Yes, it’s finally here, it’s local election day for parts of the United Kingdom. Not every council is up for election as it is the wrong part of the electoral cycle for them but there’s going to be an awful lot of council seats, Welsh Senned and Scottish Parliament seats across England, Wales and Scotland being contested. Like many local election cycles in Britain these contests are being treated as a test of the popularity of the party in government nationally. It’s often the case that those voters who can be arsed to turn out in what are often very low turn out electoral contests, use the locals as a method of punishing a national government incumbent party that has become unpopular. We saw this with locals under the Thatcher Administration and with Blair after the start of the Iraq War.
Because of the Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s remarkable unpopularity among the British people not just the commentariat, these elections have become something akin in some people’s minds to the US Mid Terms even though in reality and constitutionally they are nothing of the sort. We are not voting for the Legislative branch of the national government as our American friends do in the Mid Terms but for often very local politicians to manage local matters. We are not voting for those who would constitutionally theoretically oppose or support the Executive, as it is the case for Americans, but for people to oversee emptying the bins, filling potholes on minor roads, street lighting, local education and social care. However it can’t be denied that national politics will inevitably intrude into local politics and national concerns can often influence local elections.
So what’s going to happen? Who knows? This is a very open election with two very strong challenger parties, The Greens and Reform to the usual crowd of Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat. It’s difficult to predict British politics and psephology at the moment but I suspect that the challenger parties will take votes from local government’s Big Three. I believe that we will have a worrying number of religious sectarians win council seats or even take entire councils and these are to be found not just standing as independents but those who have played the Trojan Horse game with the Greens.
Whether we get a lot of sensible councillors and sensible Members of the Scottish Parliament and of the Welsh Assembly or whether we get a motley collection of sectarians and nutcases depends on how large is the turnout for these elections. If the electorate is based primarily on those who take an interest in politics and it is a low one then the outcome is determined by those who can actually be arsed to vote and that might in some seats be an absolute minority of available voters. A goodly proportion of those absolute minority of available voters might not have good intentions to you and yours. They might be sectarians or political extremists or suchlike and if you don’t want such people and you want your area to be better managed then you really have to get out and vote. I’ve often said that when a majority of those eligible to vote get out and do so you get a local council that is more representative of the views of the public than if they are elected only by a majority of the 35% or so who bother to turn out. If you want things to change for the better then you need to get out and vote for that. Don’t let the Apathy Party win.