Last week’s elections in Crawley were a reasonable showing for the Conservatives, considering we are six years into being in government when traditionally the party in government suffers poor results at the hands of the main opposition party. I was delighted that Katy Bourne was re-elected as the Sussex Police and Crime Commissioner, especially with her topping the poll in Crawley as well as across Sussex. The merits (or otherwise) of the individual candidates do tend to be more of a factor in PCC elections than in council elections, which helps to explain the difference in outcomes between us winning the PCC election in Crawley but not winning the local council elections last week.
It was disappointing for us not to repeat last year’s success of winning Crawley’s local council elections. It was also illuminating that yet again at the election count, that Labour did not applaud the Conservative winners of council seats, despite us Conservatives always applauding the Labour winners.
My experience from the doorsteps is that some people switching from Conservative to UKIP ensured that Crawley retained a left-wing Labour council. Indeed, if less than half of the 14% in Tilgate and just over half of the 13% in Ifield who voted UKIP had voted Conservative, Crawley would now have a Conservative council. This is also ironic given that the Labour councillors elected in both those neighbourhoods as a result, are very strongly in favour of the UK staying in the EU in the upcoming referendum.
I have no doubt that Labour will try and spin the local election results as an endorsement of them locally but the reality is that most of what they claim such as the upcoming regeneration of Queens Square are actually down to the Conservatives, with other successes being a continuation of what we did in our eight years of control.
Going forward, it is important that we Conservatives remain a strong opposition and continue to hold Labour to account. What is absolutely clear from these elections is that it is only the Conservatives who can provide any alternative to Labour in Crawley.