Local and National Elections in the UK
So far this morning Reform have gained the most councillors but control no councils. Several councils have gone to no overall control. The Greens and the Lib Dems have also made gains. Labour and The Conservatives are both down a lot. The voter count is up. Still very early Greens anticipating gaining well on London. Reform doing well in areas that voted for Brexit as was anticipated.
Comments
God help us.
It feels like there's a wave of contrary-ism sweeping the section of the population who reliably vote (mostly older white people, though there are obviously regional variations). It seems that they are aware of the utter chaos that Reform have caused everywhere that they've had control in local government but think "yes, we would like a bit of that here too."
Part of the problem is that the Far-Right agenda is dominating the discussion. Labour objectively haven't done much wrong, particularly when one considers that they were elected as the "grownups" following many years of poor government by the Tories.
And it seems like a lot of people think "oh no, we want more chaos".
They are now telling everyone that they have been failed by the NHS and that this has been caused by international students in medical schools.
It is so stupid that it is hard to know where to begin.
It's the middle of exam time for our 16 / 17 year olds, so we didn't have any voters in school uniform. There wasn't the buzz about first time voters there might otherwise be, but it was good to have a few in with their parents for whom it was an exciting milestone.
Apart from targeting immigrants, trans people and disabled people, and trying to terrorise British Jews with another politically motivated anti-semitism scare? Oh and aiding and abetting genocide.
And then telling anyone who objected that if they didn't like it they could leave.
Now we all get the chance to see how good they are at running education, social care, rubbish collection and education. How much better will they be under Reform control?
Reform ran this election as a cross between a General election a referendum on Starmer, and I'm afraid a lot of people bought into their narrative. I thought the shine was beginning to come off Reform, and I sincerely hope by the next General Election it has.
Yes, as John Curtice has pointed out Tory voters have shifted to Reform, while many Labour voters have either stayed at home or voted Green, the two things in tandem are likely end with Reform winning on fairly low vote shares.
Hackney, however, now has a Green mayor (and the turnout was about 41%).
There appear to be a few NOCs (No Overall Control). I'm never sure as to whether NOCs are a Good Thing or not IYSWIM.
Nothing yet from the Holyrood or Senedd elections.
Still voting for Jo Grimond?
Not sure what this means for the Apocalypse- but eyeing the street anxiously for lions, lambs etc...
Certainly going to make the next astroturf unionist scaremongering about Shetland leaving Scotland in the event of independence a bit tricky.
Down in England, much as expected, as @Barnabas62 says. The customary low turn-out is disappointing.
Will dig out the model and update sometime.
Meanwhile here in Birmingham, the predictions are that the local government will have no overall control and therefore likely complete paralysis. Which is a disaster given that Birmingham is the biggest council in England.
Reform have gained seats everywhere, but so far they have only gained control of 5 local authorities. LibDems have gained 1, NOC gained 11.
Put alongside the fairly severe loss in Wales (in the sense that they're only going to be in opposition, they have gained lots of seats) and the likely outcome in Scotland (where I don't understand the system, it isn't going to be as good a day as Farage makes out.
It's not good that Reform control more authorities but it is interesting that the main gain so far in England seems to have been NOC.
It might be possible for Reform to have enough time to have made enough of a pigs ear in local councils, that folks are less confident about voting for them in the next GE.
Please God
I never thought I'd read about the tories taking somewhere and feel relief.... thar it wasn't reform.
One can hope. But that would require a degree of observational ability and deductive reasoning not normally associated with people voting Reform.
In my experience, the cult of World War II is pretty easily harnessed in propagandistic service of reactionary politics, assuming people even connect it to any sorta politics at all. "I can't imagine what the men who died for our freedoms in Europe would say if they could see the bloody trash heap the socialists are making of this country."
Yes, but I don't think they would make that link. The idea that WW2 was a fight against fascism is lost.
And a Holocaust Denier was elected on Merseyside.
https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/reform-uk-candidate-who-said-33914559
For a long time now, "nazism" and "fascism" have been used as stand-ins for whatever ideology a given opinionator doesn't like.
In the movie from a few years back Blinded by the Light, about an ethnically Pakistani teenager growing up in 80s Britain, there was a plot-strand about the kid encountering his curmudgeonly old WW2 veteran neighbour, and fearfully assuming the man might be sympathetic to certain racist movements in the UK at the time. He's joyfully surprised when the neighbour opines something like "Those thugs are exactly what we fought against in the war, and I won't have them now!" IME, at least in Canada, that's not a common ideological connection people make.
Meanwhile the largest community newspaper invites his party leader to pontificate about the threat of antisemitism:
https://www.thejc.com/opinion/jews-are-now-living-in-danger-and-the-governments-failure-to-confront-the-root-causes-is-a-national-disgrace-ovwpyomc
I think this might work for a some, but there's a good section of their support who just want to smash things up, or will readily accept a series of escalating excuses ("We are being stopped from doing proper Reform policy by the woke civil service/woke Westminster blob" and so on).
This is not about lazily labeling people one doesn't like as 'Nszis'. This is about actual fascists.