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In an article for Juncture - the journal of the leading think tank IPPR – the leading election analyst Professor John Curtice of Strathclyde University – describes the task ahead for Labour on 5th May as “demanding”, with net losses in council seats more likely.

He concludes that reversals across the country will not necessarily be a sign that the Labour leader has ‘lost the plot in Middle England’, but neither should a victory in the Mayoral contest in London, if that is the result, be read as a personal triumph for Mr Corbyn. Instead, he thinks the results are most likely to show that Labour is ‘treading water’ under its new leadership.

In his article ‘Peeling the electoral onion: The many layers of the UK’s May 2016 elections’ Curtice argues that:

“There are … two crucial features to the political backdrop to this year’s elections. First, most of the contests were previously held when Labour was doing reasonably well in the polls – and indeed, with the exception of the London Mayoral and Scottish Parliament elections, this was broadly reflected in the party’s performance in the ballot box.

“This was especially true of the local elections in 2012. The BBC’s projection of these results into a Britain-wide election vote suggested that Labour’s performance was worth 38% of the vote, enough to put the party seven points ahead of the Conservatives. It was easily the party’s best performance in any of the annual rounds of local elections held during the last parliament.”

He concludes that:

“Jeremy Corbyn faces a relatively demanding electoral test at a time when many are looking to see if he ‘fails’. Even if Labour were to enjoy some recovery from its position a year ago, the party would still suffer net losses.

“Indeed, simply repeating its performance locally in last year’s local elections would see the party lose control of Dudley, Cannock Chase, Crawley, Redditch, Rossendale and Southampton, a set of losses that would undoubtedly be regarded by Mr Corbyn’s critics as evidence that he had lost the plot in middle England - when in fact they might simply be an indication that the party was just treading water.”

On London, Curtice writes that:

“Unmerited though it may be, London could prove to be the Labour leader’s salvation. In 2012 Boris Johnson won an election he should not have. He secured 44 per cent of the first-preference vote while his party won less than a third of the vote in the London assembly election. He won because many a Londoner was willing to vote for him personally, even though they did not support his party. But, having engineered his return to the Commons, Johnson is now leaving the London stage. With his personal vote probably lost to the Conservatives, the outcome this time is likely to reflect the overall popularity of the parties. Despite all of its travails, Labour won easily in London last year and thus should do so this year too.”

But Curtice argues that people should be wary of jumping to conclusions about the wider implications if Labour’s candidate for mayor, Sadiq Khan, does emerge victorious.

He writes:

“We can expect Corbyn and his allies to trumpet the success of the party’s standard-bearer in the mayoral contest, Sadiq Khan. The result, they will argue, is evidence that Corbyn can reach parts of the electorate that his predecessor, Ed Miliband, could not. In truth, such a result might simply demonstrate, as others may, that the party was treading water – and ultimately it needs to do much more than that.”

The full article is available here: http://www.ippr.org/juncture/peeling-the-electoral-onion-the-many-layers-of-the-uks-may-2016-elections

For more Juncture articles please visit: http://www.ippr.org/juncture