Night of the small parties

It was obvious from the start that these local elections were going to be bad for the Conservatives but less predicted how badly the Labour Party would do. At the time of writing the Tories had lost some 400 seats whilst Labour had lost 85 when they had been expecting gains. Of course there are still an enormous amount of results to declare this afternoon.

The winners last night were the Liberal Democrats who so far have gained 320 councillors, the Greens gained 42 and interestingly the Independents picked up around 138 seats. Even the tiny Liberal Party gained a seat as did Anne-Marie Waters For Britain party who won a seat in Hartlepool.


 

The local elections in Hartlepool also saw Arthur Scargill's almost forgotten Socialist Labour Party stand candidates one of which pushed the Tory into fourth place after gaining 241 votes in a ward overwhelmingly taken by UKIP in one of their few overnight victories.

Also losing out were UKIP who have slumped in the polls as Farage establishes his Brexit Party and had a net loss of 54 seats so far. They didn't contest as many as last time but that shows the current weakness of UKIP  which under George Batten has swung to the far-right.

  

Neither the Brexit Party or Change UK were set up soon enough to prepare for the local elections and some councillors who defected from Labour have not stood again. Both these groups will make their debuts in the European Elections. Nigel Farage has promised to contest the now vacant seat of Peterborough. It is a seat they could win as is Hartlepool apparently.

These local elections have shown a disdain for the main two parties and although the Conservatives are getting punished, Labour has not benefited and remains nowhere near where they need to be to form the next government.

After fudging on Brexit and the anti-Semitism crisis Labour have not won the confidence of the public. In the long term we could see the break up of the old two party system. Of course pundits have predicted that before but could this be the moment British politics changes?