To See What’s Happening, follow the power! A look at the English Local Elections

Having spent my first big polling day since 2001 without a polling day and count to be involved with, it’s been fascinating to take a step back and observe. First, to see the results as they come in, and secondly to watch the discourse and analysis take shape.

A lot of the chatter has been around which party “won” and “lost”. This is a totally false line of enquiry to which the answer is that every party won somewhere and lost somewhere, although UKIP did their best to challenge that….. But there are some really big and interesting questions we can be asking.

When will we start thinking about where the power is and who holds it to account?

The conventional mass media analysis of these elections seems to be able to (imperfectly, sometimes) analyse totals of votes, total numbers of councillors and which parties (or none) have a majority. This gives us a pretty good idea of what’s going on, but it could be deeper. In general, the way we see local elections needs to do so much more to recognise the realities of power within local authorities.

I’ve always felt a bit of unease at the phrase “No Overall Control”. It seems like it’s hiding some important information. Why can’t they at least tell us the biggest party, as in most cases this party will be the most powerful? Instead of “Conservative→NOC”, say “Con Maj→ Lab Min”? There’s something about the NOC designation which sounds like the council has been plunged into crisis because nobody has a majority. It signifies a strange old-fashioned first-past-the-postish mindset that suggests that minority power means weakness.

But one of the most standout features of the reaction to last week’s results has been a lack of recognition of the real aims of parties. For the very smallest parties, who have no prospect of any councillors, they want to maximise votes and to show that they are popular. For parties like the Greens, UKIP and (in most of England) the Lib Dems, the aim is to break through and establish themselves as ward representatives and as effective scrutinising and influencing forces on councils. In other words, they’ll assess their performance by number of councillors and number of councils on which they’re represented. For the big two, plus the Lib Dems in some areas, the aim is to be in power. So why do the discussions over whether Labour “won or lost” seem to be concentrated on numbers of votes and councillors and not on whether they’re taking charge? Most councils are so centralised in their structures that success at the highest level can only be gauged by who has leadership.

Just for fun, let’s look at what changed hands. There aren’t many. I took a guess in some cases at who will lead minority councils, as that’ll be for negotiation. Councils in bold are single-tier, and hence a bigger council.

So a little movement towards Labour on the swingometer, but it’s not as though they’re storming into town halls up and down the country.

For completeness, here are the councils where one party have moved from minority to majority control:

Barnet (Con)

Basildon (Con)

Kirklees: (Lab)

Peterborough: (Con)

Three Rivers: (LD)

And these went from majority to minority control:

Nuneaton and Bedworth (Lab)

Derby (Lab)

Mole Valley (Con)

When do national issues matter in local elections?

The first comment on this is that it’s frequently a mistake to use local election results to make national predictions. Even if people do go into the polling booth with nothing but May, Corbyn, Brexit and the NHS in their heads, the sheer difference in turnout makes analysis flawed.

Some of the most fascinating (and, as far as politicians and campaigners is concerned, most ignored) political science theory is surrounding what issues people have in their heads when they vote, and what that means for the results. On top of that, it’s important to look at what factors get people out to vote at all.

This can be complex stuff, but it seems logical that if there’s an absense of local campaigning, voters are left to make their decisions on the basis of national politics. On the other side of the coin, if local issues are perfectly promoted by candidates, they’ll be salient. Here’s a very generalised version of how it works:

There are a couple of case studies I think are interesting here.

The first is Pallion and Sandhill wards in Sunderland. Both would be expected to be safe Labour wards and had similar results to one another in 2016, with Labour just over 50% and UKIP on about 25%. The Lib Dems were back on about 4% in both cases. But in the last year, both have had byelections in which the Lib Dems won, and last week both wards were convincingly held by the Lib Dems. Those who take a conventional analysis have been baffled by this- why on earth are people in a solidly Brexit-supporting area flocking to the most anti-Brexit party on the menu? But the answer is simple, the Lib Dems have done such a good job of setting the agenda. The Labour council is a complacent failing mess and the Lib Dems have made sure the people know that and will use their vote to do something about it. Brexit schmexit.

Secondly, Highbury East. In none of Islington’s other 16 wards did anybody come within 500 votes of unseating a Labour Councillor, and this is also consistently the highest turnout ward, having been repeatedly fought hard. This is Jeremy Corbyn’s back yard, and Labour heavily rely on the Labour/Tory or Corbyn/May dynamic to rally support. The difference here was that it was in the Greens’ interests to drag attention back to the local, and to increase the salience of the fact that it was Highbury East Greens that stand in the way of Labour holding every single seat on the council, and that their councillor Caroline Russell had been doing a fantastic job as the thorn in Labour’s side (as a one-woman opposition) for the last four years.

And looked at through this lens, these campaigns make for fascinating observation.

When will we start seriously looking at Proportional Representation for English local elections, and who will push this effectively?

Many people have pointed to the fact that more people voted Labour in Wandsworth than any other party, yet the Conservatives have a majority of councillors. There are numerous cases of parties having well into double-figure percentages of the vote across an authority but having no councillors. Assuming those people remember that, at least it’ll be a boost to the campaign for a fairer voting system.

But one of the biggest challenges for the campaign for PR is to find a driving force behind it that can’t be dismissed as acting in self-interest. It can’t be effectively driven by a political party, and as great a job as groups like the Electoral Reform Society do in speaking up for PR, they need a boost of power from somewhere, but where? A genuinely viral and sustained public outcry seems a long way off.

What are we going to do about one-party states?

It casts serious questions over governance that we have councils responsible for hundreds of thousands of pounds of public money, and the formal debate and scrutiny is carried out entirely by councillors who are whipped and usually committed to supporting the administration.

PR would probably solve this problem, but without PR there’s a case for additional safeguards. Possibly if the number of opposition councillors falls below a certain level there should be a watchdog body selected or elected from within the unelected candidates?

Will UKIP save themselves?

It’s easy to see UKIP’s disastrous failure to find national direction and assume their imminent death. But what we’re seeing in local elections is them being stripped down from a populist party to a residue of grassroots support. They’re capable of getting 59% of the vote in one ward in Derby, and this shows there’s a potential future for them on councils if they come to terms with that, but I don’t think they will.

We need to talk about Richmond?

I’m going to stick my neck out here, and say that the Lib Dems would probably have won the Richmond Park byelection without the backing of the Greens, although it may have been very close. They certainly would have had a hefty majority on the council without the deal. But, with benefit of hindsight, the “deal” certainly seems to have helped Greens more than Lib Dems, and wasn’t necessary to defeat Tories.

But it’s probably more interesting to see what happens now. The Green Councillors will find themselves, in many cases, as the de facto main opposition to councillors they’ve been campaigning alongside. The Lib Dem administration will find themselves administering cuts, and the need to scrutinise and oppose will create an interesting dynamic. History of successful inter-party cooperation in UK politics has always been short-lived, and I see no difference here.