Local Elections 2018: A Nation divided?

A reflection on the recent local elections by one of our students, Christian Turner.

On Thursday 3^rd May, parts of England went to vote in their local elections. In Sheffield, the city held its first ever election for metropolitan mayor, whereas 4,371 seats were vacant on 150 local councils across various parts of England. For Prime Minister Theresa May and Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn, this was their first test since the excitement of the General Election last year. For Corbyn, it was a chance to prove that his party is indeed a ‘Government in waiting’, fully intent on wrestling away power from the Conservatives and recovering from his party’s disastrous local election results last year. For May, it was an opportunity to briefly put aside the issues of Brexit and recover from the media spotlight over the Windrush scandal, in addition to proving that last year’s General Election was merely a blip as opposed to a transition of power.

Who won?

Well nobody. As the old cliché goes ‘half of the battle is showing up’, but it seems no one seemed to tell the leaders what to do the remaining half of the time. For Labour, hopes of gaining control of Westminster, Wandsworth and Swindon Councils failed, with Wandsworth in particular the biggest disappointment of the night after extensive efforts from the likes of London Mayor Sadiq Khan. However, they did prevail in gaining control of Plymouth Council, whilst removing the ‘blue dot’ in the North West by switching Trafford Council from Conservative control to no overall control. In addition, they netted another important mayoral victory in Sheffield, where Dan Jarvis has been elected and may eventually force a by-election if he can deliver a devolution breakthrough for Yorkshire.

For the Conservatives, the story of the night appeared to be a return of many UKIP voters to the party. In Basildon and Peterborough, the UKIP vote collapsing saw the Conservatives gain control of the respective councils, whilst in Barnet, the anti-Semitism issue that has plagued the Labour party over the last few weeks saw it switch from no overall control to Tory control. However, the overall picture is of some concern to the Tories, who lost 33 councillors and control 2 councils less when compared to 2014.

Finally, the Liberal Democrats were able to gain 75 seats across the country, which saw them gain control of Richmond Council and place them in a strong position to gain neighbour council Kingston-Upon-Thames next year, which hosts the Parliamentary seat of party leader Sir Vince Cable.

Who lost?

UKIP. For the party, its demise has been staggering. After a crushing defeat at last year’s General Election, it has been followed up by electing just 3 councillors and losing 123. The run-up to this year’s local elections saw a number of local councillors either defect to the Conservatives, resign their party membership and thereby sit as independents, or even form their own local parties. Whilst it did secure a small victory in defeating Derby City Council leader Ranjit Banwait, which saw the council switch from Labour control to no overall control, it is clear that UKIP is on the verge of extinction, and will require an extraordinary run of good fortune to survive. Just last month, the party nearly declared bankruptcy after being forced to pay the legal fees of three Rotherham MPs, which came in at £175,000. Two weeks ago, Gerard Batten was named leader of the party after promising to stand for only one year after UKIP admitted it would struggle with the financial demands of running yet another leadership contest after the removal of Henry Bolton. Thursday’s local election indicates that Batten has an almighty challenge if he is to turn around the fortunes of the party.

In truth though, everyone will be left feeling disappointed when reviewing the results in the coming weeks. As the BBC Laura Kuenssberg points out, there is little to suggest in the overnight results to suggest we are heading towards a big majority for either Labour or the Conservatives. For Corbyn, this performance will be particularly disappointing. After exceeding expectations last year in the General Election, he would have hoped for a similar result at this year’s elections to give him the momentum to carry on challenging the Government. In fact, you would have thought his anti-austerity message would carry the most credence in local elections, with local authorities struggling with funding cuts and increased social responsibility from the Government. Instead, the whispers against his leadership will once again reignite and bring doubts over whether he is the Labour leader capable of bringing down the Conservative Government.

For the Prime Minister, it’s another sigh of relief. When you are a minority Government, it is always the little things that can bring you down, and she would have feared a poor election performance on the back of increased pressure from Windrush and Brexit, which could have ended her Premiership and put her into the history books with the shortest premiership since Alec Douglas-Home in 1964. Yet, the election result does little to consolidate her grip on Number 10 and the party leadership, showing how far she has fallen since last year; where the local elections delivered considerable Conservative gains and hopes of a significant majority in the General Election. For May, she will have to realistically accept that she is unlikely to face many more elections as the leader of the Conservative Party, and instead needs to begin to consider her ‘exit strategy’. After all, there are few politicians who will want to be remembered as the Prime Minister who ripped Britain out of the European Union, bringing with it the various economic challenges in addition to issues such as Northern Ireland, and held the shortest premiership in 54 years.