UK Local Elections 2021

[09philj]

Some contests are still being counted, but the dust is settling over the latest round of elections in the UK. On Thursday the 6th of May people variously went out to vote for district, borough, city, and county councillors, members of the Scottish Parliament, members of the Senedd Cymru/Welsh Parliament, metropolitan area and regional mayors, the London Assembly, police and crime commissioners, and a parliamentary by-election in Hartlepool. Here's the winners and losers.

Winners
The Conservative Party
The party currently in government has had a pretty strong showing. They've won 239 new seats on councils in England (so far), meaning they now control an extra 12 councils, and won the Hartlepool by-election, winning the seat with an outright majority of the vote and giving the constituency it's first Conservative MP since 1964. They've also made inroads in councils in northern working class areas like Sunderland where they would have been completely unwelcome not that long ago. They've also gained several Police and Crime Commissioner roles. They've also retained their seat total in the Scottish parliament, and gained five more seats in the Senedd.

The Scottish National Party
The SNP has failed to secure a majority in the Scottish Parliament, but have gained a seat, and with the support of the Scottish Greens they will have a majority in Holyrood that supports having another referendum on Scottish independence. Given the somewhat scandal ridden year Nicola Sturgeon's had, this is a solid result for them.

The Green Party of England and Wales
Full disclosure, I'm a member of this party and I campaigned for our candidate in our target ward in my home borough. We didn't quite manage to take that seat, but across the country Greens have taken seats from a variety of parties, giving us an extra 70 81 at time of writing. As we're a fairly small party we're quite pleased with this result. We don't control any councils yet but people voting for Green councillors has taken a few councils from having Labour or Conservative majorities to being hung.

The Liberal Democrats
The Lib Dems have managed to lose eight council seats gain four council seats and one Scottish parliament seat, which isn't that bad all things considered. They made large gains in the 2018 and 2019 local elections so continuing to make net gains is a good outcome for them, particularly since it's given them control of an extra council. It'll be a while yet before the Greens can seriously challenge their status as England's third party.

Scottish Greens
The Scottish Greens are a separate party from the party for England and Wales. They've gotten an extra two Scottish Parliament seats and will have the whip hand over the SNP to get some environmentally friendly concessions, as the SNP are rather fond of oil and gas.

Plaid Cymru
The primary Welsh nationalist party have scooped up an extra seat in the Senedd, which isn't as many as they might have hoped for, but they haven't lost seats either. Labour will still usually need their help to push legislation in the Senedd over the line.

Independents/Residents' Associations
Local candidates for local people have gained an extra 43 41 council seats. That's about all you can say about independents and local parties in general terms.

Losers
The Labour Party
Replacing Jeremy Corbyn with Keir Starmer as party leader was supposed to be a turning point for Labour. In actual fact what's happened is that they've lost 301 317 council seats, control of seven eight councils, two seats in the Scottish Parliament, their Westminster seat in Hartlepool, and five Police and Crime Commissioners. There's various competing theories as to what's gone so wrong for Labour, but I don't think anyone thinks that what they've actually done in firing their deputy leader will help. The only silver linings for Labour are gaining two more metro mayors, and retaining control of the London Assembly, Mayor of London, and Senedd.

UKIP
This is the end of UKIP as a meaningful force in British politics. Well, they were already dead but now they've stopped twitching. The right wing populist party has lost 43 48 seats so far and not retained a single one. The Conservatives are now the party of populism, and there is no space for competitors. Also their candidate for London Mayor finished behind Count Binface, a man wearing a dustbin on his head and cricket pads on his shins.

Reform UK
What was meant to be a successor to UKIP has only managed to gain two council seats. Like UKIP, there is no place for them in the current political landscape.

Alba
Former SNP leader Alex Salmond wanted revenge on his erstwhile protégé Nicola Sturgeon by making his new party essential to her pro-independence majority in Holyrood. They've not won a single seat, and will probably dissolve in short order.

The TLDR:
The Tories are doing well, the Greens are clawing their way towards national relevance, and Labour is collapsing. Everyone else is standing still, more or less.

EDIT:
The Liberal Democrats have actually done alright, moved them to winners, and updated everyone else's seat totals while I was on.

 

[Seanchaidh]

Replacing Jeremy Corbyn with Keir Starmer as party leader was supposed to be a turning point for Labour.

Sounds like it was, just not in a good way.

 

[Trunkage]

Go Binface!

Sounds like it was, just not in a good way.

I don't think Corbyn was great. He didn't even win against Johnson. But they could have at least replaced him with someone that was as good as him

 

[09philj]

Sounds like it was, just not in a good way.

