How to vote in May

With local, Welsh and Scottish elections on the horizon it is inevitable that people will start to think about who to vote for. If you are a member of the Labour Party then, presumably, you are expected to vote Labour. But, things might not be that simple.

Who to support rouses anger and bitterness amongst people who otherwise nod along together in agreement. For some people the ultimate goal is to get the Tories out. But, what are we getting them out of exactly. In England the elections are for local councils which the Tories don’t actually dominate in quite the way they do Westminster. In Wales the Government is actually Labour. And, of course in Scotland the government is SNP and probably likely to remain so.

There are 343 local authorities in England with roughly 20,000 local councillors. In the 2019 local council elections 248 councils in England were contested. Of which 93 (37.5%) ended up controlled by the Conservatives. Labour controlled 60 (24%) and 73 (29%) were under no control. Both the Cons and Labour lost councillors in 2019 (1,330 Tories and 84 for Labour). Labour currently has 2,021 councillors in England. Keep those figures in mind, because for sure if Labour increases the number of councillors by even one it will be heralded as a major achievement for SirKeith, who despite fanciful rumours should still be Labour leader come 2024 and the next General Election.

Beware of independents

The Conservatives currently have overall control in 133 councils in Britain, and a total of 7,060 councillors. Labour controls 95 councils with 6,044 councillors. Eleven councils are controlled by Independents who have a total of 2,619 councillors. It is worth pointing out that whilst many independents are genuinely interested in their locality a good number are disillusioned members of other parties, very often Lib Dems or Conservatives. Beware of candidates claiming to have no agenda, for that is usually code for supporting the status quo.

There are a range of different elections taking place on the same day, though most voters will only get to take part in one or two elections. In many places only one-third of the council seats are being contested. All of this makes the task of understanding what is going on in these elections very difficult. Although, the major news outlets like to project the results on to a national election, the truth is that this makes no real sense at all. For starters, the turnout is much lower than in general elections. Average turnout in local elections is around 35%, although it varies across different authorities with some boroughs reaching 39%. By comparison the turnout in the 2019 General Election was 67%. Given the low turnout and the congruence of local elections it is difficult to extrapolate much to General Elections.

Local elections do give an opportunity to send a message to the main parties but in truth they are often fought on local issues which is why independents, who have virtually no chance of being elected to Westminster, often get elected at local level.  Having said that, if a party is out of favour nationally it is likely to be reflected in its local election results. For Labour this does not bode well. With the Tories riding high on the “success” of “their” vaccination programme and Labour anonymous as they chase the Tory vote it is likely that the Tories will increase their number of councillors whilst Labour will consider they have done well to lose less than 10% of theirs. Given that my predictions are usually wrong take this with a pinch of salt. But, I expect the Conservatives to make gains, turnout to be low and Labour to lose councillors if not councils.

Vote Labour or else

All of which makes me wonder why people are having disagreements on social media over whether to support Labour or not. Unless you are in Scotland or Wales you are not electing a government. Only the committed turn out to vote in what political scientists describe as “second order elections” and although many remain deeply tribal a good number will register a protest vote or support a local issue. There will be a time when who you support on the national stage will be important. This is not that time. Any party can do badly at local elections, it makes hardly a dent in their governmental ambitions.

What is happening, however, is that the left in the UK is realigning and often doing so along narrow party lines. For some, and I count myself in this camp, Labour as a vehicle for progressive social change is dead. That is not to say that everybody associated with the Labour Party is now a conservative. What it means is that Labour, as it always has, exists to be a parliamentary party in a parliamentary system which has its unspoken assumption that protecting capitalism is its foremost duty. No Labour government, and I suspect this would have remained the case even if Jeremy had won in 2019, has ever seriously challenged capitalism as a system. What Labour does is what the old Liberal Party used to do and that is offer a softer, more benign version of capitalism. This is not just my opinion (although it is that) it is borne out by an analysis of Labour since it came into being in 1903 and particularly by studying the actions of Labour when in government.

None of this, of course, matters a jot to those who say that if you do not vote for the Labour Party then you are betraying the public services, and particularly you are betraying the NHS which is held up as the epitome of socialist achievement. Which is fine, except it is not true. None of it. Not voting Labour is not betraying anything, voting for a party you do not believe in is. A friend of mine who stood as a Green candidate a few years back and who I sponsored was keen on saying “The only wasted vote is one which you don’t believe in.” That is absolutely true. Those peddling the line that by not voting Labour we are betraying health workers would be wise to consider that it was Labour who first introduced private provision into the NHS, it was Labour who introduced dental charges and it was Labour who saddled the NHS with debts it is still struggling to repay when it decided that borrowing money at inflated rates from the private sector was better than raising taxation or simply printing more money. If anybody has betrayed the NHS it is the Labour Party and it has done it not once but on numerous occasions.

Saving the NHS

But, of course, I can hear the retort, look at what the Tories are doing? And, that is a valid point. The Tories have never been anything but hostile to public provision. They are not friends of the NHS, of health workers or basically of anybody who is not rich. But, you don’t get betrayed by your enemies you get betrayed by your friends. And the left have promoted an idea that Labour is the friend of the NHS in a way which successive Labour politicians (some sincere, many not) have exploited. The betrayal is the act of a friend who stabs you in the back, not of an enemy who was always out to get you. But, there is another reason why pointing the finger at those of us who do not intend to vote Labour is misguided. The Tories are hostile to public services. No surprise there. But, had it not been for the collective action of a large part of the Parliamentary Labour Party, aided by the permanent bureaucracy and cheered on by a socialist hating media, we would now have a socialist Prime Minister. Please don’t tell me that my one vote if not used for Labour is a betrayal of the Party  when those who now control that party did so by enabling a Tory victory because they hate people like me more than they hate people who have an inherent hatred of the public sector. 

