Not much good a lot of bad and some ugly realities – of a grim night for the Conservatives

Well, it was bad, really bad and we’re not done yet. But then it was always going to be bad.

The Conservatives doing badly at these local elections was probably baked into party thinking before Rishi Sunak became Prime Minister. The Boris vaccine bounce delivered, in 2021, a unexpectedly high water mark result, and that was never going to be repeated, or even close, this time round.

So these results being bad for the Tories is not the news today. It’s what it tells us that is the focus.

Conservative councillors have every right to feel frustrated. This is not their first election kicking. Plenty of long serving and hard working councillors lost their seats in May 2024, in, at the time, the worst local election result since 1996. It was an election that had little to do with local issues, and everything to do with national politics.

At Conference last year when all the focus was on four individuals vying to be leader of the party, a forgotten voice was those councillors who felt, quite reasonably, that they had been the unappreciated first wave casualties in a war that eventually swallowed the party, its general and most of his aides.

Glen Sanderson the Conservative leader in Northumberland pretty much summed it up at 3am this morning on the BBC when he said how frustrating it was that once again a set of local elections was less about local issues and almost all about national politics.

The news for everyone this morning is that might just be something we all have to get used to, because it works.

Before the result of the leadership contest there was talk about how difficult this next set of local election results would be. Before Kemi Badenoch emerged as victor, the baking in that the 2025 locals would be very challenging had already started. It would have been a difficult night whoever had won the leadership, and that leader was going to have to take a beating.

Those around Badenoch have had a number of things in their minds whilst bracing for these elections. That the public are pretty fed up with politics, and politicians in general, and voters are still angry with the previous Conservative government. Her team may not have said so in public, but they have run through all scenarios for these elections up to and including total wipeout.  That means they have run the gamut in their heads from bad to catastrophic.

Nonethless in the leader’s office, those who by habit are coldly realistic might have hoped for a smidgeon of good news and the early loss of Staffordshire county council leader Alan White was not that. Two seats lost in Broxbourne – somewhere election data guru John Curtice described this morning as ‘the most Tory area in the UK’ – was also not a good sign. In the West of England mayoral election the Tories were fourth.

All the wrong notes from the get go, sadly.

There will be big fingers crossed in CCHQ today that Paul Bristow can land Cambridgeshire and Peterborough mayor and hand over that tiny bit of good news. However if it does become all bad news for the Conservatives, how much is it bad news for Badenoch?

As I’ve pointed out before opponents were always going to try hard to either make this all Badenoch’s fault or joined by the media see it all as a referendum on her leadership. I think I heard Laura Kuenssberg ask that 4 times in as many hours.

It certainly isn’t all her fault. Her team feel the amount of work she did for this campaign and the response to her on the ground – where people warmed to her – firmly answered two previously whispered criticisms that she was lazy or lacked charm. Her team feel, much as Robert Jenrick felt the need to tell Good Morning Britain recently, that “she’s doing a good job in difficult circumstances”.

But she and her team cannot ignore the fact that this has not been a good night. If that’s still anger at the Conservatives of 2010-24 then it’s logical to assume nobody beyond the party itself has cottoned on to the party being “under new leadership” and different from that which was brutally kicked out of office last year. Right now voters clearly can’t ‘taste the difference’.

The worst result is not being disliked or rejected it’s becoming irrelevant. Vote share would suggest that hasn’t actually happened yet, but it’s still a risk, and just a few more percentage points knocked off and arriving at Reform’s door, and that risk becomes a reality. Given our ConservativeHome surveys have been clear how many want more policy indications from Badenoch, and the colossal lead in approval of Robert Jenrick, the leadership team arguing  “there’s nothing to see here, we all knew it would be bad” isn’t going to cut it.

Badenoch’s team know this but intend to hold their course on the process, progress and pace of their project. So what we might see more is another focus on apologies for the past, and trying to amplify the concept of a new leadership meaning a new style of Conservative Party.

However, we all know who has had a good night. Reform UK have made good on their boasts of winning votes from both Tories and Labour across the UK. The councillor count will eventually show that and it’ll be big but Labour did hold off Reform – just – in West of England and Doncaster mayoral races.

The winning Labour mayor in Doncaster had a pretty stark message to Keir Starmer having won by just 702 votes, that he’s making mistakes, not least on winter fuel payments, employer national insurance contributions and benefits changes.

Over in Widnes The Runcorn by-election count was a long wait because of recounts. Inevitable recounts when by leaked messages and a tweet from Nigel Farage, we learnt Reform were ahead in the first count by four votes. Four. We’ll come back to that, but just that fact along meant Runcorn was going to go from bit part player to icing on Farage’s cake.

Reform have done something remarkable. It would be simply unfair and unrealistic to suggest otherwise.

They have demonstrated they are as serious players as anyone else on the pitch. They will go further and claim the race to be “the real opposition” is over, today. It isn’t, but their argument that they can be and will be is certainly stronger.  They now challenge Tories and Labour across England and that’s the first point Nigel Farage made when he arrived at the Runcorn count just before 6am.

The Tories will look at two parts of Reform’s success with envy and concern. First, their campaign tactics – blending national issues with local flavour – has undoubtedly worked over the “this is really about the bins and local services” argument. Second, they have a remarkably vigorous activist base in key areas and the Tories don’t. That’s no criticism of some incredibly hard working Conservative foot soldiers there’s just not enough of them.

The question for everyone, but mostly for new Reform Councillors, is can they run anything? Governing, being in charge, is to make hard choices and accept complexity. The doubts over Reform’s abilities in this area are legion. To be fair to Farage he accepts that this is a valid question… which suggests he thinks they can run things.

So as I type the words “Runcorn by-election” the result of the Runcorn by-election has come in. It’s pretty big news.

Reform have won it. Labour’s Peter Kyle calls that “frustrating”, he might had he not been on TV chosen another word beginning with ‘f’.

Frustrating though it maybe it’s also a huge slap in the face to Labour and Keir Starmer and a massive win for Reform, despite the margin being just six votes. Six votes. Astonishing.

All of this is brutal for the Tories because despite being third again, in a seat they were never likely to win, the actual winner is a former Tory and yet none of the discussion around this result will mention the Conservatives at all.

Badenoch will survive tonight, but the job that was always going to be difficult has certainly got harder.

One thing is certain it’s going to be a pretty miserable Friday in CCHQ.