My analysis of the British local elections of 2018, part 3-the overall picture and what we have learned
In these British local elections of 2018, the first to take place both post-Brexit and both post-snap general election, there were only two national trends: the collapse of UKIP and the long-term effects of demographic change on political results, which have been accelerated by the Brexit fault lines that were one of the strongest factors in the 2017 general election.
The West Tyrone by-election took place on the same day, and it proved to be an easy hold for Sinn Fein's Orfhlaith Begley, despite swings away from the "hardliner" parties (Sinn Fein and the DUP) on the nationalist/unionist divide towards their more moderate counterparts, the SDLP and UUP; the Alliance increased their vote share by 0.9% but lost their deposit yet again. Turnout was good by by-election standards at 55.1%, despite the relative lack of coverage of the campaign outside Northern Ireland.
There were mayoral elections in Hackney, Lewisham, Newham, Tower Hamlets, and Watford alongside these elections, all four of which were held by the parties that had won them in 2014 or in by-elections since 2014. The Tower Hamlets Mayoral election proved to be the most interesting, especially since the two parties that rose from the ashes of Tower Hamlets First, Aspire and People's Alliance for Tower Hamlets, ended up finishing second and third (Rabina Khan of PATH finished second with 16.88%, whereas Abul Monsur Ohid Ahmed finished third with only 14.3%). Their combined vote of 31.18% is considerably less than Rabina Khan achieved as an Independent (37.81%) defending the position in a 2015 by-election after Lutfur Rahman had been barred from office for corrupt and illegal practices and electoral fraud. The division of votes amongst the former "Rahmanite" faction drove many Bangladeshi voters to Labour (the majority of people who voted for Lutfur Rahman and Tower Hamlets First in 2014 are Bangladeshis; also many of the councillors who formed Tower Hamlets First and its successor groups had been Labour councillors before) which helped John Biggs win again. John still had to go through a second round of voting against Rabina to win the election, however, which he won easily by a margin of 72.66% to 27.34%, meaning that surprisingly many Aspire voters transferred their second preferences to Labour. The deselection of Sir Robin Wales from the post of Mayor of Newham boosted Labour significantly and in their safest borough; Rokshana Fiaz polled 73.4%, the highest 1st preference vote ever recorded in British mayoral history. Surprisingly in Hackney, the Greens were pushed into third place in the Hackney Mayoral election despite finishing second in the vast majority of Hackney wards. In Watford, Peter Taylor managed an increase in the Liberal Democrat vote in the Mayoral election, helped by the fact he had been Deputy Mayor to Dorothy Thornhill (now Baroness Thornhill) and a serving councillor in Oxhey ward.
Overall, what have we learned from this year's local election results?
1. "Corbynmania", which the media claimed would swing councils in Labour's favour, was just a lot of talk. The media also forgot that Labour had already won many council seats in London from the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats in 2014, and under Ed Miliband. In Hammersmith & Fulham, Ealing, and Hounslow (where the Conservatives suffered the largest seat losses in 2014) there were few marginal Conservative seats left for Labour to win, and the safe Conservative wards remaining in those areas would still remain safe even in the context of Brexit. There were also European elections at the same time back in 2014, which were bad news for the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats in local election terms as well as regarding seats in the European Parliament. If this factor was true then turnout would also have been significantly boosted amongst wards with large student populations and younger voters (29 years old or younger) in particular, and in the local elections. In reality, turnout remained poor in wards with large student populations, even though so many students supported Labour in the last general election; Headingley & Hyde Park recording a particularly bad turnout of 23%. Student turnout is particularly poor in local elections, especially since they are only in the ward for the three or four years of their degree, and often do not stay in the area after graduating (in London they simply cannot afford to do so for long enough). Also, many pro-EU voters only voted Labour tactically and given that Labour voted to trigger Article 50 and is still pro-Brexit, if not to the extent the Conservatives are, and that this was not a general election, those who voted (turnout in local elections in Britain is overall less than half that of general elections) often turned back to the Liberal Democrats and Greens. Turnout decreased in the vast majority of local councils despite the potential for council seats to change hands being higher than ever before, in addition to the UKIP seat losses being decisive in determining council control; this happened even though European elections do not provide a large boost to local election turnout (since European election turnouts have never been particularly good in the UK).
