Labour’s grip on Exeter City Council is in jeopardy as the city prepares to go to the polls, according to one of Devon’s leading political pundits.
The council is most likely to end up under no overall control, according to Dr David Brockington, who lectures in politics at the University of Plymouth. He says he does not believe Labour will hold on to enough seats to keep its overall majority.
Fourteen of the council’s 39 seats are up for grabs in the May 7 elections, and eight of them are currently held by Labour. Thirteen are being contested as part of the regular yearly cycle of elections while one has been left vacant after a Green councillor stood down.
Labour currently holds 22 of the 39 seats on the council, with the Greens on six, Liberal Democrats four, Conservatives two, Reform UK two and two independents. One seat is vacant.
“Based on recent performance, especially the Devon County Council elections last year, I think the best outcome for Labour in Exeter is maintaining its largest party status and running the council under a no-overall-control scenario,” said Dr Brockington.
He said it was also possible that a good night for the Greens could see them becoming the largest party group. And, he added, a good night for Reform UK was also a possibility in a city where many seats were a three or four-way race.
“It’s really difficult because there’s so much in flux right now,” he said. “It is extraordinarily difficult to predict the outcomes of these things.”
Dr Brockington said it had been ‘silly’ for Labour to attempt to call off the elections, as it did at the start of the year. The administration said there was little point electing members to a ‘zombie’ council which could be swept away altogether in the forthcoming Local Government Reorganisation (LGR), and not having the elections would save valuable officers’ time and money.
The government agreed at the outset, but later changed its mind.
“The fact that Exeter City Council is a zombie council makes sense,” he said. “You’re wasting money for one year of elections, but voters are going to see that as you holding on to power and they will cynically react against it.
“That’s not going to help.”
He said any government would be likely to lose seats at the council elections unless there were special factors in play.
“The national party’s going to lose seats unless you have a situation where the national party’s popular, and in 2021 Boris Johnson was popular,” he added. “The Conservatives did OK, especially locally here in Devon, but this isn’t 2021.
“With the first few decisions it took when it came into power, the government made itself unpopular, and it hasn’t managed to get out of that. Local voters are going to penalise them locally.
“And so on Exeter City Council, setting aside the fact that it tried to call off elections – very bad idea – it is going to be paying the price for the national government’s mistakes. That’s just the nature of the game in this country.”
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