Sunderland Conservatives reflect on a 'bad night' for the party at the elections

Voters went to the polls on May 4, 2023, to elect or re-elect councillors to 24 seats on Sunderland City Council.

The Labour Party was the biggest winner of the night, gaining three seats, while the Liberal Democrats also gained a seat from the Conservatives in Fulwell.

In recent months, the city’s Conservative Group has seen several defections with councillors joining other political parties or choosing to sit as an independent.

The first was Washington South councillor Paul Donaghy, who joined Reform UK in January, followed by Barnes councillor Helen Greener becoming an independent, and then Ryhope councillor Usman Ali ‘crossing the floor’ to Labour at a council meeting in March.

On election night, Sunderland Conservatives managed to successfully defend seats in St Michael’s, St Chad’s and St Peter’s, however they lost seats elsewhere.

This included losing a second seat in Fulwell to the Lib Dems and a seat in Barnes to the Labour Party, a seat previously held by Conservative councillor Helen Greener before she defected to become an independent.

The Conservative Party also lost a seat in the St Anne’s ward to Labour, and failed to pick up seats in Washington South and Ryhope, where the party had been victorious in elections in May, 2021.

Councillor Antony Mullen, Conservative Group leader, said it was a “bad night for the Conservatives” and that national issues and turnout had played a part in the decline in the Conservative vote.

He added that many of the biggest swings in votes happened in the Conservatives’ “safest wards” such as St Michael’s and Barnes.

Cllr Mullen said: “Wards that were previously tight have remained competitive and wards where we have previously had huge majorities, we no longer do.

“So it’s going to take a while to explain exactly what’s gone on, I think in the wards that we have held undoubtedly it’s because of the work that’s been done by the councillors there.

“But equally in wards that we have lost I wouldn’t say that we haven’t worked them either, so it’s difficult to say, it’s probably too soon to diagnose what has happened”.

Looking forward, Cllr Mullen said his eye was on the ‘all-out’ elections in 2026 where all 75 seats on Sunderland City Council will be up for election, compared to the normal annual process of electing the council ‘by thirds’.

The Conservative chief explained that by that date the country “will have had a General Election, the public will have had their say and it will almost be like a reset for all of the parties to compete on the basis of Sunderland issues only”.

Cllr Mullen continued: “My focus is thinking about what the long-term future looks like.

“When voters judge us on the basis of national issues, I’m not in the Government, I can’t do anything about what the Government is doing and can’t change that, I feel frustration myself.

“We just have to grin and bear it sometimes. One of the consequences of having so many General Election victories is that sometimes you do have to bear the brunt of what colleagues in Westminster decide to do”.

As well as the Conservative losses, changes on the city council saw the Liberal Democrats displace the Conservatives as the majority party in opposition.

However Sunderland Conservatives said the “quality of the [Conservative] opposition would be the same” and that the changes would not impact scrutiny in committees or full council.

Cllr Mullen added: “I’m grateful to the people who did vote, I know I spoke to people who weren’t going to bother and we got them out to vote today in my ward, I’m sorry it wasn’t enough.

“It will not change the way that we work to represent them or the work that we do in our wards.

“To Conservatives who didn’t come out to vote I would simply say that we understand why and we hope they would see us as a local party.

“But equally we’re under no illusion that we all wear the same badge and are the same Conservative Party as nationally that they have fallen out of love with.”

The overall turnout in the 2023 local elections was 31.9%, compared to 33.6% in 2022.

Sunderland City Council’s overall make-up is now 45 Labour councillors, 15 Liberal Democrats, 13 Conservatives and one Reform UK.

There also remains one vacancy in the Hendon ward due to the death of a candidate ahead of the election, which will be contested later this year.