A dog at a polling station (Alamy)
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Leading pollster Scarlett Maguire has said the recent local elections could serve as a “warning” to potential MPs from major political parties that there is an “anti-Westminster mood” among the public, who believe politicians are “not serving their interests ”.
In the local elections earlier this month, the Conservatives lost almost 500 seats, as did their West Midlands mayor, Andy Street, who was defeated by Labor candidate Richard Parker. The Liberal Democrats and the Green Party made significant gains, and Reform UK posed a challenge to the Conservative candidates in the seats where they stood.
Maguire, director at JL Partners Polling, said PoliticsHome that “people are more willing to vote for smaller parties and that their votes for smaller parties are sometimes intended to protest what is happening in Westminster”.
“The reforms did well where they stood, the Green Party again did well where they stood and I think there is a warning there for both the Conservative and Labor parliamentary candidates,” she said.
“There is an anti-Westminster mood. There is a real feeling that politicians in Westminster are not serving the people in the way they should, and that they are not serving their interests, and this seems to be trickling down.”
Maguire believed that because sentiment towards Westminster could mean many people ‘stay at home’ during the general election, national candidates will ‘campaign against a very different backdrop’ to try to appeal to voters who remain committed enough to come forward to come.
In the local elections, the Green Party won 181 seats, an increase of 74 compared to the last time they were higher. Labor made 186 gains and won a total of 1,158 seats. The Liberal Democrats won 522 seats, a gain of 104, meaning they won more seats this time than the Conservatives on 514, a total loss of 474 seats.
Reform UK only won two seats in total, both in Havant Borough Council, but they came third in the Blackpool South by-election, gaining just 117 votes fewer than the Tory candidate. The party did not field a full list of candidates, with just 326 across the country, according to the BBC, but they did beat the Conservatives with more than a dozen seats on Sunderland City Council.
Maguire said the problems are particularly acute for the Conservative Party, which has been struggling in the national polls for some time. According to YouGov’s latest voting intentions figures, Rishi Sunak’s party is on 18 percent, while Labor is on 48 percent.
Their unpopularity is leading some people to consider which parties would be best placed to challenge conservative candidates.
“We saw people keen to vote out the Conservatives in local councils, we saw that with the clear presence of some pretty smart tactical voting,” she added.
But Maguire believed that “engagement will be an issue and a frustration for politicians” as candidates tackle the campaign, “and I think this will remain so for the short term at least”.
While there are many ways in which local and national elections lead to different voter behavior, this does not mean that there is no interaction at all. In addition to the entire country not getting the chance to vote in the same set of local elections, Maguire explained that turnout in a general election could be around double that of the local population. People who vote in local elections “tend to be older, tend to be better off and are potentially more politically engaged,” she added. “Young voters simply don’t vote in local elections.”
The same person may also consider a different set of priorities when voting for local representatives than when electing an MP.
“They are not voting for the Prime Minister, which is what people ultimately vote for in a general election,” Maguire said.
“They vote on everything from who takes out the trash to what happens in the Middle East.”
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