British Local Elections, May 2024

[Tintrlvr]

A totally, almost literally insane Tory campaign video (purportedly anti-ULEZ) has been put out by the Susan Hall campaign. It was initially withdrawn after widespread revulsion *and* ridicule, but seems to be now back up again. No, a link will not be provided to it.

Is this the one where they used footage of NYC to show how public transit in London is dangerous?

[Tintrlvr]

The entire Labour group on Pendle council have left the party, a few days before nominations close for this year's election.

Pendle is already very politically complex (one of the few councils that are genuine three-way battles between the parties), so this will add another layer to the chaos. The Lib Dems were already likely to make gains at this election from the Tories, repeating gains in 2023, and this probably nails that down, but it will be a question whether Labour will field candidates against the ex-Labour councillors (most of whom are in very safe seats otherwise) and, if official Labour candidates win, whether they will continue to work with the Lib Dems (who have already announced their intention to continue cooperating with the ex-Labour councillors to run the council).

[Tintrlvr]

The entire Labour group on Pendle council have left the party, a few days before nominations close for this year's election.

why did they leave?

The official complaint is national party direction conflicting with local views.

The real semi-unspoken reason is likely the same reason that certain Labour councilors in other northwest councils have chosen to defect in the past months - Gaza. I think almost every Labour councilor in Pendle has a Muslim background, and all represent the southern wards where this population is prevalent and is going to make their voice heard.

This isn't the first time something has happened. Nearly the exact same thing happened in adjacent Burnley, just several months back. All the councilors with Muslim backgrounds went Indie, breaking Labour's minority admin, then formed an administration on their own with the Greens and Lib-Dems.


Like I said further back, these coordinated defections are one of the questions for the local elections. Nobody can excuse the councilors right now for following their own views or constituents. That is local politics. But this is foreign policy. Local councilors really have no influence on such things. And Labour are still going to be punching above their weight in May. Defectors here and elsewhere would have failed and just proven they can be ignored if Labour just walks back right into most of these wards. Alternatively, if Muslim voters want these type of councilors, they have the opportunity to kick out Labour in certain other areas for similar candidates.

Which brings me to the next point. Underlying everything is the question of access to local power. In these northeast councils the defectors can keep their positions without the party label, just cause of the council math. In other places, like Walsall, Labour has no chance at taking power so the councilors can defect without changing their status. But in places like say Rochdale where defections would not change the calculus of the Labour majority, and would just be councilors removing themselves from the decision process, this has not occurred. But voter behavior should be the same in theory, whether that will lead to Labour holding/retaking the wards on reduced majorities or losing ground to Muslim independents.

There is one Labour councillor who does not have a Muslim background, but she has also defected. Quite a few of the Tory councillors also have Muslim background (for example, all three councillors in Bradley ward - two Tory, one ex-Labour independent - are named Mohammad/Mohammed).

[Tintrlvr]

So Khan is ahead 46-33 in a pure FPTP contest - presumably if London still used the preferential ballot his would scoop virtually all of the second preferences of Green and LibDem voters and the final count would be something like 63-37

A large chunk of them would abstain so he would end up under 60%.

Presumably, much fewer people will vote for the smaller parties now that they know they cannot preference one of the major candidates - so no one wants to split the vote and have the wrong person win

Strategic voting pressures are much less likely to be relevant in an election that isn't competitive like the London mayoral race. Also Britain has a long history of people voting for third parties in competitive races generally.

[Tintrlvr]

Another Green gain, this time in a ward they haven't won before (according to New Statesman).

https://twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1786186531658404336

This looks like a possible Gaza-related result. Elswick is the most Muslim part of Newcastle (and the safest Labour ward until now).

[Tintrlvr]

BBC is now reporting that at this stage, Lib Dems have more seats than the Tories, and that a lot more independents have been elected.

That's been true for most of the night, but it's close (right now the LDs have 58 seats to 54 for the Tories). It's far too early to say whether that will hold.

[Tintrlvr]

Broxborne has declared it's inevitable 9-1 Con-Lab result.

Whats up with Broxbourne? Is it just one council estate surrounded by rabid and unusually Brexity commuters?

Labour came very close in another seat and reasonably close in a third, so the 9-1 result wasn’t completely inevitable.

[Tintrlvr]

We're not quite done counting everywhere yet, but it looks fairly certain that the Tories will have come third in seat count behind the Lib Dems and of course Labour. This last happened in 1996, which should feel appropriately ominous for Tory chances at winning the next GE. (The Lib Dems did manage to come second in councillors once since then, in 2009, when Labour had a calamitously bad local election performance and fell to a distant third.)

Edit: In fact, 1996 appears to be the only other time the Tories have come third in councillors. They were second in the early-to-mid 90s local elections.