Local Election results: reading the runes. From Brexit to Austerity
As usual the results of local elections held in some parts of England and Northern Ireland (the latter not analysed by the UK media obviously…) on 2nd May (not in London, Scotland or Wales) have been analysed and over analysed all day and there is a BH weekend for more to come..
Turn-out in local elections has been low for a long time and 2019 wasn’t an exception. In some cases it was as low as 15% with 30%+ quite rare. That allowed in a handful of cases (Barnsley, Epping) fascists to get elected (although they usually don’t hang around for a full term before they are arrested or just disappear).
Its worth keeping that turn-out figure in mind though in a week when a ballot of the PCS union for industrial action on civil service pay was declared void. 78% voted for action but the turn-out of 47% didn’t meet the 50% threshold which the Tory Government imposes to frustrate legitimate industrial action.
Its also worth keeping the turn-out figure in mind when the usual suspects extrapolate the 2nd May results to General Election seats. Forget it. The turn-out in a General Election will be in the 70%s not the 20%s. Understand the local election results in their own right or not at all
The BBC has a useful guide to the fortunes of parties in local elections since 1968 here (although its from 2006)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4966160.stm
1968 in London was the worst possible result for Labour, while 2005 saw 2018 Tory seats lost (House of Commons figures). The 2019 results look set to be their second worst in the modern era.
Brexit has been suggested as the backdrop to the fortunes of the parties in 2019 but that seems less than entirely obvious. The LibDems have done well, but in reality they have simply regained some (but far from all) of the huge ground they lost thanks to their participation in Government with the Tories.
Its as likely that the Tories have been punished as much for implementing austerity policies as Brexit (the two are obviously not entirely unrelated in quite complex ways).
That leaves the question of why Labour did not do better (it didn’t do badly but didn’t capitalise in some areas on Tory losses- in some areas it did however.) what the rise in Green Councillors will mean and the significance of the rise of independent councillors.
All local Councils have struggled to maintain services and jobs in the face of still existing Tory austerity. Tory Councils have simply cut, and so have many Labour ones (albeit more reluctantly). The number of Labour Councils who seek to try and do something different is limited. I live in one Haringey (dubbed the first Corbyn Council by the media) and the Guardian’s Aditya Chakrabortty has highlighted the work done in Preston.
Unless Labour can break out of the remain/leave axis and show that austerity can be fought by people who support either its not harnessing discontent. This would mean activity outside of the electoral framework Ive used here. The austerity question is I suspect part of the reason for the rise of Independent Councillors (not it should be underlined related to Change UK!) and a challenge to a new layer of Green Councillors to demonstrate how they can effectively challenge austerity locally.
As ever we shall see..
Keith Flett qualified as a politics teacher in 1979 just as Mrs Thatcher got elected and appointed Sir Keith Joseph as Education Secretary. He has convened the socialist history seminar at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London since 1993 and is a confirmed supporter of Eric Hobsbawm’s view that socialist historians should be historians of the present
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