As this image demonstrates, there was a sharp turn towards councillors from parties opposed to Britain leaving the European Union:
2. Demographic change is having such a significant effect on political outcomes. Many trends seen in the 2015 general election (e.g. in the northern parts of outer London and former industrial areas like Nuneaton) were repeated on a much larger scale in this year's local elections. It is likely that the Conservatives will capture control of Dudley, Nuneaton & Bedowrth and Walsall when they next hold elections, whilst at the same time Labour will continue to erode the former Conservative strongholds of Shoreham-by-Sea and Worthing along the Sussex coast, with the parts of Brighton & Hove that the Green Party has not been able to win so far now being in Labour hands for the foreseeable future. Next year, with councils holding full council elections up for election and after Britain has officially left the European Union (29 March 2019, five weeks before that set of local elections will take place in May 2019), these effects will be even more profound and in some cases effectively irreversible. Rising house prices (combined with higher deposit thresholds for mortgages than before the 2008 financial crisis) and increasingly high rents, especially in London but now many other places, have over the last 15 years in particular driven many "core voters" of all parties out to more affordable and less metropolitan areas (and often out of cities altogether); increasing environmental problems in cities (air pollution being the most prominent) have also been responsible for driving out people to the suburbs and to commuter towns, which in turn causes political shifts in those areas.
3. All political parties need to move out of their "comfort zones." Most of the Green Party's gains were outside cities with a large student and young population, and of the councils they won a seat on for the very first time, only one was in a major city-Birmingham (that gain was also in Druids Heath & Moneyhull ward, not anywhere in Edgbaston or Selly Oak). They made 20 gains but of the 12 seats they lost, 5 were in Norwich and 2 were in Oxford, both once among the strongest areas for the Green Party. The Brexit "fault line" has also driven both Labour and the Conservatives from many of their formerly safe areas, especially since many of their old voter bases have been replaced in a changing socio-economic climate and with increasing diversity in urban areas. Whichever way you look at it, many old industries of Britain have gone and are not returning, and the increasing student population is also cementing long-term change. Only the Liberal Democrats made significant gains in the majority of their old strongholds, although they are also losing whatever little traditional support remains for them in many council areas by the coast.
Far from any "return to the status quo" we are seeing a greater divergence in the political composition of local councils in Britain; most notable is the fact that the Green Party now have their highest number of principal authority councillors ever (174) and have pulled ahead of UKIP for the first time since 2012. The 2018 British local elections did not mark a return to any previous set of local elections by any means-far from it.
4. Local issues usually overrode any other national factors or demographic shifts. This was so aptly illustrated by the Green gains in Lambeth and Sheffield and the Labour losses to the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives in Sunderland, as well as the Liberal Democrats losing 9 councillors in Sutton over waste management issues. Due to a lack of marginal wards in Kensington & Chelsea apart from Earl's Court, however, the Grenfell Tower fire story could not produce the large shift in seats Labour hoped for, especially given the enormous wealth divides in Kensington & Chelsea.
The West Tyrone by-election took place on the same day, and it proved to be an easy hold for Sinn Fein's Orfhlaith Begley, despite swings away from the "hardliner" parties (Sinn Fein and the DUP) on the nationalist/unionist divide towards their more moderate counterparts, the SDLP and UUP; the Alliance increased their vote share by 0.9% but lost their deposit yet again. Turnout was good by by-election standards at 55.1%, despite the relative lack of coverage of the campaign outside Northern Ireland.
There were mayoral elections in Hackney, Lewisham, Newham, Tower Hamlets, and Watford alongside these elections, all four of which were held by the parties that had won them in 2014 or in by-elections since 2014. The Tower Hamlets Mayoral election proved to be the most interesting, especially since the two parties that rose from the ashes of Tower Hamlets First, Aspire and People's Alliance for Tower Hamlets, ended up finishing second and third (Rabina Khan of PATH finished second with 16.88%, whereas Abul Monsur Ohid Ahmed finished third with only 14.3%). Their combined vote of 31.18% is considerably less than Rabina Khan achieved as an Independent (37.81%) defending the position in a 2015 by-election after Lutfur Rahman had been barred from office for corrupt and illegal practices and electoral fraud. The division of votes amongst the former "Rahmanite" faction drove many Bangladeshi voters to Labour (the majority of people who voted for Lutfur Rahman and Tower Hamlets First in 2014 are Bangladeshis; also many of the councillors who formed Tower Hamlets First and its successor groups had been Labour councillors before) which helped John Biggs win again. John still had to go through a second round of voting against Rabina to win the election, however, which he won easily by a margin of 72.66% to 27.34%, meaning that surprisingly many Aspire voters transferred their second preferences to Labour. The deselection of Sir Robin Wales from the post of Mayor of Newham boosted Labour significantly and in their safest borough; Rokshana Fiaz polled 73.4%, the highest 1st preference vote ever recorded in British mayoral history. Surprisingly in Hackney, the Greens were pushed into third place in the Hackney Mayoral election despite finishing second in the vast majority of Hackney wards. In Watford, Peter Taylor managed an increase in the Liberal Democrat vote in the Mayoral election, helped by the fact he had been Deputy Mayor to Dorothy Thornhill (now Baroness Thornhill) and a serving councillor in Oxhey ward.
