Labour has become the biggest party in Trafford, winning four seats from the Tories to take their total to 30. After a surprise double win by the Green party in Altrincham, the Conservative party was left with 29 seats, down from 33.
“I’m absolutely ecstatic,” said Andrew Western, leader of the Labour group on Trafford council. “This is far beyond our expectations. We hoped to tip the council into no overall control tonight, but to have become the largest party at the same time is a fantastic bonus. We could not be happier.”
Frances Perraudin (@fperraudin)Labour celebrating becoming the largest party in Trafford. Lab leader Andrew Western says result is an indictment of local Conservatives #LocalElection2018 pic.twitter.com/7rKyMqvhZz
May 4, 2018
Conservative council leader Sean Anstee said his party would have to reflect on the results. He said:
Elections in Trafford have always been tight and clearly, as the only Conservative-majority council in Greater Manchester, surrounded by a number of Labour councils, we’ve seen significant opposition activity into the borough over the last six months or so.
He said that wards that had changed hands also saw a significant increase in turnout. “A number of voters who ordinarily perhaps haven’t voted, turned out,” he said. “We’ll need to reflect on the reasons why they turned out in the way that they did and why they voted in the way that they did.”
While it didn’t surprise many to see the Conservatives lose their overall control of Trafford council, it had not been predicted that the Greens would land the final blow.
Geraldine Coggins, one of two Green candidates to take seats of the Tories in Altrincham, said:
The media hasn’t necessarily noticed, because we’re not very surprised. I spoke to a number of people in their 80s who said they had always voted Conservative but were going to vote Green for the first time in their lives, and a number of Labour members who said they were going to vote Green this time. There was a lot of momentum.
Dan Jerrome, who came second in the last set of council elections in the area, said that it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Green party candidates could take seats from Conservatives. He said the pair – who are now Greater Manchester’s only Green councillors – had campaigned on a number of issues, but pointed to the council plans to chop down trees and large developments that residents felt they hadn’t been consulted on.
Frances Perraudin (@fperraudin)Greater Manchester’s new (and only) Green Party councillors. They say their campaign in Altrincham went below the media’s radar but that they aren’t surprised they won #LocalElections2018 pic.twitter.com/P5Lfs0WfxJ
May 4, 2018
If the results in London are quite different from the results outside London (see 3.14am), then in many respects that’s just a repeat of what happened at the last general election. Overall there was a modest swing from the Conservatives to Labour in 2017. But the swing in London was much, much larger than anywhere else. Here is another chart from Britain Votes 2017.
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