Global Insight Perspective | |
Significance | The United Kingdom yesterday held local and London mayoral elections. |
Implications | Not all of the results are in yet, but by all accounts the ruling Labour Party has suffered a heavy defeat. |
Outlook | There is the real possibility that Labour could record its lowest share of the vote in local elections since the 1970s, throwing Prime Minister Gordon Brown's leadership of the party and country into crisis. |
Although not all of the results have been announced yet, it seems that the ruling, centre-left Labour Party led by Prime Minister Gordon Brown is heading for a crippling local election defeat. Brown, for whom this is the first electoral test, looks set to suffer a humiliating defeat after a steady fall in popularity since September 2007. Although local elections deal more with local issues, such as waste management and the condition of roads, they are an important gauge of popular opinion of the national ruling party. The results in 100 of the 159 councils that held an election have been declared, with the final tally expected later this afternoon, along with the announcement of London's new mayor.
Results So Far: Sober Reading for Labour Party
Councillors | Councils | |||
Party | +/- | Total | +/- | Total |
Conservative Party | 146 | 1,976 | 8 | 45 |
Labour Party | -163 | 1,572 | -6 | 14 |
Liberal Democrats | 11 | 1,088 | -1 | 6 |
Plaid Cymru | 8 | 43 | 0 | 0 |
Other | -2 | 465 | 0 | 0 |
No Overall Control | 0 | 0 | -1 | 36 |
Source: BBC | ||||
Local elections are notoriously difficult for governments, and especially so for a government that has been in power for over a decade and is mired in policy controversies and internal squabbles. However, these elections have proven to be disastrous for Brown and the Labour Party since the results announced so far make it clear that Labour has suffered its worst defeat in local elections since the 1970s, winning only 24% or 25% of the vote and finishing third behind the opposition Conservatives and the traditional third party, the Liberal Democrats. In the 2004 local elections Labour's share of the vote was a meagre 26%; however, this was in the wake of the recently initiated and unpopular Iraq conflict, and at a time of declining support for then-prime minister Tony Blair. It had been hoped that Gordon Brown, who took over the leadership in June 2007, would revitalise a party that was increasingly looking tired. He has clearly failed to have the desired effect, however. The best Brown can hope for now is that a ”relaunch” campaign (effectively his second in under a year) can revive some support for the Labour Party and avert a humiliating defeat at the next general election, which is expected before 2010. This “relaunch” is widely expected to include measures on welfare, education reform, and crime, as well as tax policies to win back the support of business.
Conversely, the opposition, centre-right Conservative Party, which has been galvanised by the youthful David Cameron, is expected to secure around 43% or 44% of the vote in the local elections, with strong gains in northern England, the Midlands, and the south. The relative share distribution is reminiscent of the 1995 local elections, when then Conservative prime minister John Major suffered a similar defeat two years prior to the Labour general election victory of 1997. This is also Nick Clegg’s first electoral test as Liberal Democrat leader. His party’s share of the vote is expected to be around 25%, which would put it ahead of Labour but is still disappointing considering that it is a 1-percentage-point decrease compared to its result at the last local elections and that Labour's lost seats have transferred almost exclusively to the Conservatives.
Outlook and Implications
Although it is undoubtedly true that local elections are not as important as national polls because of the limited powers of local authorities, they provide an important indication of popular sentiment with the national administration. If these results were to be repeated in a general election, the Conservatives would enjoy a landslide victory in the House of Commons (lower house of parliament), with a majority of between 138 and 164 seats, a sobering thought for Labour. If Brown can learn the hard lessons of this defeat, there is a chance that the Labour Party could take the necessary measures to regain support. However, Brown faces an uphill struggle to overcome his image of a man who is struggling to lead his party and who is lurching from one crisis to another. This image was most recently strengthened by his party's rebellion over the abolition of the 10% tax bracket for the lowest earners, widespread strikes within the civil service and industrial action that threatened the country's oil and gas supplies, and the nationalisation of the Northern Rock bank in February 2008. The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats will surely be galvanised by these results; however, they must now confront the perhaps more difficult task of maintaining this momentum and support until the next general election, which is not now expected for another two years.