Local elections 2024: Portsmouth Independents Party expect victory amid "tough evening" for Tories

As polling day draws to a close, the council gears up to determine how residents have voted in fourteen wards, with one seat in each ward up for grabs.

Presently, the council is made up of 18 Liberal Democrat councillors, eight Conservatives, seven Labour members, six from the Portsmouth Independent Party, two non-aligned independent councillors, and one independent councillor aligned with Labour.

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The council remains under no overall control, with the Liberal Democrats overseeing a minority administration. To get a majority, a party has to obtain 22 seats out of 42. Last year, the Conservatives lost five seats predominantly to the Portsmouth Independent Party. Labour and the Lib Dems gained one seat each.

Tonight, the Lib-Dems are defending six seats, the Conservatives five, Labour one. One independent is defending their seat, as is one member of the Portsmouth Independent Party. Councillor Simon Bosher, leader of the Conservative group, said: “It’s going to be a tough evening.

“A lot of it is probably not due to the work of councillors, it’s more to do with conflating it with the national picture – which is not good. It won’t be an election on the personalities, it’s probably going to be more of a protest vote.”

Nationally, Rishi Sunak is braced for a difficult set of election results and forecasts suggest the Tories could lose up to half of the council seats they are defending in England. Portsmouth Independents Party leader Councillor George Madgwick, who is defending his seat in Paulsgrove, said he “truly believes” his party will be the winner of the night with “the biggest net seat gain”.

“You get a vibe when you’re at the door, you want to see if that translates at support in the polling stations. I think we could walk away with five or six seats tonight – we could walk away with eight.

“They’ll be a disastrous turnout, I think it’ll be down across the whole city except for one or two wards. I’m hearing on good authority that Nelson is massively up this year – other than that most wards are down.”