Congratulations to Anna Soubry, now undisputed supremo of Change UK. After a successful EU election campaign where they, *checks notes*, swept the board with three per cent of the vote she can look forward to filling up the centre ground of politics alongside, um, "Iron" Mike Gapes, Ann Coffey, Chris Leslie, Joan Ryan, and, and ... what happened to the other six? Trumping all news, including Trump's visit, the departure of six Change UK MPs is all left Twitter and the internet can think about. What then are the grounds for the split?
Properly principled reasons, of course. Continuity CHUK have interpreted the EU elections as a vista bursting with opportunity, despite the Greens and the Liberal Democrats cleaning up. The splitters, ostensibly led by Chuka (you can take the Chuka out the CHUK), think this is nonsense and want to go back to being independent MPs. That is office holders without responsibilities to anyone but themselves. Nothing to do with the LibDems' success and thinking they are now a better bet, nothing at all. But the tensions were present before the EU poll - one wing, six of them, thought an alliance with the LibDems would be super handy whereas the minority, five, fancied it as a party building exercise. An exercise where, um, ordinary punters still cant join. And simmering in the background were the rival leadership ambitions of Chuka and Chris Leslie. Thank the fates we will never know the dreariness of a Change UK leadership contest.
The unfolding of the Change UK debacle is/was interesting because it proved itself a textbook exercise in how not to run a party. Their legion of failures are the stuff of legend, and they still can't help it. Now, as the clock chimes midnight on their miserable enterprise, Gapesy announces the "party" is moving to a membership structure, tacking on at the end "we have councillors too!". Pathetic. You should have capitalised on the novelty of your launch and started the party then you absolute amateurs.
Split or no split, the stars were not aligning for Change UK anyway. After the EU election results, on the pro-EU side of things the big winner, of course, were the LibDems. The very party the CHUK-ups wanted absolutely nothing to do with from the outset of their project. And why were they able to capitalise while Soubz's shrinking band could not? Party name recognition helped, though there isn't a single LibDem parliamentarian who is a household name. Not even cuddly Uncle Vince. More significant for the yellow party was a clear campaign, a straightforward but ever so risque slogan, and a mass membership of seasoned activists. Yes, a mass membership. A machine of about a hundred thousand people that doles out leaflets and knocks on doors, not a ghastly clique of stuck-up notables. The LibDems, along with the Greens, were able to counter the Brexit Party's populism with a polarised message of their own. It meant Labour was found wanting and got duly humbled, and CHUK sidelined to the tinges. I mean fringes.
Does this mean centrist politics is back and the conceit justifying the original split from Labour was nevertheless right? It all depends on what happens next with Brexit, but it is worth pointing out two things. First, while politics appears a million miles away from the polarisation of the 2017 general election the movements and conflicts underpinning that result are still there. For Labour's part, the coherence of its vote may have dropped away for now but the shift to a new class politics foments unseen and out of mind of most politicians, their courtiers, and the professional punditry. Part and parcel of this are the crap jobs, the low-to-no prospects, the housing crisis, and climate threats that the Tories are presiding over. With other concerns in play in a future general election, the LibDems will find it hard to capitalise on the Brexit advantage they have now.
The second depends on what happens with the Tory leadership election. I've lost count of the occasions I've written about the long-term decline/existential crisis of the Conservative Party. If the leadership is won by someone who centrism can learn to love (Jeremy Hunt? Michael Gove?), then the LibDems have got their work cut out. If, however, it's someone like Johnson who, despite his fluffy leadership launch video, is pitching toward no deal to rebuild May's voter coalition and neutralise Farage, then the space on the centre right opens. Some of that LibDem EU vote came from the Tories, and as by-election after by-election has shown these last couple of years, they're more likely to take votes and seats from the blues than the reds. And the further the Tories go down a Faragist road, the more ground they're likely to cede the LibDems. And then all kinds of interesting things might happen. The start of this decade we saw a centre right convergence on the Tories' terms with the Coalition Government. If they go off and chase right wing populism, it is possible a new centre right might be born, albeit under LibDem hegemony.