Well no because Corbyn was also pretty unsuccessful, he was just protected somewhat by the Brexit Party (Now Reform UK) splitting the right wing vote. Now they're gone Labour has to accept the scale of their own weakness in the face of Boris Johnson's galvanised Conservatives. (It didn't help that the right of the party actively tried to sabotage Corbyn. Or that Corbyn's supporters insisted everything was alright when they failed to defeat the Conservatives led by the enormously unpopular Theresa May in the 2017 general election.)

 

[Seanchaidh]

Well no because Corbyn was also pretty unsuccessful, he was just protected somewhat by the Brexit Party (Now Reform UK) splitting the right wing vote. Now they're gone Labour has to accept the scale of their own weakness in the face of Boris Johnson's galvanised Conservatives. (It didn't help that the right of the party actively tried to sabotage Corbyn. Or that Corbyn's supporters insisted everything was alright when they failed to defeat the Conservatives led by the enormously unpopular Theresa May in the 2017 general election.)

The writing is (and has been) on the wall, the Labour Right would rather a Conservative government than anyone like Corbyn to win. They have their wish in Keir Starmer, not even having to worry now about accidentally winning.

 

[Gergar12]

The Labour Party is what makes me afraid of the progressives winning in the US. If, and only if the more progressive democrats get M4A and a whole host of progressive issues passed. I fear that they will look either inward, and ignore the rest of the world while the planet burns, or we will be back to the 1950s again, and Republicans will slowly become like the UK conservatives but will win election after election.

Damn it British voters you are supposed to protect your social democracy, not sell it, Boris Johnson. Granted my fear is premature, but conservative ideology is outdated, greedy, and frankly dangerous. I don't care if we would have a better welfare state we need to replace conservatism with a better form of ideology. It's based on fear of the unknown, change, and sharing.

 

[Cheetodust]

So Labour did worse by attempting to be milquetoast, political nothings alienating the leftists who might vote for them while trying to appeal to the center right that never will? Sure am glad the libs thought us all it was wrong to push for radical leftist policies or the tories might have... I dunno, do you get your opponents car if you win by enough votes?

 

[Agema]

Well no because Corbyn was also pretty unsuccessful, he was just protected somewhat by the Brexit Party (Now Reform UK) splitting the right wing vote. Now they're gone Labour has to accept the scale of their own weakness in the face of Boris Johnson's galvanised Conservatives. (It didn't help that the right of the party actively tried to sabotage Corbyn. Or that Corbyn's supporters insisted everything was alright when they failed to defeat the Conservatives led by the enormously unpopular Theresa May in the 2017 general election.)

Yes.

A lot of Labour's problems in its one-time heartlands are demographic shifts. The single biggest indicator of voting intentions is age (Labour voters tend to be younger). The old postindustrial towns have seen very heavy increases in older populations over the last 20 years: these are struggling places where the youth move out to the more fashionable cities and pretty much never come back. And whatever carping can be directed at Starmer, no-one should forget the wall collapsed under Corbyn.

That said, the Labour vote share in lots of these places has in a way held up reasonably well. Labour tended to take these seats without outright majorities, with the third parties strong enough to ensure the Tories were a distant second (or even third). When Brexit came along, however, it caused a realignment with the third parties collapsing and the Tories eventually gobbling up all the territory when UKIP/Brexit parties died. The general story here is that Tories have very, very, effectively used Brexit and crude nationalism as a wedge issue to lever themselves into contention. I think their support is fragile, however. These places don't much trust or like the Tories and are "giving them a chance". If the Tories don't deliver, they'll lose them again.

Labour is still stuck with a fundamental problem that it's had for a long time of how to appeal to various voter groups that are quite far apart on major issues. The key problem of Brexit is that it magnified the obviousness and severity of the gap. I think it's also useful to take a look at Europe, where the left is also in almost continent-wide disarray - the mainstream left is basically nowhere, and the further left has had a couple of peaks in Spain and Greece, but otherwise dribbled away again. In Europe, however, proportional representation allows these varied centre-left voters choices of parties: centre-liberal, social democratic, further left, green. With a two-party system, it's much harder to build a coalition from these disparate groups that will back a single party. Appeals to some of these groups damages support in others.

The final problem problem (outside Labour's own failings) is the ever-present media bias in the national press which makes the Tories largely immune from a great deal of reputational damage they assuredly should deserve.

My general view is that the Labour Party is a bit like the England football team since the 1990s. Constantly in angst about its manager, when the real problem is that the team is mediocre and the state of the whole game in the country is not conducive to producing a good national team.

