Andy Street’s narrow defeat caps Tory misery

Andy Street has been defeated as mayor of West Midlands by Labour’s Richard Parker in a knife-edge contest. The result was due at 3 p.m this afternoon but was delayed by almost six hours following a recount of all the ballots cast in Coventry. Parker ended up with 225,590 or 37.8 per cent of votes to Street’s 224,082 or 37.5 per cent – so just 1,508 votes separated them. It means that Labour has now won 10 of the 11 mayor elections. Ben Houchen, clinging on in Tees Valley, is the only Tory mayor left.

Street had done all he could to distance himself from what he regarded as a toxic Tory brand, removing all traces of the Conservative party from his website. In effect, he ran as an independent. This time yesterday it seemed that he’d done it, with Labour seeming to give up hope. The party briefed reporters that the East Midlands – where Claire Ward won with a majority of 50,000 – offered a much greater indication of the party’s overall successes. But the Police and Crime Commissioner election result offered an ominous warning shot after Labour this afternoon won an impressive 57 per cent across the West Midlands region. It proved to be a portent of things to come.

Labour had expected to lose due to Akhmed Yakoob, the George-Galloway backed independent candidate. He came third with 8,451 votes on pro-Palestine platform – yet it still was not enough to deny Labour victory. Keir Starmer’s party will be heartened that the so-called ‘Gaza backlash’ will not hurt them as much in the traditional West Midlands marginals as some had initially feared. The Tory vote was weakened by Reform, which came in fourth with 5,247 votes. Turnout was 30 per cent, as it was last time.

The prospect of Street clinging on was being held up by Tory high command as a reason for Conservative MPs not to panic about results elsewhere. The fact that he has still lost despite being a popular, hard-working and successful local incumbent will fill MPs with despair and may revive talk of a mutiny against Rishi Sunak. Many in Westminster like and admire Street for his achievements in office. ‘He’s worked so hard’ remarked one backbencher, who said they are ‘genuinely, deeply sad’ at his defeat. Houchen, who won with 54 per cent of the vote down from 74 per cent last time, is all they have to point to. 

So what will Street say now? He has repeatedly criticised Sunak’s decision to curtail HS2 and will likely blame this as the reason for the loss. He had considered resigning as a Tory candidate when Sunak announced this at the Conservative conference, seeing it as the party breaking faith with the Midlands. He kept quiet then and gave a gracious concession speech tonight, but may not do so in the near-future. If he chooses to pin the blame for his defeat on the Prime Minister it will add to pressure – although the general Tory results are so bad that even the rebels seem to have given up.

The final Tory tally for these elections is a grim one. The party lost half of their council seats, 12 authorities, ten of the 11 mayoral races and were almost beaten into third place by Reform in the Blackpool by-election. With all votes counted, it seems the Liberal Democrats have won more councillors than them for the first time since 1996 – a record that will send down a shiver down the spine of every Tory MP.

Many are tonight keeping their powder dry by remaining silent. However Simon Clarke, a longtime critic of Sunak, has written on the Tory MPs’ WhatsApp group to say that ‘These results are awful and should be a massive wake up call. If we fight the same campaign in a few months, we will get the same result.’ How many are privately sharing those same thoughts this evening?