Six things we learned from the local elections
1. First Past the Post is broken
Last week’s election results show the First Past the Post voting system (FPTP) is no longer fit for purpose. Designed to sustain a system of two dominant parties, voters are turning their backs on Labour and the Conservatives in historic numbers. According to the BBC’s projected national vote share, combined they barely surpassed a third of the vote, a record-shattering low.
With multiple parties in close competition, FPTP becomes, to borrow The Economist’s phrase, little more than a random number generator. In the six mayoral contests, none of the winners had the backing of close to a majority of their voters. Andrea Jenkyns was one of only two candidates to gain more than a third of the vote, while in the West of England, Helen Godwin was elected on just 25% of the vote.
At the level of local councils - where voters often elect two or three councillors per ward - the effect of multi-party competition was no less chaotic. Seat gains bore little resemblance to vote share. At 23%, Reform polled five points higher in Cambridgeshire than in Oxfordshire, yet its seat return increased eightfold. In Leicestershire, 33% of the vote yielded 46% of the seats, but in neighbouring Derbyshire, 37% of the vote was enough to secure 66% of the seats.
The overall picture is similarly distorted. Reform UK gained 41% of the seats on 31% of the vote, while Labour secured just 6% of the seats on 14% of the vote. The Conservatives, meanwhile, won 19% of the seats on 23% of the vote, while the Lib Dems outperformed the Conservatives in terms of seats, winning 23%, despite polling 6 points lower (17%).
At a recent Unlock Democracy webinar, Professor Rob Ford warned that in today’s multi-party age, the price of sticking with FPTP would be chaotic and unpredictable results. He wasn’t wrong.
2. The government has failed to signal change
The status quo is unpopular - change was once again the clarion call of so many voters. The electoral system worked to Labour’s disadvantage much as did to the Conservatives’ last July, with the party of government losing most heavily where it was previously strongest, an indication of voters’ anti-system intent. So long as nothing much is seen to change, the parties viewed as responsible will struggle, while trust in the political system will remain at rock bottom.
Unlike the Conservatives, Labour has the platform of government to do something about this. Strong measures to clean up politics of the sort it promised voters in opposition would signal a break with the past. Clamping down on MPs’ second jobs, outlawing freebies for politicians (above £200), overhauling the Lords appointments process, and tackling big money in politics - all of these would show the government’s on the case.
Raising living standards may well be the surest long-term route to both revived electoral fortunes for the government and renewed public faith in politics. But this will take time. In a country impatient for change, Labour must show voters sooner rather than later that it has heard them.
3. Authenticity matters for politics
On the heels of these woeful election results, Labour spokespeople were sent out promising to go “further and faster”. Keir Starmer told reporters “I get it.” The problem was, neither the Prime Minister, nor senior government figures, seemed capable of relating to voters, or even just talking, in a genuine, authentic way. Starmer began his response by saying, ‘I could give you the standard politicians’ answer of X, Y, Z,’ before parroting the same pre-crafted lines to take used by every other cabinet minister that day. Praeteritio, the practice of calling attention to something by seeming to disregard it, only works if the listener buys into the misdirection. As it was, Starmer just underscored why he is seen as the robotic frontman for an administration of automatons.
This might seem a little unkind - and perhaps it is. But in today’s politics, where vibes count as much as votes in Parliament, authenticity matters. And if the most recognisable figures in the government don’t come across like people, why should people trust politics any time soon?
Whatever you think of Nigel Farage, his appeal stems in no small part from his communication style. He sounds like he believes what he’s saying. He seems comfortable in his own skin. Above all, he does what the public always wants from politicians: he answers the question. Quizzed by Sky News’ Beth Rigby as he celebrated victory in County Durham, Farage summed up the difference between his approach and the government’s: “I’m not Mr Bland, I am who I am. Take me or leave me.” That this is a stylised self-portrait is without question, no doubt aided by hours of programming on GB News. But it would be foolish not to learn from it.
Voters are turning to Farage out of exasperation with the system. For ministers, repeating scripted soundbites is a sure fire way to guarantee that when you’ve something actually important to say, people won’t pay attention, and even if they do, they won’t believe you. One need only look to the USA for the threat posed to democratic institutions when this reaches a tipping point, and voters are prepared to do almost anything to give the system a kicking. It’s fortunate British politics has not yet reached this stage. But it’d be reckless to ignore the risks.
4. Declining turnout won’t improve by itself
The number of people voting at these elections was desperately low. Accounting for turnout, Helen Godwin’s winning vote share in the West of England mayorality equates to the support of less than 1 in 10 of the eligible electorate. That’s no kind of mandate to make decisions affecting millions of people.
People not voting isn’t an accident; it’s a policy choice. Voter ID laws and an archaic registration system are needless barriers that block millions from having their say, topped off by an electoral system that tells people it’s probably not worth voting anyway.
A democracy should want as many eligible voters as possible to be able to cast their ballot. For a government committed to improving both registration and participation, introducing a system of automatic voter registration, and scrapping costly and unnecessary voter ID laws, should be no-brainers.
5. Potential delays to local government reorganisation
Plenty more could be written on the elections that took place. But what of the elections that didn’t? 5.7 million people in Essex, East and West Sussex, Norfolk, Suffolk, Surrey, Thurrock, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight should have been able to have their say last week. That chance was denied them by government, at the request of local councils, supposedly to help expedite the government’s devolution agenda.
That agenda, imposed on councils by Whitehall, includes the mass reorganisation of local government which will merge smaller local authorities into unitary mega councils. Initial proposals to this effect have recently been submitted to central government for comment.
These submissions - containing multiple, often contradictory proposals for each area - already looked unwieldy in the face of the government’s ambitious, some would say unrealistic, timetable. Who’s to say, after last week’s elections, that the new occupants of town halls share the view of their predecessors. Every other party has opposed Labour’s plans in one form or another. With the change in leadership of several upper tier authorities, getting sign-off on deals to establish new metro mayors looks no less tricky. Obeisance to central government is not guaranteed. Delays seem likely. What is certain is that questions about the government’s devolution plans - and the timing of future scheduled elections - have not gone away.
6. Electoral reform can no longer be avoided
Faced with multi-party politics, FPTP is turning elections into a lottery - both for voters and political parties.
For party strategists, charting a course to the next general election looks next to impossible. Underlying all the focus on which way Labour or the Conservatives should tack is the realisation that nothing is certain anymore. Elections used to be won from the centre, but now standing in the middle of the road might get you run over. In a dynamic five-party system, every party has two potentially vulnerable flanks.
In this context, electoral reform can become a live proposition. Fine margins and low turnout make for an unsustainably volatile combination. The Labour and Conservative leaderships, until now defenders of FPTP, may both come to see the appeal of a proportional system offering predictable election results. Particularly as, according to Prof Rob Ford, far from suppressing other parties, FPTP is now “a Farage-friendly electoral system.”
Local government boundary changes may elicit comparisons with Scotland and Northern Ireland, where STV guarantees fair outcomes, and turnout is consistently higher than in England and Wales. Meanwhile voters may chafe against unpopular or radical measures being taken by mayors elected on pitifully low vote shares.
For advocates of electoral reform, the case against FPTP has long been clear. Circumstances now make it uniquely vulnerable.