ACROSS England it looks like many traditional Tory voters stayed at home on May 5, while Labour managed to get out some of their traditional voters who sat things out during the Corbyn years and especially after the Brexit referendum.

Nevertheless, it is now beginning to crystallise that the Tories’ recent success in former Red Wall areas was temporary – for it to become permanent the Tories would have to make permanent changes to themselves as well as in the areas where they had taken seats, and the evidence is mounting they seem incapable of changing their own inbred culture and objectives.

They also have the Levelling Up agenda to contend with – offering relative improvements in the North and Midlands signals relative cuts in the Blue Wall seats of the Tory shires, which may in part also explain the LibDems’ recent improvement in performance there.

Then there’s the ‘Boris factor’. Johnson’s flakiness as PM was priced in from the start. Already an evident buffoon in the press and on the TV, he was lucky in his timing to have Jeremy Corbyn as his opponent and honouring a referendum result as his headline ambition – in both cases those key decisions were made for him, not by him.

The first advantage is now gone and the second delivered, begging the question: so what is he for in 2022?

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Since it looks like the Tory party nationally will have to be pushed into making changes, the next moves lie with the Metropolitan Police and Sue Gray. An odd way to run a democracy, but with a majority of 80 and 30 months to go before the next election, the next decisive move will be determined by 'events dear boy, events' and not by Boris or the 1922 Committee.

That said, Labour is still not polling well enough to win a majority at Westminster.

Indeed, it's taking traditionally Conservative councils in London while failing to recapture traditional Labour councils in the North and Midlands evidences its own internal cultural divisions are hardening.

Labour should look towards the current political situation in Northern Ireland. Sinn Fein is now the largest single party there but without increasing its number of seats.

It is poised for power not because it has more supporters, but because the Unionist vote has split three ways.

Labour will never be able to form a majority government again in England. let alone the UK, unless it addresses its own internal divisions.

As this seems unlikely in the immediate term, it looks like Labour may be the biggest party electorally when the next general election is called, but will fall far short of a majority and will need to enter into coalition with one or more smaller parties.

So who could a coalition be with? The Lib Dems seem to be doing well now, but that may be down to a reduced Tory turnout. Their future fortunes may largely depend on what the Tories do about Boris.

More intriguing is the breakthrough by the Greens, who seem to have a double advantage of being most in tune with growing climate change concerns while having no baggage of association with the two dominant parties. Can they realistically get beyond the prospect of having just one MP? A big hill to climb.

Then there are the nationalists – the Scottish National Party, Plaid Cymru and Sinn Fein.

None will be an easy fit for a traditionally unionist Labour party, and particularly so as Labour has been bleeding seats to the SNP over a number of decades. Sinn Fein also has a long-standing tradition on principle of not allowing elected members to sit in the Commons, so there would be no-one from that party for Labour to cooperate with to secure votes.

As we are potentially only half way between the 2019 general election and the next one, there is still a lot to play for.

Bill Finlay
Hayton