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It would not be an exaggeration to say that this week’s local elections denote a transformation in party politics. The winners were Reform (+14 councils and +1,453 councillors), the Greens (+587 seats and +5 councils) and the Lib Dems (+1 council and +155 councillors). The losers were Labour (-38 councils and -1,496 councillors) and the Conservatives (-6 councils and -563 councillors). Most notably perhaps has been Labour’s recession in Scotland and Wales: the SNP and Plaid won majorities with Reform coming second, more likely the consequence of tactical voting than a feeling for independence. There is much besides this (see Key Points), but the main significance of these elections has been to confirm what opinion polls have been signalling for over a year: new forces are dissolving the two-party system.
How imperilled is Keir Starmer? To assuage fears that he is captaining a sinking ship, he has appointed Gordon Brown and Harriet Harman as senior advisers, the one for ‘global finance’, the other for ‘women and girls’. This may not be enough; challenges to Starmer’s position are starting to take shape. Backbencher Catherine West has threatened to trigger a leadership contest next week if no Cabinet ministers put themselves forward. This might, then, spur Wes Streeting or Angela Rayner or Ed Miliband to act; it would deny Andy Burnham the opportunity of finding a Labour safe seat (surely an oxymoron) with which he could enter the Parliament.
Some believe that the local election defeats justify the government’s reversal of Brexit. Two columns in The Times have insisted that the local election results testify to the lasting legacy of the Referendum. Fraser Nelson believes that Brexit represented a ‘demand’ for ‘control, belonging, prosperity and competent government’ that has not been satisfied; Ben Judah goes further, believing that ‘only Rejoin can flip the script’ and save the Labour party. It is worth noting this logic, as it is likely to operate heavily on the decisions taken in the last days of Starmer, as well as backbenchers for electoral salvation.
Blog
The UK is Heading for a Massive Economic Wakeup Call by Robert Lee
With large fiscal and trade deficits the UK needs continued foreign capital inflows, but is the UK the weakest link? In the G7 France, Italy, Japan and the US also have weak public finances but also have protections not available to the UK. Emerging market (EM) economies have on average higher growth rates, better demographics, and sounder public finances than the G7. Even South Africa – a mid-rank EM economy – currently looks a better prospect than the UK. The UK’s refusal to confront reality world risks a major loss of financial market confidence, but outside the EU the UK still has the capacity to respond to such a wakeup call with a radical shift to fiscal discipline and supply side reform.
Media
Farage is the local election winner – again by James Heale for the Spectator
On Britain as a capitalist command economy by Christopher Snowden for The Critic
Forget it, Rejoiners. The EU will never offer terms that Britain can accept by David Frost in The Telegraph
Key Points
Recessions in the party system
The recession of the two parties has been a notable feature of the election results. Labour’s toppling in Wales and Scotland risks a competent Unionist opposition to the nationalist parties. The party’s loss of councils in the inner-cities to a melting pot of Greens and Muslim Independents represents a rather different challenge, intimately connected to the party’s stance on Israel as well as the emergence of an unembarrassed Islamic political culture, which Westminster is yet to fully recognise. And in the north the Red Wall seems to have been bled dry, turning a teal colour, with Wakefield, Barnsley, Sunderland and others going to Reform.
The nature of the Conservative party’s recession is also multifarious. Its position in the north has been severely damaged by Reform. Further, in Holyrood it has been reduced to 12 seats; and in the Welsh Senedd to seven. However, the Conservatives retained suburban councils in London such as Broxbourne, Bromley, Harrow and Harlow. Its most significant victory was, in all places, Westminster.
The success of Reform has been plain to see, proving many of the opinion polls correct as it develops a national presence. The limits of the Green party have also been notable; so has the under-performance of the Lib Dems. The success of Plaid seems more obviously the result of tactical voting to reject Labour and shut out Reform than any serious desire for independence (32pc support); the same might be said of the SNP, although polling for independence is higher (44pc).
The BBC’s resident psephologist, Prof. Sir John Curtice, has noticed that the electoral system is fragmenting. But what will matter in the future are the coalitions that form. And it is here that the transformation we have seen will find its practical fulfilment.
A rejoinder to Rejoining
The Times’s finest minds have convinced themselves that Brexit is an issue that still needs to be settled. Fraser Nelson and Ben Judah assume this uncritically.
For Nelson, ‘The old 2016 divide of Brexiteer and Remainer is still a crucial metric in understanding how our politics is divided. Take Basildon, Rochford, Hartlepool [etc etc]…all voted to leave’, (and vice versa for Remain). So far so banal. ‘The Brexit vote was never just about the EU’ – perceptive… – ‘it masked a cry for a better economic model.’ Oh.
Anyone who has the misfortune of seeing Nelson in their Twitter feeds would be familiar with such clever-clever takes. But like so many of his comments they tend to betray a wilful closed-mindedness. He reduces Brexit to the negative ‘cry for a better economic model’; can one not have voted proudly for independence? His view crudely abridges a decade of history too – where is the mention of the pandemic, the lockdowns, mass youth unemployment/NEETs, mass urban immigration, a renewed Israel-Palestine conflict, Labour tax rises etc? Have none of these affected the reasons as to why voters are for/against Reform? Have voters really remained so static these past ten years?
Like Nelson, Judah sees Brexit as a plague still living with us and causing our present discontents. What is to be done? ‘There will be exasperation at the prospect of a new referendum. But the prize is worth it.’ Exasperation? – how about anger? Prize? – how about subversion?
Nelson is half right, in that voters are frustrated at the fact that the nettle was never grasped – that Brexit was never fulfilled by the Conservatives. But it is so much more than his narrow idea of Brexit. He ultimately takes the view that Brexit is a problem – either to be resolved (Nelson) or to be reversed (Judah). Such a view is prevalent within the government, finding purchase in the minds of Remainers who never saw Brexit as anything except an error.