But, I’m straying from the real point which is that in England the future of the NHS is not being decided in May. The funding of the NHS is a national not local matter, and therefore the local elections which represent our next chance to vote, have nothing to do with the NHS. They have everything to do with what kind of local services you want, but in all honesty far too many Labour councillors (though by no means all) are more interested in the illusion of power than in actually using that power for the people who elect them. In place after place Labour controlled local councils implement, with regret, Tory cuts forced upon them by cutbacks to local finance. It is now obvious that the Tories have been manipulating the payments to favour their own councils and disadvantage Labour councils, often councils in the most deprived parts of the country. But don’t worry those councils will be sending a strongly worded memo to the government. Whilst their supporters will be pointing the finger at those of us who question the credentials of anybody who wears a Labour rosette.

In Scotland and Wales things are different. In May the elections are for national governments. Clearly in Scotland it is an uphill task for Labour to restore their dominance. In 1966 Labour commanded 49% of the vote in Scotland, by 2019 that had collapsed to 18.9%. This is what happens when you take a vote for granted and do not listen to voters. Labour is still failing to listen to Scottish voters who are drifting inexorably toward backing independence whilst the English dominated Labour Party arrogantly tell them what is best for them. Dragged out of Europe against the will of the Scottish people, it is unlikely that Scottish voters will return to Labour anytime soon.

Scottish independence

The rise of the independence movement should not be discounted as the rationale behind the current campaign being waged against Nicola Sturgeon. The manifest reason for this campaign is that she held on to information about Alec Salmond which she should have made public. For this she is expected to resign. But, Boris Johnson has broken the law repeatedly and nobody seems to think he should resign. Matt Hancock was found to have acted illegally in handing out £21 billion of contracts without proper transparency and not even the “leader” of the opposition thinks he should resign. I don’t want to plough into the Salmond case, I’m sure all is not as it seems, but it does strike me that as the Scottish Parliamentary elections approach and as the Scots, quite sensibly, are beginning to back independence in larger and larger numbers, a campaign to undermine the SNP might be exactly what the establishment ordered. Who knows? It is usually 25 years before we find out the truth of these matters. Put a note in your diary for 2046 to see those redacted documents.

In Wales things are slightly different. No scandal around Mark Drakeford, though that might be because most people don’t actually know who he is. And, the independence movement such as it is, remains confined to a few Facebook pages and some rather colourful graffiti along the Taff Trail. More importantly, the Labour Party has never been out of Government in Cardiff Bay, albeit requiring coalitions from time to time. In some ways this makes Welsh Labour the poster girl of Labour politics over the past few years. For all this a recent YouGov poll predicted some major losses at the May elections. Turnout might well prove to be crucial here. Lower turnout is going to favour non-governmental parties. It is not that Welsh Labour have made an awful fist of governing under Mark Drakeford, but that they have been forced to adopt policies imposed on them by an unfavourable financial settlement. 

Whilst Welsh Labour tried during the Corbyn era to brand themselves as separate from the UK Labour Party, the fact is that their fortunes are tied to those of their English parent. And, I do know that Welsh Labour activists will hate me for that last sentence. During the 2017 and 2019 General Elections the Labour Party in Wales did all it could to avoid being “tainted” by the Corbyn brand refusing to put his picture on their election posters and mailings. When Jeremy was suspended from the Party not one Welsh MP or Senedd member attempted to defend him. Indeed, Welsh Labour used the EHRC report as a means to stifle debate on the issue, suspending any officers of the party who dared to raise the unfairness of Labour’s position. At least two long-standing comrades on the left have left the party following their suspensions and they are only the ones I know of. 

Playing politics with people's lives

When a party at its institutional level acts so undemocratically and conducts what can only be called a purge of its own members it is clearly not fit to hold public office.  A party that can treat its own members so abominably has to be suspect. How would they treat ordinary people who get on the wrong side of them? Almost the last act of Labour members of the Senedd before it was prorogued was to vote down a motion from Plaid Cymru calling for the extension of free school meals for under-privileged children. People who have supposedly been on the left and indeed have gained their positions by exploiting the support of left-wing members were happy to put their hands up to keep children hungry rather than allow Plaid Cymru to claim credit. These are the same people who consistently tell us not to play politics with people’s lives.

Whilst Mark Drakeford appears scandal free his predecessor Carwyn Jones is far from clean. He was responsible for suspending his “friend” Carl Sergeant over allegations of sexual impropriety. These allegations were never made clear to Carl who subsequently took his own life as a result of the stress he was placed under. As details have dripped out Carwyn Jones role in this affair has begun to look less and less like the actions of a friend and more like the actions of a man rather too enamoured of his own position and power. But none of this will bother Carwyn too much as the Keir Starmer supporting AM has now turned his back on politics and walked into high paying jobs he would never have been considered for without his access to information that makes him worth employing.

So, I get to vote for a government as do other comrades in Scotland and Wales, and I can promise you that I will not vote Labour and if asked to explain to NHS workers why I will point them to this post. As for those in England I can only offer you this. You have been voting Labour for a number of years, you have seen MPs come and go, and councillors too. Can you put your hand on your heart and say that the effort you have put into getting them elected has truly been worth it? Has their election taken forward the struggle for socialism? If the answer to those two questions is yes, then carry on, but if your honest answer is anything but yes then have a serious think about whether this strategy of providing Labour with left cover is actually working.

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Can I encourage you to listen to The Socialist Hour podcast. Episode 3, featuring discussions on the budget, Liverpool, Osime Brown, EndSARS, and creating socialism.