Sunak promises to work ‘as hard as ever’

Prime minister Rishi Sunak on Sunday promised to work “as hard as ever” after a disastrous set of election results saw his Conservative Party being unseated across several local authorities.

The British Indian leader admitted his disappointment after Andy Street, the party’s popular Mayor of West Midlands, narrowly lost to Labour rival Richard Parker by a mere 1,508 votes after a recount had to be ordered for the knife-edge result.

This leaves Sunak with a solo sliver of hope in Ben Houchen, who had held on to the party’s mayoralty in Tees Valley on Friday amid a virtual sweep for the Opposition parties, with Labour in the lead.

“It’s been disappointing of course to lose dedicated Conservative councillors and Andy Street in the West Midlands, with his track record of providing great public services and attracting significant investment to the area, but that has redoubled my resolve to continue to make progress on our plan,” Sunak said in a statement.

“So we will continue working as hard as ever to take the fight to Labour and deliver a brighter future for our country,” he said.

While Tory rebels have begun circling, the echo this time does not seem to be around replacing Sunak as party leader but piling pressure on him to get tough on the party’s core issues like setting a cap on legal migration and dramatically cutting taxes.

Sunak must order a national vote to be held by January 28 next year at the latest, and has said he is planning on a poll in the second half of 2024.

Baverman’s tirade

Former home secretary Suella Braverman is leading this charge and issued a stinging rebuke in The Daily Telegraph to demand that it was time for Sunak to move on from “managerialism” and show strong leadership.

She said Sunak’s plan “is not working and he needs to change course”, urging a more muscular conservatism.

“Let me cut to the chase so no one wastes time over-analysing this: we must not change our leader. Changing leader now won’t work: the time to do so came and went. The hole to dig us out is the PM’s, and it’s time for him to start shovelling,” writes the sacked Indian-origin ex-minister, who is at the forefront of the backbench rebellion.

“Either we start fighting to win now, or we’ll have no one else to blame when this week’s political earthquake is made to look like a mere tremor come the general election night,” she said.

She told BBC that the “terrible” local elections results make a Labour government at the next general election likely, which fills her with “horror”.

Others have chimed in to say it was time for Sunak to “wake up and smell the coffee” because the local election results show that the Labour Party is on course to stomp to victory in a general election, expected later this year.

Starmer’s cautious optimism

Opposition leader Sir Keir Starmer has hailed his party’s “phenomenal result” that included Labour’s Sadiq Khan being re-elected for a record third term as London Mayor.

But Starmer also appealed to the voters who had punished the party over its weak stance on the Israel-Gaza conflict, after analysis showed that Labour suffered losses to independents and the anti-war Worker’s Party of Britain in areas with large Islamic populations as a result.

“I have heard you. I have listened. And I am determined to meet your concerns and to gain your respect and trust again in the future,” said Starmer.

Labour’s national campaign co-ordinator Pat McFadden said his party’s defence of Israel may have cost it some support.

Polling expert John Curtice assessed there were some concerning signs for Labour, which lost control of one local authority and some councillors elsewhere reportedly over its stance on the Israel-Hamas war.

But on the whole, the Labour camp will be celebrating this weekend as it virtually swept the mayoral elections across England, winning in Liverpool, South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, and Greater Manchester.

With most of the results now in for the elections held for local councils on Thursday, Labour looks set to have grabbed over 1,100 seats.

The Liberal Democrats beat the Tories into second place by winning over 500 seats as the Conservatives lost around 400 of previously held seats of local councillors. (Agencies)