 

[Seanchaidh]

Seems relevant:

 

[Baffle]

I think it just has to be accepted that England is a very conservative and shit country, and that many English people are selfish dickheads. Though Labour did deserve to get trounced on this one. Starmer is just so nothing.

I don't think we should ignore that the Conservatives are now openly saying central government funding will go to towns with Tory councils. Which, come on, should be illegal.

Labour won in my red wall ward by 45 votes; turnout <50%.

 

[Breakdown]

The general story here is that Tories have very, very, effectively used Brexit and crude nationalism as a wedge issue to lever themselves into contention. I think their support is fragile, however. These places don't much trust or like the Tories and are "giving them a chance". If the Tories don't deliver, they'll lose them again.

I wouldn't be too sure about that. Living in the northeast, I've got plenty of family members who were Labour voters and are now voting Conservative. I can't see them going back to Labour any time soon. It's like they've been brainwashed.

 

[Agema]

I think it just has to be accepted that England is a very conservative and shit country, and that many English people are selfish dickheads. Though Labour did deserve to get trounced on this one. Starmer is just so nothing.

I'm not sure it's true that England is so conservative, not compared to anywhere else, anyway.

I think it's a much bigger problem finding a coherent message to tie together enough of the people who aren't conservative and getting it past the rabidly pro-Tory media.

 

[Silvanus]

Deputy Leader Angela Rayner has been dropped as party chair & elections coordinator.

If this is just a straightforward firing, it's an absurdly stupid move by Starmer. Rayner is well liked, has the northern working-class background and appeal that Starmer lacks, is one of the most effective communicators on the front bench, and also holds the respect of the left of the party (meaning that targeting her for demotion would incite another factional fight).

But its not entirely clear that's all this was: Starmer allies have apparently been briefing that she's been removed from these roles because she's about to be promoted to a much higher-profile position on the frontbench, with more visibility. If that's the case.... OK, good. Guess we have to wait for the reshuffle to be sure.

NB: Rayner was my favoured candidate for party leader; I was a bit sad she didn't run for it, to let Rebecca Long-Bailey (a far worse communicator) run in her place.

 

[Baffle]

But its not entirely clear that's all this was: Starmer allies have apparently been briefing that she's been removed from these roles because she's about to be promoted to a much higher-profile position on the frontbench, with more visibility. If that's the case.... OK, good. Guess we have to wait for the reshuffle to be sure.

Even if she's put in a 'better' role now, it's going to look like back-pedalling due to the response, whether it is or it isn't. I mean, just make a single announcement where she leaves one job and enters another!

 

[09philj]

Counts overnight and this morning have rather brightened the picture for the Liberal Democrats. They're down to a net loss of just two councillors and have gained control of a new council. Their performance has exceeded my expectations, I fully expected them to get whacked, but they've benefitted from disillusionment with Labour councils quite a lot.

 

[Silvanus]

Even if she's put in a 'better' role now, it's going to look like back-pedalling due to the response, whether it is or it isn't. I mean, just make a single announcement where she leaves one job and enters another!

Yeah, coms have been fucked up.

But the single announcement of a role shift/ promotion might have been what was planned. The loss of party chair/ elections coordinator wasn't formally announced, just let-out-of-the-bag during briefings by aides and allies.

It's possible Starmer planned to promote her, then the press got hold of this and decided to run with the firing narrative and not the promotion because its so easy to provoke more infighting.

 

[Agema]

Even if she's put in a 'better' role now, it's going to look like back-pedalling due to the response, whether it is or it isn't. I mean, just make a single announcement where she leaves one job and enters another!

As far as I can tell, there is no official statement from Labour that Raynor has been sacked from those roles, though.

Any reshuffle needs to be planned first, and once the planning is complete and new roles are arranged, the announcements get made. What seems to have happened is that someone's blabbed to the press whilst the reshuffle is still in the planning phase, after the decision to remove her from those roles and before her being assigned new ones. This artificially creates the impression she was "fired" and when it turns out she actually isn't, it gets spun as a climbdown in the face of backlash.

 

[Baffle]

What seems to have happened is that someone's blabbed to the press

Well, someone is going to get sacked anyway.

 

[Agema]

Well, someone is going to get sacked anyway.

You know what they say about rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic.

 

[Baffle]

You know what they say about rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic.

Honestly, the only way I see Labour getting anywhere now is supporting proportional representation, and I'm not sure they'll get my vote in a GE if they don't. At least if PR was an option it wouldn't be so bad if the left and right of the party split.