Change UK are superfluous to all this. Their moment was their launch and they blew it. Their stupidity effectively ensured they sidelined themselves. But even they have served, even they have made something of a contribution to British politics. It has forced a section of centrism to come to terms with the real conditions of its existence, and will shortly be packing them off to the LibDems and, chortle, the reselection mandatory for its parliamentarians. It has told recalcitrant Labour MPs in no uncertain terms that life outside the party is bruising and, gasp, might involve them having to do things (badly) for themselves, and then failing. And its encouraged more people to think about politics in terms of the forces that shape it, rather than the petty politicians who personify it. By providing an education in how not to do politics, CHUK's car crash career has helpfully pointed to how we should, and must, think about it.
If you go over to Conservative Home and click on any the thread dealing with Donald Trump's state visit to the UK, you will find the odd sycophant greeting "Mr President" and welcoming "FLOTUS" to the country. Please, pass me the sick bag. Out there in the country, matters are slightly different. While polling suggests a majority support his jolly to these fair shores, that doesn't mean he's popular. Far from it. Only 21% take a favourable view of the world's most powerful man, with two-thirds decidedly against him. Even when UKIP supporters were asked, prior to their implosion, Trump could only muster the backing of just over half. It's just as well he isn't facing election here.
Not that this has stopped him from sticking his oar in, endorsing Boris Johnson and calling him a "friend", and suggesting Nigel Farage be on the Brexit negotiating team. Interventions that, again, make sure these two malevolences get even more coverage. But is it helpful? While Tories, defined here as members and (semi-) regular voters, are quite prepared to support pretty shitty things, and sometimes do so with alacrity, majority support for Trump among them is hard to find. But why? Why does the US president, in many ways their ideological soul brother, disturb the Tory imaginary and make some of them uneasy?
Well, he's brash, crude, and thick as spuds. His inarticulate speeches, the stream-of-consciousness tweeting, the boasts of grabbing women "by the pussy" is distasteful for a ruling party that prefers its prejudice to be polite, or hidden behind "fairness", or the dull technocracy of balancing the budget. What Trump's antics threaten is the aura of rule, or the mystique of the masters. Our betters are our betters because they're supposed to be better, after all. When you see Trump rambling his way through the most infantile oratory, or calling mayors of world cities "losers", it's not the discourtesy that's so troubling, but the puncturing of ruling class myth. When someone as obviously lacking as Trump is a billionaire and has ascended the summit of US politics, it simultaneously demonstrates there is something rotten about our politics and economics, and how the whole thing is rigged. Who you are and who you know always counts for more than talent. Far from demonstrating anyone can be a billionaire or a president, Trump's very existence shows that is not and can never be the case.
Following on, he personifies everything that is bad about America in the Conservative imagination. From dear old Winston onward (bust now rightly restored to the Oval Office), the British ruling class have prioritised hugging close to the US almost above all other considerations. Notable exceptions were the Suez Crisis (where Eisenhower told the Brits in no uncertain terms who the boss now was), Harold Wilson's refusal to enlist the UK in the Vietnam quagmire, and Syrian intervention where Parliament voted down Dave and Obama's schemes. Trump is overweening, doesn't know his own strength, and is in every danger of blundering about the world unless he listens to wiser counsel. Which, of course, is what Blighty offers with its distinguished history of colonial warfare and holding down a global empire for a couple of centuries. Trump inspires anxiety because no matter how much he pays lip service to the special relationship, he's not really that interested. And this lack of interest threatens the UK's position in the international pecking order as favoured lapdog. With our departure from the EU supposedly imminent, transatlantic uncertainty is the last thing we need.
And yes, Brexit. For the right, we know it is a repository of swash-buckling fantasy set up to make Tory politicians look good as they scuttle about the earth in search of trade deals here, there, and everywhere. An independent trading nation free to do as it please was, is still, the promise of Brexit - small wonder Nigel Farage continues to run with it. But the very being of Trump punctures the dream. What use "freedom" if Trump gives every indication of striking a post-Brexit deal with the UK from a position of American strength and British weakness, nay desperation as the dislocation of a hard or no deal Brexit impresses itself? The UK will be swapping one set of burdens - straight bananas, European court rulings - for another set of disadvantages: compulsory chlorinated chicken, lower food standards, and the opening up of the NHS to US insurance business. It's almost as if Trump is subliminally suggesting to a section of Tory opinion that, perhaps, their Brexit nonsense is in the process of fatally weakening the UK and it is they who will reap the political whirlwind. Is it any surprise then that if Michael Gove becomes the next Tory leader and Prime Minister, he wants to delay Brexit to late 2020 where, with any luck, he'll be dealing with a different US president?
