Labour's locals wipeout: Polling guru predicts Starmer will lose 1,850 seats across Britain in electoral drubbing
The governing party will lose some 1,850 seats in councils across the nation, according to polling expert Lord Robert Hayward
Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour will suffer devastating losses of more than 75% of the council seats the party is defending across England in the upcoming May elections, a polling guru has predicted.
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Lord Robert Hayward said the governing party will lose some 1,850 seats in councils across the nation.
This is against the 2,557 it is defending in the forthcoming poll, according to numbers calculated by election specialists Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher.
Their data accounts for seats being fought for the first time this year following boundary changes, where a defending political party has been estimated.
On May 7, voters will go to the polls to elect councillors across England, as well as for parliamentary representatives in the devolved administrations in Wales and Scotland.
Conservative peer and pollster Lord Hayward described his prediction as “bad news” for the Prime Minister, who finds himself in the throes of a scandal about Lord Mandelson’s appointment as US ambassador, and whose popularity continues to trail behind other party leaders in opinion polls.
Labour is not the only mainstream party set to suffer big losses Lord Hayward said, predicting that Kemi Badenoch’s Conservatives will lose 600 seats.
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Reform UK is expected to be the main beneficiary of both of the two major parties, he predicted, gaining some 1,550 seats from both Labour and the Conservatives, largely in white working class areas outside of London.
The Green Party, also a rising force in British politics, will gain 500 seats largely in London and traditionally middle class areas of other major cities, Lord Hayward said, while the Liberal Democrats are set to make gains of around 150 seats.
In Wales, Lord Hayward predicted Plaid Cymru, the Welsh nationalist party, will be the largest party in terms of both votes and seats in Wales’ Parliament, the Senedd.
Different opinion polls have disagreed on the outcome in Wales, with some placing Plaid ahead and others suggesting Reform will be the largest party.
Either way, the Senedd result is likely to see Labour toppled after 26 years of dominance in Welsh politics.
In Scotland, Lord Hayward predicted that the SNP will be just short of a majority in the Holyrood Parliament.
Ahead of the polls, the Prime Minister’s political spokesman said: “This local election comes down to a simple choice: Labour on your side, with your local Labour council working in partnership with a Labour Government, or Nigel Farage and Reform who would put your family, your NHS and your community at risk.”
Asked about Sir Keir’s message to MPs who may be confronted with dire results, the spokesman declined to “get ahead” of the outcome, and highlighted the Government’s record on “giving more rights to workers”, taking parts of the public realm back into public ownership, investing in public services and fighting child poverty.