![]() ![]() The Liberal Democrats and Greens also made large gains. In a terrible day for Rishi Sunak’s party, the Tories lost more than 1,000 seats – exceeding a figure that deputy prime minister Oliver Dowden had cited last weekend as, in effect, a worst-case scenario. In Thursday’s poll Labour gained 536 seats, based on changes from the number of seats immediately after the previous elections, and took control of another 22 councils as it became the largest party in local government for the first time since 2002. Stephen Fisher, professor of political sociology at Oxford University, who was also on the BBC results and analysis team, agreed that the connection between people voting Tory and those who voted leave had become looser, particularly since 2021. We can say people are voting less in line with their Brexit preferences than they were a couple of years ago.” ![]() Our statistical modelling shows it is much weaker now. “Voting leave was a very strong predictor of voting Tory. Robert Ford, professor of politics at Manchester University, who was part of the BBC’s results and analysis team, said that in the 2021 local elections there had been a very close correlation between those who voted Tory and those who had voted to leave the EU in red wall areas. Senior Labour figures and leading academics said the data showed that the link between voting for Brexit and voting for the Tories is weakening – further encouraging Labour strategists to believe they can take back seats across the “red wall” and are on course to win the next general election. The data also shows that while the Tories were down 2.5 points in the most pro-remain wards, their vote was down even more – by 5.5 points – in the most pro-leave wards. ![]()
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