The figure of Trump is met with anxiety in right wing establishment circles because he is a threat. His very existence makes a mockery of the way the ruling class legitimates itself. His capricious character not only jeopardises Britain's position in the world, but also rubs its nose in its second power rank. And last of all, Brexit exposes the country to a Trumpian smash and grab, which he has openly and cheerfully talked about. And that opens the door to one Jeremy Corbyn. With the Tories imploding and facing the possibility of extinction, they are in no shape to meet and check a Labour Party powered by anti-Trump sentiment ... nor whatever might come after.
What happens when the living dead prove more culturally virulent than an outbreak of zombie flu? You get a long-running TV franchise, many an imitator, films and, of course, video games. And so it came to pass that Sony's latest flagship release for the PlayStation 4, Days Gone is an open world zombie survival affair. You just can't get away from the damn things.
For the uninitiated, Days Gone casts you as Deacon St John, a drifter and former biker eking a living out of the virus-blasted backwoods of Oregon with his partner-in-crime, Boozer. The game is set two years after disease swept the world killing billions of people, including almost all children, and turning a good chunk of the survivors into Freaks - mindless and hyper-aggressive, um, zombies. They are alive, but like the infected from 28 Days Later have no vestiges of humanity left. What passes for remaining civilisation huddles around fortified encampments and hoping the huge hoards Freaks tend to congregate in pass their communities by. Yep, it sounds like virtually every other zombie apocalypse scenario.
There are a few innovations Days Gone brings to the table. The game, which obviously has a great deal of attention lavished upon it, is one of the best-looking titles you're ever likely to play. The wooded vistas and mountain passes, the dynamic weather, the fact wild animals and Freaks appear to have existences of their own (Freaks do follow certain behavioural routines if you watch them without being detected). If you fancy yourself the apocalypse's answer to David Attenborough, knock yourself out. Also, as you scoot about the countryside on your bike you have to make sure you take care of it. Like your nag in Red Dead Redemption II, the bike has to be kept fed and groomed, but luckily there's plenty of petrol and scrap metal scattered about to achieve this. Practically every truck wreck, untold dozens of which lie abandoned, has some gas. But easily the most exciting part of the game is taking on the hordes of Freaks. We're not talking 15 or 20 of them, but dozens upon dozens.
Okay, game mechanic-wise, none in and of themselves break new ground. The creation of an immersive environment has been around since the first primitive text adventures, of developing an ethic of care toward a digital entity as well worn as the tamagotchi, and the threat of getting swamped goes back to your Robotrons, Gauntlets, and Smash TVs. Why then Days Gone's appeal? Why does this sort of thing appear attractive and gets the punters buying it?
In her 2013 book, Coming Up Short: Working-Class Adulthood in an Age of Uncertainty, Jennifer Silva argues that capitalist society is harsh and unsparing. Interviewing groups of young workers, she finds an embedded sense of self-reliance and a rejection of dependence on social groups and institutions. Hardship isn't something to complain about or seek help to deal with, but are trials to overcome. Success then isn't necessarily conceived in the usual trappings of fame or wealth, but survival. This ability to cope, this resilience is a source of pride and self-worth. Here, only individual effort is morally significant and from this flows a scepticism toward collectivism and solidarity, because resting upon them infringes one's moral value. This suggests fantasies of the Days Gone type hook into an already-existing experiencing of the world, and reproduces in-game key touchstones of a particular form of neoliberal subjectivity; what you might call everyday survivalism.
Deacon as a biker is, like so many video game characters, the acme of declassed but petit bourgeois individualism. He comes and goes as he pleases, lives off the wreckage of civilisation, and makes his money scavenging or turning in bounties (ear "clippings" of dead freaks and deceased outlaws). Yes, the persistence of cash proves the old adage that it's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. And this is very much a masculine individuality. Deacon's backstory contains a tour of Afghanistan and then years in the rough and tumble of the west coast biker scene/underworld. He dishes out violence aplenty, albeit without the amorality of something like the GTA series, and there's the usual, gruff mano-o-mano confrontations with other notable male protagonists. Why can't blokes in (American) video game land get along without wafting their willies about like most men manage to do in everyday life?
