Andy Street (Alamy)
3 min read
The West Midlands mayoral election is on a knife edge with a recount ordered by the Tories in Coventry after it was considered to be unclear whether Labour or Conservatives had clinched the mayoralty.
A victory for Richard Parker, the Labour candidate, over Tory incumbent Andy Street would be a significant blow to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s authority after his party managed to hang onto Ben Houchen in Tees Valley on Saturday. But whatever the result in the West Midlands Tory MPs do not believe a leadership challenge will be made against the prime minister.
Early on Saturday evening, Street had won the Solihull region, but by a smaller margin than he achieved in 2021, with 62 per cent of the vote compared to 68 when the West Midlands mayorlty was last contested in 2021. Meanwhile Parker received 21 per cent of the vote, up from15 per cent at the previous election.
In Wolverhampton, Parker beat Street with more than 26,000 to fewer than 19,000 votes. The area was won by the Conservatives in 2021. Labour also won Birmingham by almost 15,000 votes, with 80,251 compared to the Conservatives’ 66,296.
A result for the West Midlands mayor had been expected on Saturday afternoon but was delayed after a full recount was ordered in the city of Coventry, with the result in the city expected to be very close. The recount is expected to take at least two hours.
Labour sources had said calls for a recount were beginning to emerge before 4pm on Saturday while Tories indicated the result was far too close for comfort for them.
Defeat for the Conservatives would represent a decisive change in the West Midlands where Street has held the mayoralty since its creation in 2017. In 2021 he won on the second round of voting with 54 per cent of the vote compared to Labour’s candidate Liam Byrne with 46 per cent.
Nationally the Conservatives remain significantly behind in the national polls. YouGov have the Conservatives on 20 per cent and Labour on 45 per cent.
Parker was selected as Labour candidate in April 2023. He was previously a partner for PwC after having worked for the company for more than three decades.
Opinion polls found that the vote in the region was on a knife edge. YouGov on Monday said the election was too close to call and put Street two points ahead of Parker.
Prior to the vote, Parker told PoliticsHome he believed politics in the region was changing and claimed his operation was not paying too close attention to opinion polling.
“We think the politics in this region are changing but we also know the key thing will be for people to vote, so we’re genuinely not taking notice of the polls, we just need to know that we need to campaign hard and get the people that want to vote for us to vote for Labour,” he said.
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