The key battles of May’s local elections

‘Shaun Bailey’s ‘Conservative’ vision for London is one we have come to expect of a neo-conservative party that understands the price of everything and the value of nothing.’

Local elections will be taking place in England, Scotland and Wales on May 6th. Below is Julien Yvon’s guide to these elections. Peter Tutykhin and Billy Thompson also wrote such a guide for Bournbrook’s 18th print issue, which can be purchased here.

Scottish parliamentary elections

Arguably the most important of all – the making or breaking of the United Kingdom. In March 2021, the Scottish Government introduced their draft Independence Referendum Bill. In the 2012 Edinburgh Agreement, Prime Minister David Cameron agreed to hand the Scottish parliament the legislative power to hold a referendum – albeit on a temporary basis. The deadline for keeping hold of these legislative powers passed in August 2014, however, and reverted the country back to the Scotland Act of 1998 which stated that the Scottish parliament could not pass legislation relating to matters ‘reserved’ to Westminster, including ‘the Union of the Kingdoms of Scotland and England’. However, an SNP majority in May’s elections could trigger a constitutional crisis in the UK as the separatist party would undoubtedly test Westminster’s resolve by trying to force through their unconstitutional piece of legislation.

Just under a year ago, it seemed like game, set and match for the SNP. Indeed, a YouGov poll from August 2020 polled the SNP at 57 per cent of the constituency vote, while September’s JL Partners and October’s Ipsos polls placed the SNP as high as 58 per cent – all translating to stonking majorities of 70-plus seats. Furthermore, the latter two polls also found that the ‘yes’ camp was leading the ‘no’ camp by 11 per cent and 13 per cent respectively.

However, if they say that a week in politics is a long time, six months can certainly feel like an eternity. This year alone, the First Minister for Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, has faced a damning parliamentary inquiry which concluded by five votes to four that she had broken ministerial code by interfering with a civil service investigation and misleading parliament in the Alex Salmond case. Furthermore, the SNP are currently under police investigation for fraud after having diverted around £600,000 worth of funds that were supposed to be ‘ring-fenced’ for a second Independence referendum. The cherry on the cake, however, has been the exposure of Scotland’s post-independence economic plan – or lack thereof. Indeed, a rather conclusive report from the Financial Times found that Scotland generated £308 less in tax revenue per person than the UK average in 2020 but received £1,633 per person more in public spending. With little clarity on the post-independence currency coming from the SNP, it is difficult to see how the Scottish Government would raise the money to make up for the loss of the Barnett formula which currently provides an £11billion surplus for Scotland. As a result, Savanta has recently polled the SNP at just 46 per cent while support for independence has sunk to its lowest since the previous election – trailing the ‘no’ camp by seven per cent.

The formation of Alex Salmond’s new ‘Alba’ party could make for an interesting election. Unionists have been given a false sense of ‘split separatist vote’ security, ignoring Scotland’s Additional Member voting system. Indeed, it is inevitable that the SNP will sweep up the Constituency seats. However, as Britain Elects’ Ben Walker points out, Alba needs a much lower percentage to gain a regional seat than the SNP and would thus inflict much greater damage upon the unionist parties. Below, Walker’s findings outline the minimum percentage Alba needs to gain a regional seat in each region and who it hurts the most:

Central Scotland: 5.8 per cent (Labour)

Glasgow: 5.9 per cent (Green)

Highlands: 5.5 per cent (Lib Dems)

Lothian: 6.6 per cent (Labour)

Mid Scotland: 6 per cent (Conservatives)

North East Scotland: 6.2 per cent (Green)

South Scotland: 5.4 per cent (SNP)

West Scotland: 5.3 per cent (Labour)

Some tactical voting could thus return a big pro-independence majority. Unfortunately, this seems to have gone over the heads of the unionist parties. There has been some attempt by the likes of George Galloway’s newly formed All For Unity party to get unionists to vote for the strongest placed unionist candidate in the Constituency vote while uniting the unionist vote around one party in the regional voting. However, this has mostly been ignored by the mainstream parties who continue to push the ‘both votes for us’ rhetoric. For me, this is mathematically illogical. Take South Scotland, for example. The Tories are all but certain to hold three constituency seats. That means it would be four times easier for All For Unity to win a regional seat than the Tories – 15,000 votes required for the former, 60,000 for the latter.

Prediction: The SNP will fall just short of a majority but will form a coalition government with the Greens who will see an increase in seats.

Welsh parliamentary elections

Unlike Scotland, it is safe to say that Welsh independence is not on the table. It is certainly something to keep an eye on for the future, however, as the pro-Union lead has dropped from 50 points in 2013 to around 24 points today.

