LONDON (Reuters) - The news of Britain's local elections on Thursday came down as a thunderbolt on the Conservative Party and its leader, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, after the worst-case scenario materialized and the ruling party lost a third of the seats it was vying for in the 230-member election.

With more than 99% of the votes counted and the results of all the contested councils coming out, it appeared that this election brought good news to both the opposition Labour Party and the Liberal Democratic Party, while deepening the wounds of the Conservative Party, which knows that its results are only a microcosm of what the general elections scheduled for the end of 2024 or the beginning of 2025 will be.

It can be said that these elections, although local and partial proof, carried many historic results, all of which go in the direction of growing popular anger against the Conservative Party and its management of the government.

Sunak described election results as disappointing (Anatolia)

Worst case scenario

All estimates indicated that the Conservative Party could lose about 700 of the 3300,1058 seats it had during this election, but what happened was that the party lost about <>,<> of its seats, about a third of its share, to achieve what observers described as a worst-case scenario.

Because trouble does not come alone, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was directly criticized, who described these results as disappointing, but what worries Sunak most is the loud voices in favor of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who see the man as the party's trump card, and they returned to accuse Sunak of being primarily responsible for Johnson's exit from the party leadership when he decided to resign as Chancellor of the Exchequer.

These results led to the loss of the Conservative Party's title of the party with the largest number of seats in local councils in Britain, which it has maintained since 2002, that is, for more than two decades, showing the magnitude of the crisis the party is experiencing.

Among the important points shown by this election is also the return of the so-called "red wall" in the north of the country, which has been a stronghold of the Labour Party for many decades, a wall that collapsed in the general elections in 2019 and voted for the Conservative Party and gave it an absolute majority in parliament, and then observers described what happened as a punitive vote against the Labour Party because of its blurry position on "Brexit", but the recent results of the elections show the return of the red wall to form again, which will withdraw a lot of seats are in the hands of the Conservatives in the upcoming elections.

In the BBC's largest analysis of vote trend, which provides a nationwide split of votes if a general election is held now, it showed that Labour would get 35% of the vote to 26% for the Conservative Party and 20% for the Liberal Democrats.

It is the first time the 9-point gap between Labour and the Conservative Party has reached since 2010, the year Labour lost power and has yet to return to power.

Labour Party has the largest share in the running of local councils in the country (European)

Historic success

Against the resounding defeat of the Conservative Party, there is general joy among the Labour Party, which won more than 527 new seats in this election, and which after the vote became the largest stake in the management of local councils in the country, something it has not achieved in two decades.

Signs of satisfaction were evident on the statements of its leader Keir Starmer, who stressed that this vote is "preparation for the general elections", expressing his party's readiness for any future general elections, and according to the figures shown by the results, the Labour Party is living its best days since the days of Tony Blair's leadership, which was a "golden" period for Labour, had it not been for warnings that Labour may not obtain an absolute majority during the general election, as it did not work to raise its popularity in areas controlled by the party. Conservatives.

On the other hand, a number of observers say that the results achieved by the Labour Party are the result of the "punitive" or "tactical" vote by a number of voters in constituencies known for their loyalty to the Conservative Party, out of anger at the living situation in the country and the government's inability to cope with inflation.

Among the biggest winners of this election is the Liberal Democratic Party, which won 12 new councils, the party's largest number since 1995.