Newington's Local team gives its view on what the local election results could mean for the General Election.

What do the local election results mean for the General Election?

As the results were declared in councils across the country last week, pundits and party hacks were quick to define the changes in meteorological terms – landslides, tremors and even earthquakes were identified in many areas. But how significant were the results and what can we read into them ahead of the General Election on Thursday 8 June?

Victory for the Conservatives

There are three key headlines from the local, county and mayoral elections which took place last Thursday; success for the Conservatives, failures for Labour and complete obliteration for UKIP. Theresa May will have come away the happiest of all the political leaders. Although it was widely expected that the Conservatives would make gains, 563 new councillors, gaining control of 11 Councils and beating Labour in the West Midlands and Tees Valley Mayoral elections will be seen as a huge step towards an inevitable landslide at the General Election.

The biggest worry for Theresa May following these results is the general public thinking that it is now inevitable that the Conservatives will win with a huge majority. It’s a sorry state of affairs for the Labour Party that this is Mrs May’s biggest worry after a set of local elections which took place after 7 years of the Conservatives in government.

Labour successes

The glimmer of light for the Labour Party was the success of Andy Burnham and Steve Rotheram in Greater Manchester and the Liverpool City Region respectively. Both went into election day expecting success, but neither would have expected such a comprehensive victory for each of them.

A constant in both Andy Burnham’s and Steve Rotheram’s campaigns were that neither focused on national political issues and both ignored mentioning Jeremy Corbyn. Their focus on anti-London politics and “Northern Labour” clearly worked with huge support for both candidates coming out across the two sub-regions. However, following John McDonnell’s assertion that Corbyn will be more, not less, visible in the General Election campaign following Thursday’s results, it is highly likely that local candidates will look at these two successful campaigns and try to replicate them for their own elections in hope for similar results.

What about UKIP?

Finally, could 2017 be the beginning of the end of UKIP? The first electoral test of UKIP since Brexit is nothing more than a monumental disaster with 145 councillors lost and only one councillor elected. UKIP have desperately tried to reassure themselves that things aren’t too bad for Paul Nuttall’s party, consistently stating there is still a future for them, but if they thought getting MPs elected into Parliament was difficult at the last election, now it’s going to be nigh on impossible. Which leads to the question that UKIP have tried to avoid since their inception – now that they have achieved the one thing that they were set up for – who needs UKIP?

What does all of this mean for 8 June?

Some forecasters have used the results from Thursday to predict a majority of around 50 seats for Theresa May in the General Election, which falls short of the opinion-poll fuelled forecasts which have suggested anything up to a 140 seat majority. However, drawing comparisons between May and June prove challenging in many areas, not least because the headline General Election issue of Brexit was almost abandoned at the ballot box last week, as the two parties who wished to talk about it (UKIP and the Liberal Democrats) were both largely shunned by the electorate.

The challenge for Labour will be if they can hold their support in core areas of the midlands and the north, areas where they successfully managed to keep a grip last week. For the Conservatives, Theresa May is on course for victory and the campaigning challenge is to define the scale and breadth of that victory.

Are you wondering how your business will be affected by the results of the local and mayoral elections? Join our conference call on Friday 12 May with Newington's Manging Director of Local Affairs, Phil Briscoe, and  Head of Scotland, Evan Williams. Register here for dial in details.