Nevertheless, this year’s election will inevitably become a two-horse race between the two traditional mainstream parties. Ever since its creation in 1999, Labour has found itself virtually uncontested in the Welsh Senedd. Following the Brexit referendum, however, the old ‘never vote Tory’ taboo appears to be slowly diminishing in the working-class communities of former industrial and mining towns of Wales. In fact, a YouGov poll found that Boris Johnson’s Conservatives now had a mammoth 25-point lead over Labour among the working-class. Having witnessed a 10.5 per cent Labour to Tory swing during the 2019 general elections, it would not be surprising to see similar results in May’s elections. In fact, YouGov’s latest poll had Labour’s lead over the Conservatives cut down to a measly two per cent.

The Pandemic has certainly played its part in the demise of the already moribund Welsh Labour. Indeed, party leader and Corbyn ally, Mark Drakeford, has become somewhat of a pantomime villain in Wales following his questionable decisions to close all non-essential shops, reopen later than England and hold back the vaccine rollout.

One notable mention must also go to Neil Hamilton who is set to lose his seat in the Senedd and thus places the final nail in UKIP’s coffin on the national stage. UKIP’s apogee, which saw them pick up 12.6 per cent of the national vote in 2015 and an impressive seven seats in the Senedd in 2016, came and went in a flash. Following the defection of six of its WMPs, I find it rather appropriate that UKIP’s last man standing is a man whose entire career has been embroiled in scandals. Thanks for the memories, UKIP, but it is time to go.

Prediction: Labour will remain the largest party but will lose seats to both the Tories and Plaid. In the knowledge that the latter two would never get into bed with one another, Labour will likely head a minority government. Also, expect Abolish the Welsh Assembly to increase its vote share and pick up a seat or two.

Hartlepool by-election

Following the resignation of Labour MP Mike Hill, the Hartlepool by-election will arguably be seen as the first real test of Keir Starmer’s leadership. Ever since its creation in 1974, the seat of Hartlepool has always returned a Labour MP. In 2019, however, Labour saw its vote share plummet by almost 15 per cent and arguably only clung onto the seat thanks to a split in the pro-Brexit vote. Despite Reform UK leader, Richard Tice, teasing another run in Hartlepool, the dampened flames of Brexit will inevitably leave the Conservatives with a quasi-clear run at Labour, this time round.

To win, Labour must find the magic formula, once known as the Hampstead-Hartlepool alliance, coincidentally, that bridged the party’s traditional working-class base with a portion of the more middle-class liberals who shared their vision for a fairer society. Labour’s decision to select Dr Paul Williams, a Remain-voting, university-educated member of the professional managerial classes who subscribes to a liberal-progressive worldview, gives us the impression that Labour’s alliance continues to lean heavily on the latter. To add insult to injury, Peter Mandelson has been drafted in as an advisor for the by-election. While the former Secretary of State may have been returned three times in the region, it was notably in the days before the impact of Mandelson and New Labour’s neo-liberal globalism could truly be felt in the region that placed great value in community, stability, and social solidarity. The aforementioned breaking of the ‘never vote Tory’ taboo means seats like Hartlepool are no longer safe for Labour.

Other notable mentions, among the 16 candidates, must go to my beloved SDP, whose candidate campaigned by driving a tank through the city, and the newly formed Northern Independence Party which took full advantage of their opportunity to showcase themselves as a serious force offering something new by standing a former remain-voting Labour MP in a 70 per cent Leave area and then failing to register as a party due to its inability to fill the paperwork in properly.

Prediction: Tories to gain Hartlepool by a tight margin of one-two per cent. Thelma Walker to receive fewer than 100 votes…

The collapse of the ‘red wall’ – take two

‘All in all it was just a brick in the wall.’

As the 2019 election results came rolling in, Labour must have been wishing that Pink Floyd’s lyrics had been their reality. Bolsolver, Blyth Valley, Don Valley, Workington and many more… Labour’s red wall was not simply undone, it was destroyed.

While the Conservative national vote share increased by a measly 1.2 per cent, its vote share in the red wall alone surged by a whopping 10.2 per cent. If people thought that Labour could not possibly sink any lower, they would be deeply mistaken. As political academic Matthew Goodwin points out, there is potential for Labour to lose more seats in what he brands the ‘Red Wall 2.0’. This demographic, the director of the Centre for UK Prosperity explains, consists of 44 seats, 39 of which find themselves outside of London and the South, where Labour holds slim majorities of 4,000 votes or less but are equally filled with Brexit-voting and culturally conservative workers who lean left on economics and right on culture.

While national polls may not necessarily translate into local ones, Labour will certainly be very wary of the upcoming elections as they are set to defend six councils in the red wall constituencies of the Midlands and the North in which they saw their vote share plummet in 2019. Labour will have a mammoth task on their hands to keep control of Cannock Chase, Kingston upon Hull, Amber Valley, Bury, Durham and Rotherham. The latter will be particularly interesting because no elections have been held there since 2016, following the Government’s decision to suspend and replace the elected council after it was severely criticised by the Casey report into the Rotherham child sexual exploitation scandal.

