour’s biggest defeat since 1935.

“Boris’s good fortune is that it’s a Labour part of England that’s having the elections,” Curtice said. “Even if Boris is in as much trouble as the polls say he is, that doesn’t mean you should be expecting gigantic Tory losses.”

Johnson is unlikely to face a move to replace him based on losses in the low hundreds, though the threat will be not be over. His government is battling perceptions it is not doing enough to help Britons cope with inflation at a three-decade high and the biggest fall in living standards since the 1950s.

That comes on top of the “partygate” scandal, which has seen both Johnson and Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak fined by the police for breaking the coronavirus lockdown laws they brought in. The prime minister potentially faces more penalties as authorities continue their probe into gatherings in Downing Street.

Tory Strongholds

Tory strategists will be looking at geography as much as the overall results from Thursday’s polls. ElectoralCalculus projects they will lose flagship councils of Wandsworth, Barnet and the City of Westminster in London, as well as Southampton on the south coast.

“The Tories are facing difficulties in their traditional heartlands, where partygate appears to have had more of an effect than in some of their newer white collar and industrial areas,” said Rob Hayward, a Tory peer known as a local election expert. He predicts the party will lose 250-350 seats.

According to Hayward, Conservative support in the so-called Red Wall areas that switched from Labour in 2019 “seems to be holding up better.” 

That’s crucial for Johnson, because it was his appeal in those predominantly northern areas that handed the Tories a large parliamentary majority. Proving he can hold onto them would be a major boost.

Boris Johnson Braces for Local Poll Backlash Over ‘Partygate’

Still, there were some signs of buyer’s remorse in one of those seats -- Burnley -- during interviews last week. Voters there elected a Conservative MP for the first time in more than a century in 2019.

Red Wall

Johnson visited the former mill town -- which was once one of the world’s biggest producers of cotton -- last week, trumpeting his government’s “record investment” in northwest England.

Boris Johnson Braces for Local Poll Backlash Over ‘Partygate’

Joan Hill was among the swathe of voters in northern England who switched to Johnson’s party at the last general election. She said she was drawn to his charisma but doesn’t plan to repeat her “mistake” on Thursday. 

“The leaders have no morals,” Hill, 70, said as she walked with her husband in Padiham, near Burnley, referring to the scandals surrounding Johnson and his party.

Support appeared fairly evenly split among 59 residents who spoke to Bloomberg. But out of 13 who were switching parties from 2019, eight said they plan to desert the Tories. No one said they would be leaving Labour.

‘Beer and Butty’

The problem for ruling parties in local elections is that voters sometimes treat them “as a glorified opinion poll on national politics,” said Ingrid Koehler, an expert at the Local Government Information Unit. The “negative mood music” this time may also make people reluctant to vote, she said.

Boris Johnson Braces for Local Poll Backlash Over ‘Partygate’

But campaigning in a tidy street in the Whittlefield district of northwest Burnley, Tory candidate Mike Steel said “partygate has not had as big an impact as we thought it might.” 

One 2019 convert from Labour who said she’ll stick with the Tories, Kathleen Turner, 79, said Johnson has “done wonders” and she’s not put off by the “partygate” allegations. “All this fuss about a glass of beer and a butty,” she said, using slang for a sandwich.

Meanwhile Johnson is not the only one facing pressure heading into Thursday’s polls. Labour has rebounded from Corbyn’s disastrous showing in 2019, but leader Keir Starmer is still trying to show the party is on trajectory to win the next general election.

Boris Johnson Braces for Local Poll Backlash Over ‘Partygate’

But whereas the electoral cycle favors Johnson, it’s the opposite for Starmer because the seats up for grabs are largely Labour-held. In Burnley, Labour is defending seven seats compared to three for the Tories. To regain control of the council, Labour would have to win 12 of the 15 seats being voted on.

“The challenge is holding what we’ve got,” said Labour Council leader Afrasiab Anwar. “It’s difficult for us to gain because we’re defending more seats.” 

©2022 Bloomberg L.P.