As such, much of the game is taken up by Deacon doing fetch quests and other jobs for a number of camps. Rescuing someone here, clearing out a camp of marauders there, the odd assassination, collection of polystyrene cups (yes, really), and whatever else folk do after the collapse of civilisation is the meat and gravy of the game. Life is brutal and nasty, and you've got to look to your own resources, ingenuity and skill to get on. So far, so survivalist. Underlining it further is the common trope of the zombie genre. It's never really the walking dead, the infected, or the Freaks that are the real danger. Hell is, well, other people. The pockets of civilisation left aren't exactly shining beacons of human solidarity in a hostile new world. One camp practices slavery, another is run by a conspiranoid don't-tread-on-me-style wingnut, and the best is the one you end up spending most of the game affiliated with, run by a patriarchal but dismally unambitious former biker from back in Deacon's day. What can be more terrifying than stagnation?
Trouble comes from two communities in particular. The first are the Rippers, a psychotic cult who shave their heads and self-mutilate to look like the Freaks. They envy their lack of reason and all that is human, and often catch unwary travellers to feed to passing hordes. Charming. And yes, they're irredeemably violent and just so happen to have placed a price on you and Boozer's heads. As you can imagine, it all comes to a violent conclusion eventually. The second is Deschutes County Militia, a militaristic community under the iron rule of Colonel Garrett. Their purpose seems benign - take the fight to the Freaks by developing weapons to wipe them out, as well as collecting journals and books to assist rebuilding in the future. But after too many twists and turns, Garrett goes off the deep end and determines the biggest threat to recovery are ... all other human communities. More violence and explosions.
In all cases, while Deacon is dependent on communities for supplies and upgrades to his bike, the relationship is strictly transactional. Except when they become a problem to overcome, as per other zombie media. It is humans with their cruelties and petty jealousies, outside a chosen few, who present and represent threat. You know where you stand with a Freak, but the twitchy guard and the green kid with something to prove? Communities, collectives are your biggest obstacles.
The ballad of Deacon St John is the sound track to 21st century life. The reason why zombie games are popular, why surviving the end of all things appeals is because, as preposterous as it sounds, such games are relatable. The experience of actual disasters and adversity, which are more exercises in human cooperation and compassion than the law of the jungle, are immediately coded here as suspect, illegitimate, and the bearers of the same old crap. To sell the genre, zombie endism is squeezed through the sausage machine, and what comes out are near identical links of misanthropy. And it in turn feeds back into the survivalist mentality, preparing more ground for further cultural product of this character and buttressing the cognitive supports of a world that cares not. As with all good science fiction, Days Gone is less a vision of the future and more a reflection of our present.
No matter how you slice and dice it, last week's EU election results were an abject disaster for Labour. Yes, the Tories polled nine per cent of the vote which probably makes it their worst result ever, but when you answer it with a return of 13% that's hardly compensation. And then there is the YouGov poll that put Labour and the Tories level pegging ... behind the Brexit Party and the Liberal Democrats for a general election. Appalling. Thankfully, polls are a snapshot, not a forecast, and what they have captured is an electorate basking in the full glow of EU rebellion - the backwash of the results, if you will. And there is precedent for this. Remember Cleggmania when, in the enthusiasm of the 2010 leaders' debates, the LibDems powered to second place in the polls? Or, even further back, how the formation of the Social Democratic Party was treated as a blessed relief from two-party politics and topped Westminster voting intention?
Does that mean we can put our feet up and wait for the polls return to normal? If only politics were so easy. Labour's predicament going into the EU elections was it had a Brexit position designed for a general election. Farage's return to politics and field testing of his Brexit Party vehicle was always going to monopolise the anger of leave voters brassed off about the Tories' failure to serve up Brexit. As advocates of leaving come what may, including the stupidity of no deal, with this dynamic in play an insurgency galvanised its counter-insurgency: the very simple no to Farage, and yes to the EU by way of the LibDems, Greens, Plaid in Wales (ignoring Scotland's "special circumstances"), and trailing in their wake, our friends the CHUK-ups. Under the circumstances of a second order election where the consequences, broadly, do not matter as per a general election, middling positions were crushed. The polarising logic that governed 2017 and gave Labour and the Tories a wild ride returned and smashed us instead.
