In English local elections last night, Jeremy Corbyn’s socialist Labour Party won the tactical victory by securing a number of new council (think state legislature) seats across the nation. But it was Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservative Party which won the strategic victory.
That’s because Corbyn’s inner circle had held out high hopes that they would win control over holdout Conservative councils in London, such as Wandsworth and Westminster. They failed to do so, and the Conservatives also held other Labour targets like Barnet, Bromley, and Pendle.
Those results rightly have Labour concerned. James Hargrave, the London-based policy director for JBP consultants, told the Washington Examiner that “Conservatives will be very happy with London results, Wandsworth in particular. Labour will be kicking themselves for letting expectations runaway from them. Barnet shows that their anti-Semitism problem is translating into the ballot box.”
Labour’s ongoing struggle with internal anti-Semitism issues is a grave moral and political concern, but the fact that Corbyn has not been able to significantly move the needle against May is a bad omen for his grand ambition to force another early parliamentary election and bring Labour into power. Now, with May winning effective stability in these local elections, the Prime Minister now has every chance of waiting out the clock and resisting calls for a new election until it is required in 2022.
This speaks to May’s increasing popularity with the public. Having secured notable wins on Brexit, her counter-terrorism leadership and her economic stewardship, the prime minister has regained her political momentum and consolidated her party behind her. Following last June’s election, May was seen as a political corpse by both Conservatives and Labour members of parliament. Today, she is seen as having the foundation to lead her party into a successful election three or four years from now.
Things may change, but at the strategic level, last night’s result was a considerable victory for May. And for that matter, for Americans. After all, Jeremy Corbyn is fanatically anti-American.
