Super Thursday 2021 part 3: Counties, districts, metropolitan boroughs, and unitaries

The main event of Super Thursday for England was the elections of county councils and district councils, metropolitan boroughs, and unitary authorities up for election this year (accounting for the delayed 2020 elections) which included the majority of authorities.

I was the Green Party candidate in Letchworth South West, in the district of North Hertfordshire, and also for Letchworth South in Hertfordshire, both of which were held by the Conservatives. The story of Labour's Red Wall in the north and Midlands continuing to crumble was countered by the losses the Conservatives made in traditionally more prosperous, and therefore traditionally more safely Conservative, counties such as Hertfordshire. In fact North Hertfordshire remained under no overall control, with Letchworth Grange being the only ward the Conservatives gained from Labour in North Hertfordshire; once again straws needed to be drawn with Chesfield being the ward the Liberal Democrats won on the drawing of straws this year (in 2019, it was Letchworth South West). Furthermore Letchworth North marked one of only three Labour gains from Conservative in Hertfordshire, the other two being both Borehamwood divisions. Within Hertfordshire the Liberal Democrats managed to unseat the county council leader, David Williams, in one of the wealthiest county council divisions in the country, Harpenden North East, although given the proportion of graduates and commuters in Hertfordshire it is hardly surprising that the Liberal Democrats did well there, although middle-of-the-road Welwyn Hatfield, not too far from either North Herts or St Albans (the district in which Harpenden is located) proved to be the bright spot for the Conservatives in Hertfordshire at district and county level; they gained overall control of Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council and gained two county council divisions there without losing any in return.

Most of the county council elections proved to be a disaster for Labour. For the first time since 1925, Labour lost overall control of Durham County Council, as the Red Wall continued to collapse in North East England, and there are enough localist Independents to help seize control of the administration. In Staffordshire they were almost wiped out, losing every division in Newcastle-under-Lyme and Cannock Chase and winning only 4 seats, and no more than one in any Staffordshire district. Derbyshire is another clear sign of Sir Keir Starmer's failure to win over skilled working-class voters lost by Jeremy Corbyn-only in the town of Chesterfield did Labour win a plurality of divisions and they did not win a single Derbyshire County Council division south of the Peak District; in fact south of the Peak District the Green Party were the only progressive party to win a division (Duffield & Belper South). In Nottinghamshire Labour were lucky not to cede official opposition status to Independents (primarily Ashfield Independents and Mansfield Independents) and were almost wiped out in their former stronghold of Mansfield at county council level. Conversely, Labour managed to win all three county council divisions in Worthing in West Sussex for the very first time, and also against all odds gain two county council seats in Kent due to the "Brexit lorry park" anxiety there. Furthermore their gains in Cambridgeshire helped push it into no overall control. 

At district level, it was a very bad time for Labour generally, especially in "blue collar" areas. The most notable examples of this were Labour losing all but one of the seats they were defending in Harlow and Nuneaton & Bedworth and they failed to win a single seat in either Cannock Chase, Redditch, or Tamworth. Anticipated gains in Shoreham-by-Sea did not materialise at either district or county council level in spite of gaining six seats in Worthing next door. Their better retention of seats in Manchester, except in Bolton which had a particularly unpopular Labour administration, was mainly due to the Conservatives being tarnished in the North West over the harsh restrictions it dealt with last year compared to similar areas in the North East, most of Yorkshire & The Humber, and the Midlands. Labour's net loss of 327 councils represents a 20% reduction in the seats they were defending

Although the net increase of 236 represents a 12% increase in Conservative councillors in seats that were up for election in 2016 and 2017, the diversity of election results tells an interesting narrative. Furthermore their gains did not merely come in the "Red Wall" in the ex-mining and industrial towns in the north-there were also considerable gains in the ageing suburbs and coastal towns whose populace is actually middle-class and reasonably well-educated, but with more conservative cultural values. A key example was Worcester, which had remained in no overall control for the last six years with the Greens holding the balance of power, but by one seat the Conservatives gained overall control. This helped them become the largest party in Hartlepool for the first time in decades, consolidating on their by-election gain, and strengthen their control on Dudley and Walsall even further. However, when it came to shires south of the Wash, they generally made considerable losses with the exception of Cornwall; their stockbroker and patio heartland of Surrey incurred the highest number of net Conservative losses (14). A Green surge in East Sussex almost cost the Conservatives control of that county council. 

