Local difficulties

Local elections in the UK tend to be fairly parochial affairs: They do excite domestic media which treats them as a barometer of support levels for the main parties but that is usually it. This year, however, matters were very different with coverage making it into newspapers across Europe. The reason is, of course, Brexit with the elections acting as a measure of how the public has responded to the interminable political wrangling of recent months.

It did not make pretty reading for the main parties. There were 8412 local council seats up for grabs, of which the Conservatives held 58%. They lost 1334 to reduce their share to 42% of the contested seats. Labour also lost ground, but to a far lesser degree (its share fell from 25% to 24.1% of the contested seats). UKIP continued its spectacular implosion following its local council successes in 2015 whilst the biggest winners were the Liberal Democrats (up from 7.7% to 16.1%) and other parties representing a variety of local interests (up from 6.1% to 14%).

If ever politicians needed a wakeup call that their handling of Brexit deliberations has turned voters off, this was it. But what exactly did the results tell us? It is too simplistic to suggest that voters wreaked their vengeance on the Conservatives because they have changed their minds about Brexit but analysis of the results suggests that they lost one-third of the seats they contested in majority-Remain areas. Meanwhile the Lib Dems, which avowedly support a second EU referendum, picked up gains across both sides of the Leave-Remain divide. This would appear to suggest they gained as a result of dissatisfaction with the main political parties following the parliamentary debacle of recent months, in which both Labour and the Conservatives played a key role. However, the Lib Dems could also have picked up votes from potential Labour supporters who have been discouraged by the party’s attempt to back away from a commitment to holding a confirmatory EU referendum. That said, Labour performed badly in majority Leave-supporting areas, indicating voters’ dissatisfaction with politicians’ efforts to deliver Brexit.

What the results do suggest is that voters want an end to the political wrangling. But it is less clear that they want the sort of Brexit that Theresa May has in mind – it is far from clear that they want Brexit at all. And it remains highly disingenuous of the prime minister to accuse the Scottish First Minister of wanting to "re-run the independence referendum because she did not like the decision of the people of Scotland" and to "re-run the EU referendum because she did not like the decision of the people of the UK" when that is exactly May has tried to do in ramming her deal through the Westminster parliament. And the prime minister knows only too well that the electorate can change its mind. After all, there were only two years between the general elections of 2015 and 2017 when voters changed their mind about electing a majority Conservative government, and we are now almost three years on from the EU referendum. And as the arch-Brexiteer David Davis once said, ”if a democracy cannot change its mind, it ceases to be a democracy.”

What the results also suggested is that voters are currently not aligned along party political lines and instead have become more issue-driven. That is not the same thing as saying the two-party hegemony is over for good, as some of the more excitable political commentators have suggested, but party loyalties are currently being tested. Brexit obviously tops the domestic political agenda but the strong performance of the Greens might indicate that environmental issues are playing a bigger role in voters’ thinking following the recent publicity surrounding 16-year old Greta Thunberg’s castigation of politicians’ treatment of climate change issues. Indeed, intra-generational issues are likely to be high up the UK agenda as issues such as health funding, access to education and affordable housing are all items which have been pushed down the political agenda in favour of Brexit.

As for where we go on the Brexit debate from here, both Labour and the Conservatives realise it is in their interests to find an agreement before the October deadline. Theresa May could thus be tempted to accommodate Labour demands for a customs union with the EU whilst Jeremy Corbyn shows every sign of wanting to back away from the commitment to a second referendum. Of course, neither of these options would please members of their respective parties, with large numbers of Labour Party members particularly in favour of a second referendum.

The debate is only going to heat up as we are less than three weeks away from European elections in which the UK believed it would not have to participate. Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party is currently polling at 30% making it the largest single party although we should not overstate this result. It merely tells us that large numbers of Brexit supporters have found a new home. However, if repeated in the European elections, this will reaffirm the government’s view that it is required to deliver some form of Brexit and preferably sooner rather than later. Most people I speak to share my view that the last three weeks have proven to be a welcome Brexit-free break. Unfortunately, it might be about to come to a noisy and fractious end.