Our Survey: Members are braced for poor results in May’s local elections

During the leadership contest last year the prospect of May local elections in 2025 was raised as a sword of Damocles over the heads of the party reeling from it’s crushing general election defeat. The candidates mentioned them a lot as a spur for the need to get the party up off the floor and ready again to enter the fray, however hard that might be.

Our survey shows that much of the concern there was then, is still in play. Nearly half of respondents (48.4 per cent) expect the Conservatives to do poorly. It’s not complete doom-saying 31.4 per cent think somewhat poorly, 17 per cent very poorly but there’s no point dressing it up as an upbeat mood or vibe. Best hopes are met by nearly a quarter of respondents (23.7 per cent) who think the results would be neutral, and frankly the Conservatives would take that right now.

So what’s the context here?

Well, the survey was conducted before Reform UK had their “little local difficulty”, but it’s moot whether the very public, and seemingly irrevocable, spat between Nigel Farage and Rupert Lowe will make a difference. Farage will bend all energies to try and move on from that row because he needs, and always has needed these locals to boost their momentum, build local power bases and use these elections as a stepping stone towards wins in Wales and Scotland. Also now he’ll want to prove a point – that internal rifts don’t outweigh the ‘project’.

There has been a notable if subtle gear change in the Conservatives since the survey was conducted but is it noticeable enough to actually make the survey wrong? That’s entirely in the hands of a party, whose leader wrote on this site this week that CCHQ is just not yet match fit for winning and campaigning at it’s best.

There is also history to take into account.

21 county councils were due to hold elections in May this year. However, in December the government told councils they could request to postpone their elections “where this will help the area to deliver both reorganisation and devolution to the most ambitious timeframe”.

16 county councils and two unitary authorities requested postponment and in February, the government announced that elections would be postponed to May 2026 in nine areas (Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Thurrock, Surrey, East and West Sussex, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight).

Of the 25 councils (including the 16 county councils) 17 have a single-party majority and 16 of those are Tory run. Thus from a high-ish water mark win last time round, the Conservatives have a lot to defend, and thereby a lot to lose – if things go as poorly as our Survey suggests.

The final context is, and Kemi Badenoch’s team are very aware of this, that any new leader was going to face, either internally, but certainly externally, these elections being seen as a test of them, and how they are doing. That’s not quite true in reality, but  everyone has it in the back of their mind, especially the media. Opponents will leap on it for sure, if things look bad.

However, it’s not May now, it’s March. There’s time to make this survey less of a prediction and more of a warning. It may be a morale reaction, it may be a message to the top, but it isn’t the result proper, yet.

To change the mood is going to take a big renewed effort by the whole party – and that is easier said than done.