Dem
47
GOP
53
Last week, we had a report from reader A.B. in Lichfield, England about the recent local elections. A.B. observed that the most Trumpy British party (ReformUK) had a very good performance, while the most anti-Trump British party (the Liberal Democrats) also did pretty well. The main conclusion was that while there has been an anti-Trump backlash in places like Australia and Canada, the phenomenon may not be global.
We like to keep on top of major developments in foreign politics, particularly in major powers and in Western democracies, because what happens abroad may be revelatory, in some ways, when it comes to what is happening, or what will happen, in the United States. Most obviously, 2024 was a "throw the bums out" year worldwide, which ultimately was a pretty good indicator as to what was going to happen on Election Day in the United States.
Anyhow, several readers wrote in with their own takes on the British elections, and we wanted to pass those along. And so:
C.B. in Barcelona, Spain (but originally from London): I am a longtime reader of your website and a great admirer of your coverage of U.S. politics in particular. I have not sent a comment or question to you before, but I was prompted to do so by the excellent overview of the recent U.K. local elections you published from reader A.B. in Lichfield.
A.B. gives a very good and detailed summary of the elections and the emergence of ReformUK as a real force in our politics, with the increasing fragmentation of votes among the six leading parties, as the Conservatives and Labour both lose ground. A.B. also notes correctly that the use of our first-past-the-post voting system (which has usually preserved the Conservatives and Labour in power and made that power unassailable) starts to have curious effects when smaller parties reach a certain threshold in terms of vote share—it goes from protecting the power of the main parties to threatening it rather suddenly. This is the effect we have seen with Reform's success in the local elections and mayoral contests.
The only thing I wanted to point out is that turnout in these local elections is crucial, and a huge factor in the parties' relative success or failure. Turnout is usually very low in local elections (median turnout in county council elections 1990-2022 is 38% of eligible voters and for unitary authorities it's 35%). This time, turnout was overall pretty similar, somewhere between around 30% and 36% in most races.
It's also fair to say that there is something of a tradition of voters using these sub-national elections to express their disapproval with parties in power in Westminster (much as in Congressional midterm elections in the U.S.). So, Labour performing poorly is not unusual.
Having said that, and where A.B. is absolutely right is that the Conservatives are in real danger of being wiped out and replaced by Reform. Brexit identities 'Leave' and 'Remain' are still very strong for many voters in areas of the country where Reform performs well, and those voters no longer seem to trust the Conservatives to deal with the issues most salient for them—or rather, they think Nigel Farage will be more likely to deliver on those issues.
I think it's a bit too early to say what impact Farage's closeness to Donald Trump has had in these elections (among other factors), and certainly too soon to say what this all might mean for national elections in the future, but it's very true that Reform is doing well, Farage is popular with roughly 30% of voters (though a divisive figure with the wider electorate), and Reform so far don't seem to have suffered in the way the Conservatives in Canada or Australia did for their associations with the American president.
T.H. in Stewartby, England, UK: I've been a reader of your site almost since you started. It's so good to know that there are so many people left in the U.S. who aren't complete MAGA nut cases.
I have been a member of the Liberal Democrats in the UK, and their predecessor party the SDP, since 1981. I have been an active member and campaigning councillor from March 1982 up until May 2023. I had to retire on health grounds. I was first elected as a Bedford Borough Councillor in May 1986, but had actively campaigned before then. And I am still totally and utterly humbled to have received 80% of the vote in a 3-horse race the last time I stood for re-election in 2019.
I was really pleased to see the contribution from your Liberal Democrat-voting Lichfield contributor about the English local elections: Two points on A.B.'s excellent contribution:
B.C. in Market Harborough, England, UK: A.B. from Lichfield reads too much into England's recent local elections.
- I regard myself and the Liberal Democrats as center-left, not centrist.
- I think the Liberal Democrats did much better than A.B. suggests. Yes, ReformUK did amazingly well (unfortunately), but the Liberal Democrats also did very well. Party President Mark Park put together this summary of the Lib Dems' successes:
- Gained control of 3 county councils; neither the Lib Dems nor our predecessors ever won more in a single election
- Won more seats than Labour for first time since 2009
- Won more seats than Conservatives for second year in a row—and nearly as many as Conservative and Labour combined!
- A higher national vote share than Conservatives for first time ever
- Lib Dems now control more councils than the Conservatives
- This is the seventh round of local election gains in a row, the longest run in our party's history
- And it was underpinned by our best showing relative to Labour and Conservatives since 2009
Such elections have a low turnout, are customarily used by many voters to register a protest rather than signal a substantive change of allegiance, and are notoriously unreliable indicators of national trends. For evidence of this you only need look back to the second General Election of 2017. The newly-minted Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, was desperate to call an election to break the endless parliamentary deadlock over Brexit, but he lacked the votes in the House to do so, and needed the support of another party. But then, the Liberal Democrats scored spectacular successes in local elections. Their leader, the hapless Jo Swinson, was so sure this pointed to national success that she gave her party's votes in the House to Johnson, enabling him to call a General Election.
Johnson won a Parliamentary landslide, the Liberal Democrats were all but wiped off the Parliamentary map, and Swinson lost her own seat. All this despite that recent huge local election success for the Lib Dems.
One thing that is clear is that the Conservatives are still massively unpopular. Their current leader, Kemi Badenoch, was chosen by the party because she's an extremist on many issues (particularly social) and thus appeared able to counter the threat of the Reform party. However, she's a terrible public speaker with little in the way of political instincts, all of which is the complete opposite of Reform's slick leader, Nigel Farage.
Some might argue that none of this really matters: that, on policy, you could barely get a cigarette paper between Badenoch's Conservatives and Farage's Reform, so who cares if they knock lumps out of each other? They are all basically the same headbangers.
The Labour Party has, entirely unsurprisingly, been hit by a protest vote. Their unpopularity was always inevitable: they inherited dire government finances from the Conservatives and have done some pretty unpopular things in an attempt to plug the holes. This is clearly deliberate: They are still less than a year into a 5-year term, so it obviously makes sense to get the pain out of the way as early as possible. They still have more than 4 years to attempt to turn things around (we don't have midterms, and Labour's majority in the House is so huge nothing can stop them from serving the full term).
So, all in all, it's really not possible to draw national (let alone global!) inferences from one set of quirky English local election results with the next General Election so far off.
Very interesting. Thanks to all three of you! (Z)