Someone, I can’t quite remember who, said that making political predictions at a time of political flux and increasing social chaos is a fools errand, but I’m going to have a go anyway.
In a way the upcoming local elections in England and Wales are probably more open than they have been in years. There are new parties springing up and a new politics is being built, although some of this new politics such as that which is built on religious sectarianism is quite concerning.
Not every local authority is having elections this time, this is usual for local authority election cycles. Also some councils have deferred elections due to upcoming administrative changes to the borders of electoral and council areas.
However, providing that these local elections have a good turnout, they could provide a good litmus test for the political mood of the nation.
Here’s what could happen. Parties that are incumbent in national government are often punished by the voters at local election times. This is normal and is particularly pronounced when there is a national government that is unpopular or controversial. Therefore with Labour attracting all sorts of opprobrium for their policies I expect them to lose a lot of seats and lose seats in particular in areas where they might previously have been strong such as in the North of England.
The Tories will also take a hit as they will like Labour be victims of a new politics that appears to be more sceptical of the ‘Big Two’ parties than has previously been the case however they might not suffer as bad as Labour could and might even take significant councils from Labour. The Conservative Party for all its faults and for all that it should take the blame for many of our current ills, is not dead yet.
The Greens might do very well with the Jihad and Jew hating crowd and among disaffected middle class leftists that might previously had voted Labour. They’ll do well with the young and those who have never experienced socialism and don’t know or understand how badly socialism damages societies. They might still pick up votes from the enviro-lunatics but some of this cohort might be put off from voting for the Greens because of the party’s recent transmogrification into a hard line Communism and Jihad party where environmental concerns seem to have been allocated a seat in the very back of the bus. Labour could pick up votes from disaffected Green voters as might the Liberal Democrats. In the medium to longer term I expect some that express support for the Greens now might not do so in the future once they find out just what the UK Green Party stands for.
The elections are going to be a big test for Reform. Can they translate their sometimes impressive but latterly less so polling leads into council seats? The initial euphoria about Reform that was reflected in polling has subsided and although in some polls Reform leads, it’s not by the massive majority numbers they once did. I expect them to do well but I don’t expect them to sweep the board or anything like that. Again whether Reform voters are motivated enough to help give a high turnout might depend on whether they do well or not. If the armchair Reform supporters do get out and vote then this might work out well for them. Where Reform do do well I suspect that it will be because they’ve taken voters from both the Labour and the Tory parties.
Restore Britain, is not standing nationwide and is only standing in Great Yarmouth but under a local Great Yarmouth party name not as Restore Britain. They have had endorsements from some independent candidates but they are not a big presence on the wider local election scene. Probably for the best as I don’t think they’ve built a functional party structure yet and they don’t really have much of a policy grounding only soundbites and memes. If they had had stood candidates nationally I don’t think they would have done as well as some of the online boosters of Restore Britain believe they would.
Turning out attention to the Liberal Democrats, possibly the worst named party in Britain as they are less than classically liberal these days and have by their reaction to the Brexit vote, shown that some of their members and politicians have a contempt for democracy. I expect them to have a respectable result. They might gain some councils and council seats but they might also be hurt by public disquiet at some of their policies and attitudes, for example their embrace of transgenderism and might be punished in those areas where the Lib Dems have messed up local governance. They could pick up votes from disaffected former Green voters and also continue to build a following on those who are basically non-ideological but who dislike the Big Two parties. The Lib Dems have been very successful in garnering the votes of this latter category.
Some areas are going to experience something quite worrying and that is religious sectarian candidates who are campaigning heavily in Muslim dominated areas of Britain. These sectarian candidates who are standing as independents base their campaigning almost entirely on the wants and interests of Muslims and are putting Gaza to the forefront on their campaigning. These avowedly religious sectarian independents are going to be in addition to candidates from parties like the Greens who are also targeting the Islamic religious sectarian vote. I suspect that these sectarians will do well in Muslim areas something we’ve seen in places like Tower Hamlets in East London where a Bangladeshi oriented sectarian party named Aspire is the largest party in the borough. Sectarianism might be good for some Muslims but it is not a good thing for the wider society.
I hope the turnout for these elections is good, it needs to be. This is because when you get councillors elected on tiny turnouts it means that they’ve not been elected by a majority but only by a majority of those who could be arsed to turn out. They might have won a seat but also not ‘won’ it at the same time if you see what I mean. Low turnouts mean that we are represented by politicians who we didn’t choose but who were chosen by others more motivated to vote than we are. This is why in some cases we get nutty greens or sectarians as councillors or placemen put there by the local party machine whether that be Tory, Sectarian, Labour or Lib Dem and who stay in place due to local political inertia and low turnouts. We sometimes get the politicians we deserve by not getting out and voting we really do. So, if you are hesitating about voting then don’t, just get out there and vote, you never know it might make a difference.