At the end of the election weekend, the Liberal Democrats surprisingly managed a net gain of 8 councillors, but in reality they are on their way out in the long-term and the vast majority of their gains were against the Conservatives in the south east, and of the councils up for election this year they only gained control of St Albans where they were already the largest party; no council up for this election this year that was north of the Wash ended up under Liberal Democrat control. They spectacularly collapsed in the old liberal heartland of Cornwall, falling to third place behind Independents as the Conservatives gained overall control of Cornwall for the first time in decades, and made little headway in Devon, also once a bastion of liberal strength. In most councils north of the Wash, notable exceptions being Kingston-upon-Hull and Newcastle-upon-Tyne, they made net losses of seats or found their performance stalling, even in Stockport which has been their most reliable source of council seats in Greater Manchester. These are clear signs that less affluent but still well-educated voters are losing faith in the Liberal Democrats, especially with the Brexit issue having been over and done with, and that few others are willing to lend their support.

The Green Party surge of this election weekend is a story that should have been given far better coverage than it actually got, with Sky News lumping Greens in as "others" even when they finished ahead of the Liberal Democrats. As the pressing need for greener lifestyles and the need to take action on pollution grows, so does the Green vote. The Greens made a net gain of 88 seats in this election, most notably becoming the official opposition on Suffolk County Council where they trebled their 2017 seats, the first time they have become the official opposition on any county council in England, and the joint-largest party with Labour in Bristol where they won 24 seats, more than doubling their 2016 total and winning all but two of the council seats within the boundaries of the Bristol West constituency. They also won their very first county council seats in Buckinghamshire, Derbyshire, East Sussex, Durham, Hertfordshire, Northumberland, and West Sussex, returned to Norfolk County Council via three gains in Norwich, and Oxfordshire County Council despite making no gains in divisions in Oxford itself, and lost only four county council seats which surprisingly included Stroud Central, where former Labour MP David Drew won by 597 votes against former Green MEP Molly Scott-Cato. (Stonehouse, where Mr Drew lives, meanwhile, was gained by the Conservatives at county council level even after the Conservative candidate's past conviction for demanding money with menaces was revealed by Private Eye). Greens also proved themselves capable of winning seats almost anywhere in England (unlike the Liberal Democrats whose support is increasingly confined to cathedral cities such as Winchester and wealthy commuter towns in the south); as well as 13 gains in the city of Bristol they gained 3 seats in Burnley, 5 in Stroud, their first seat in Adur (Shoreham-by-Sea and surrounds) and re-entered Cambridge via 2 gains in Abbey ward, amongst others. The Greens are firmly on course to become Britain's third party, although such a shift will have to wait 2 years when the majority of district council seats become up for election.

As for other parties, only Mebyon Kernow made any real gains at all, gaining one more seat in Cornwall. UKIP lost all of the seats they had up for election but most of them were not even defended by UKIP, which has no reason to exist with even the Brexit transition period now over and Reform UK taking what little support it has. Reform UK won just two seats, both in Derby with sitting councillors, but across most of the UK its vote totals were derisory. I myself polled more than quadruple the number of votes Reform UK did in Letchworth South (they got 91, I got 384). TUSC fared even worse, rarely polling above double figures where they stood, showing that there is in fact no real appetite amongst the British public for hardline socialism, even amongst fans of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. The Freedom Alliance, like UKIP, were rejected simply for no longer being relevant, with Britain on its way out of lockdown permanently. Local independents and independent groups generally did well, the key exception being Cornwall where the "vaccine bounce" effect amongst elderly voters saw them turnout to enable Conservative gains in this most fickle of counties.

In spite of the coronavirus restrictions and a lot of people not having been vaccinated yet, turnout improved in the vast majority of local elections in Britain, although less so in town and city centres than in the suburbs. The much vaunted vaccine bounce effect certainly helped the Conservatives but it is also clear that Labour has failed to prove itself a viable opposition or connect with ordinary voters, and no amount of Shadow Cabinet reshuffles can disguise that.