Overall, what have we learned from this year's local election results?
1. "Corbynmania", which the media claimed would swing councils in Labour's favour, was just a lot of talk. The media also forgot that Labour had already won many council seats in London from the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats in 2014, and under Ed Miliband. In Hammersmith & Fulham, Ealing, and Hounslow (where the Conservatives suffered the largest seat losses in 2014) there were few marginal Conservative seats left for Labour to win, and the safe Conservative wards remaining in those areas would still remain safe even in the context of Brexit. There were also European elections at the same time back in 2014, which were bad news for the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats in local election terms as well as regarding seats in the European Parliament. If this factor was true then turnout would also have been significantly boosted amongst wards with large student populations and younger voters (29 years old or younger) in particular, and in the local elections. In reality, turnout remained poor in wards with large student populations, even though so many students supported Labour in the last general election; Headingley & Hyde Park recording a particularly bad turnout of 23%. Student turnout is particularly poor in local elections, especially since they are only in the ward for the three or four years of their degree, and often do not stay in the area after graduating (in London they simply cannot afford to do so for long enough). Also, many pro-EU voters only voted Labour tactically and given that Labour voted to trigger Article 50 and is still pro-Brexit, if not to the extent the Conservatives are, and that this was not a general election, those who voted (turnout in local elections in Britain is overall less than half that of general elections) often turned back to the Liberal Democrats and Greens. Turnout decreased in the vast majority of local councils despite the potential for council seats to change hands being higher than ever before, in addition to the UKIP seat losses being decisive in determining council control; this happened even though European elections do not provide a large boost to local election turnout (since European election turnouts have never been particularly good in the UK).
As this image demonstrates, there was a sharp turn towards councillors from parties opposed to Britain leaving the European Union:
2. Demographic change is having such a significant effect on political outcomes. Many trends seen in the 2015 general election (e.g. in the northern parts of outer London and former industrial areas like Nuneaton) were repeated on a much larger scale in this year's local elections. It is likely that the Conservatives will capture control of Dudley, Nuneaton & Bedowrth and Walsall when they next hold elections, whilst at the same time Labour will continue to erode the former Conservative strongholds of Shoreham-by-Sea and Worthing along the Sussex coast, with the parts of Brighton & Hove that the Green Party has not been able to win so far now being in Labour hands for the foreseeable future. Next year, with councils holding full council elections up for election and after Britain has officially left the European Union (29 March 2019, five weeks before that set of local elections will take place in May 2019), these effects will be even more profound and in some cases effectively irreversible. Rising house prices (combined with higher deposit thresholds for mortgages than before the 2008 financial crisis) and increasingly high rents, especially in London but now many other places, have over the last 15 years in particular driven many "core voters" of all parties out to more affordable and less metropolitan areas (and often out of cities altogether); increasing environmental problems in cities (air pollution being the most prominent) have also been responsible for driving out people to the suburbs and to commuter towns, which in turn causes political shifts in those areas.
3. All political parties need to move out of their "comfort zones." Most of the Green Party's gains were outside cities with a large student and young population, and of the councils they won a seat on for the very first time, only one was in a major city-Birmingham (that gain was also in Druids Heath & Moneyhull ward, not anywhere in Edgbaston or Selly Oak). They made 20 gains but of the 12 seats they lost, 5 were in Norwich and 2 were in Oxford, both once among the strongest areas for the Green Party. The Brexit "fault line" has also driven both Labour and the Conservatives from many of their formerly safe areas, especially since many of their old voter bases have been replaced in a changing socio-economic climate and with increasing diversity in urban areas. Whichever way you look at it, many old industries of Britain have gone and are not returning, and the increasing student population is also cementing long-term change. Only the Liberal Democrats made significant gains in the majority of their old strongholds, although they are also losing whatever little traditional support remains for them in many council areas by the coast.
Far from any "return to the status quo" we are seeing a greater divergence in the political composition of local councils in Britain; most notable is the fact that the Green Party now have their highest number of principal authority councillors ever (174) and have pulled ahead of UKIP for the first time since 2012. The 2018 British local elections did not mark a return to any previous set of local elections by any means-far from it.
4. Local issues usually overrode any other national factors or demographic shifts. This was so aptly illustrated by the Green gains in Lambeth and Sheffield and the Labour losses to the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives in Sunderland, as well as the Liberal Democrats losing 9 councillors in Sutton over waste management issues. Due to a lack of marginal wards in Kensington & Chelsea apart from Earl's Court, however, the Grenfell Tower fire story could not produce the large shift in seats Labour hoped for, especially given the enormous wealth divides in Kensington & Chelsea.
British elections. no mention on the mainland media of NI, and no elections in Wales or Scotland
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