Prediction: Having poured over the data, it is clear that Labour will lose its already fragile control of Cannock Chase and Amber Valley councils due to the large number of seats it must defend with razor thin majorities. Both Bury and Hull will go down to the wire but I am inclined to say that Labour should cling onto them – especially Hull which actually has more Lib Dem defences this year. Durham and Rotherham are certainly the most interesting. Whilst both currently have healthy Labour majorities, it must also be highlighted that every seat is up for election this year. Labour collapsed in these areas in 2019 and the child sexual exploitation scandal will still be deeply engraved in the minds of residents. Labour should expect an avalanche in May.

London mayoral elections

Raise the deposit to £10,000, they said. It will dissuade the time wasters from standing, they said. Just the 20 candidates are running in this year’s London mayoral election…

At a time when London is in desperate need of competent leadership, it is fair to state that the city’s mayoral election has been turned into a farce. Despite a first term of turmoil, the incumbent Sadiq Khan appears to be retaining his office with extraordinarily little difficulty as the latest Savanta poll shows the Labour candidate polling at 41 per cent with his Conservative opponent, Shaun Bailey, way back on 28 per cent. Ever since its creation in 2000, the position of London mayor has arguably exposed the weaknesses of devolution. Indeed, Khan’s tenure can be characterised by his consistent use of budget cuts to policing, the fire brigade and transport as a political football against Westminster. Neither take responsibility, neither are held accountable, neither improve London.

It must also be stated that Shaun Bailey epitomises the falsehood of the contemporary ‘Conservative’ Party. Whether it be his policy of allowing corporations to sponsor London tube stations or his blatantly anti-family policy of shaming pregnant teenagers, Bailey’s vision for London is one we have come to expect of a neo-conservative party that understands the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Elsewhere in the field, we have a YouTube prankster polling at the same level as the Greens, Jeremy Corbyn’s brother who was arrested for comparing the vaccine programme to the Holocaust, a bloke who walks around with a bin on his head and another who drinks his own urine. *sigh*

Prediction: Nothing exciting here. Sadiq Khan to win on second preference votes. Count Binface to get over 1,000 votes…

Ben Bradley double trouble

In what will be an interesting experiment to follow, Mansfield MP Ben Bradley has chosen to stand in May’s county council elections. The chairman of Blue-Collar Conservatives group was first elected to parliament in 2017 after becoming the first Conservative candidate to represent Mansfield. In 2019, he was resoundingly re-elected with a majority of over 16,000. Despite receiving some criticism for his decision, the Mansfield North candidate insists that his election to the council will allow him to tie together the decision-making process on the local and national level. Bradley went further by stating that he had often felt frustrated by the fact that he had worked hard to raise the funds for his constituency in London but had then lacked the political levers on the local level to make sure it was spent properly. His election in May would thus allow him to bridge these gaps.

Prediction: The Conservatives were just 200 votes away from power in 2017 and Ben Bradley has proven to be an immensely popular figure on both a local and national level so I would not be surprised if he is elected again in May.

Middleton Park ward

I hold my hands up. This election has been included solely because of my bias towards my party, the Social Democratic Party. Following the release of its New Declaration in 2018, the newly re-branded economically centre-left, culturally conservative social democrats are seeking to make their presence known in these elections. Their hopes of picking up a council seat in May have been pinned on Wayne Dixon who is standing for a third time in the Middleton Park ward. For me, Dixon is a fine example of what local politics should be about. A Middleton man born and bred who works tirelessly for his community all year long (and not just during election season) and has set up endless local projects, including Middleton Park football club. Labour, on the other hand, have done what they always do and parachuted in a last-minute candidate from outside the area. In 2019, Dixon successfully reduced the gap between himself and Labour by almost 20 per cent and it is fair to say that his momentum continues to grow. One notable absentee from this year’s elections is UKIP whose 831 votes in 2019 would be enough to see Dixon knock Labour off its perch.

Prediction: I have to back my man on this. Wayne Dixon to win by double digits.

High Wycombe mayoral elections

For this particular election, it is the election ceremony, rather than the result, that greatly interests us. Indeed, the town is famous for its peculiar tradition of weighing in its elected mayor; both at the beginning and end of his/her tenure. Introduced in 1678, the procession was used as a way of measuring the level of corruption of the incumbent mayor; an increase in weight suggesting a gross misuse of public funds for self-indulgence. Today, the ceremony is solely kept for the sake of fun traditions but continues to offer the spectacle of a large 18th century scale.

Prediction: In defence of Councillor Mazamal Hussain, we have been in lockdown for almost a year now…