KEY ENGLAND ELECTION TAKEAWAYS (thread)

1) Brexit realignment continues
2) Tory Party now hegemonic in much of England.
3) Elections put pay to the theory that Labour's problems were just about Corbyn.
4) Greens on the rise.

5) Some people have said today that the narrative of the elections would be very different if the results had come in a different order. I'm not so sure. Yes Labour won most of the mayoral contests but given they mainly cover urban conurbations in which Labour does well that...

...isn't surprising. People point to the WoE and C&P mayors as a sign of realignment but it's more a sign that there are lots of Labour inclined votes in Bristol and Cambridge and that a different electoral system can really help progressive parties when the vote is split.

There's not that much read across to FPTP.
6) There *are* tentative signs (and in some places dramatic) signs of a southern realignment in other direction...

...but it's early days. Generally the northern/midlands swing to Tories is much more developed and of a different order-so atm it's an asymmetric realignment. That could change. But Cons unlike Labour also have the benefit of being the sole beneficiaries- Lab must share..

...in south with Lib Dems/Greens. In other words there's been a coalescence of the right and not the left. The Conservatives achieved their dramatic victories yesterday in council after council in the north and midlands by absorbing the UKIP 2016 vote as well as some direct...

...Lab transference. The below result was ubiquitous. But who would Labour absorb? UKIP vote took YEARS to build up. And would there be enough Conservative transference in seats in the south to make enough of a difference? https://twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1390468100869529600?s=20

Even if it were there really aren't enough potential southern Labour pick ups likely to flip by 2024 to compensate either for the 2019 northern losses or those we might now expect in 24.

7) Whatever the result of the mayoral contests/small pickups in the south, these were woeful results for Labour and superb ones for the Conservatives. Because it implies (not proves) that the principal Labour diagnosis of the 2019 election cataclysm...

...that it was all about Corbyn and a change of leadership which looked more "credible" could reverse it, was likely wrong. Starmer was elected as the man who could stop the bleeding in the midlands and north and according to these results in many places it's getting worse.

The reason why so many Labour politicians sound so completely glib when talking about the results (listening more/lost trust etc) is because they don't know what to say. Many really thought a change of leader would at least improve things. Instead they're again...

...being confronted with the structural weakness of the Labour coalition, a problem which has been getting worse in Britain for years and is even worse for social democratic parties in other parts of Europe.

8) Remember, Starmer needs to win over 100 seats to get a majority of just 1. Take a look down the list of classic marginals and their equivalent council results- Redditch, Cannock Chase, Bolton, Dudley etc- all are slipping further away, not coming closer. Doesn't matter how...

...well you do in the mayoral contest, or whether you cut the Tory maj in some southern seats, an electoral map of victory for Labour looks hard to see. Labour just isn't competitive enough in enough parts of the country- similar to Tories in 97.

9) Worse for Labour (and joyously for the Tories) these election results add further credibility to the idea that the cultural legacy/folk of Thatcherism has largely stopped being salient in many places in the north and midlands. Even relatively recently, that folk memory...

...was keeping the Labour vote aloft in many places. That would be bad enough for Lab but the danger (as I've written before) is that that folk memory, that sense of betrayal, in some places has been replaced by a similar disgust over Brexit. And these things take...

....a long time to shift.

9) I'd also a little worried about the London results. If Lab has any hope of expanding the electoral map it must cannibalise remaining London Tory seats. Maybe Khan was just a weak candidate but neither he nor Lab in the Assembly scored a swing to...

...them despite an incumbency bonus and the fact the last time the mayoralty came up it was pre-referendum. Some of the Enfield council by-election returns coming back today might also point to a bit of Tory revival in parts of capital.

And then there's the big Green swings seen in London and elsewhere...

10) Always struck me as peculiar just how little concern Starmer's team has paid to the potential for Green seepage. People said Corbyn had no electoral appeal. That isn't true. He was good at...

...maximising the wider left coalition. It wasn't enough to win but it was enough in 2017 anyway to advance. Clearly some of those voters disaffected with Starmer are migrating to the Greens and despite leaning into more traditional Labour voters, isn't getting much back. Lab...

...needs to watch its left flank. They may calculate that in a general election they'll come home but even moderate green seepage in a general could cost seats. I

11) But it's probably the Lib Dems who should be even more worried about the Greens. Not many people noticed but Greens were also taking seats off Tories in the south where the Lib Dems would normally have brought together the coalition to unseat them. Their performance...

...reminds me a bit of the pre-2010 Lib Dem position. Very good at bringing together voters disaffected with Labour plus the none of the above vote. Lib Dems meanwhile, despite some solid performances, still appear fragile with only very modest net gains.

12) BUT politics is complicated. These are just local election results- they have poor predictive power. That's even more the case right now-in a pandemic where there's clearly been a widespread incumbency bonus. My hunch is there's a bit of that but that they confirm trends...

...which started a bit before 2019, accelerated enormously in 2019 and appear to be continuing now.

Thanks for following the story with me on here and on TV! About to arrive in Scotland for tomorrow's programme. Maybe time for a wee dram.

The other element I meant to mention is Wales and how it relates to England. Welsh Labour has proved that it is possible for the party to retain (perhaps win back) at least some of its older Leaver oriented base. What Labour has to ponder is why that is and whether it can...

...be replicated. Possible explanations 1) Covid incumbency saves WL (not replicable for English Lab) 2) Wales is somehow more intrinsically attached to Labour as a force (don’t buy it) 3) Welsh Labour feels more cornfotable channeling identity and its Welshness...

...in a way English Labour has failed to channel its Englishness. This matters in the politics of an increasingly divergent multi nation state where being seen as speaking for the interests of your constituent nation state increasingly seems to matter.

.Welsh Lab has successfully navigated that politics- Snglish Labour has not. That’s partly because Welshness is a form if identity which doesn’t divide WL’s middle and working class base in the way that Englishness does over the border.

Hard to imagine English Labour finding a formulation of that itd be comfortable with.