Given these appalling results, the Labour right wasted no time crowing their displeasure. The Twitter hashtag #ExpelMeToo saw sundry right wingers coming out in solidarity with Alastair Campbell and, with all the strategic verve they've demonstrated time and again, invited automatic self-exclusion onto their heads. Well done, comrades. Nevertheless, their dismal theatrics aside, the party went into this election something less than the sum of its parts. The compromise position of customs union deal or general election or second referendum, despite being perfectly clear on paper, does not make for snappy campaigning in a polarised contest. The campaign the party ran, not surprisingly, turned out fewer leafleters and door knockers than even the local elections (indeed, it seems my polling district didn't even receive a Labour electoral communication - though UKIP and the Brexit Party got theirs out). And, if that YouGov poll is a reliable indicator, 42% of party members went mostly LibDem or Green. Labour's biggest electoral asset, the size and depth of its body politic, was almost completely absent. If the party couldn't convince its own members to support it, then we're in big trouble.
The immediate priority of the Corbyn project is building and holding together a coalition that can win a general election. To do this successfully means understanding where a) the huge membership came from, b) why we were unexpectedly insurgent in 2017, and c) the character of the relationship of that constituency to the party. This enables us to think about strategy more deeply and with greater chances of success.
On the first two, we've discussed this many times before and so doesn't really need repeating in much depth. The two (overlapping) sources of Labour's expanded membership were the return of many thousands of activists and members who were alienated from the party in the Blair/Brown years, as well as a periphery of previously non-Labour activists who were in and around the labour movement (and as documented in Alex Nunns's The Candidate). And the second, larger group, were representative of the decades-long wider transformation of class composition and class politics. I am talking about the mass of networked (but, paradoxically, often atomised) workers engaged in immaterial labour. That is the increasing displacement of wage earners who made stuff by wage earners who produce intangible things, such as knowledge, data, services, care, relationships: what Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, the authors of the Empire trilogy, call socialised workers. Why does this matter to politics? Because it leads to a different experience of what it means to be working class.
Here comes the theory bit.
As Marx noted in Capital, the wage relationship individuates workers. The employment contract is between you as an individual and your employer as a single, legal entity. You give your labour power for x amount of time, and it is you who receives your wage or salary from them. However, because the workers Marx was most concerned with produced material things, be it raw materials torn from the earth or commodities shot out a factory's gates, these workers had to cooperate with one another (under the command of the boss/firm, who organised the production process) under shared conditions. Therefore, despite the individual legal relation between worker and boss, the bringing together of workers under one roof or manufacturing complex tended toward cooperative and solidaristic social relationships: the capitalist production process necessarily engendered a collective agent that would resist workplace reorganisation, the imposition of wage settlements, the lengthening of the working day, intensification of production, and would, by virtue of its collective muscle, contest management for control of the workplace. The dark satanic mills of Marx's day, the mines, the factories, the shipyards and railways simultaneously individuated but collectivised workers. And out of these conditions grew the trade unions, the friendly societies and cooperative movements, and ultimately the Labour Party.
The world of immaterial labour is similar, but different. Work is very much a necessity (as education, social security, the media, and politics never stops to remind us), but immaterial labour mobilises something else. Manual labour tends to mobilise the physicality of our bodies, whereas immaterial labour mobilises our brains. Not necessarily in the narrow definition of so-called brain work, but our sociality, our being as social beings. For example, the training I received for my first ever teaching gig was a copy of a module handbook and the directions to the room the class was taking place in. The training I received for my first ever supermarket job was on food safety, how to pick up cooked chickens with skewers and tongues, how to operate ovens, and so on. In both cases the real meat and gravy of the jobs, of being a personable service provider was something I had to provide myself, drawing on my prior history as a social being forged through countless social interactions. This was not inessential to these jobs, but absolutely central to them. And these competencies were not owned by the employer, like the deep fat fryer or the white board, but by me. They are inseparable from my brain, and any enhancements to social competencies picked up in the course of this work leaks out into the social world outside of work and ultimately becomes part of a skill set that may later be employed elsewhere. As far as capitalism is concerned then, work in the advanced societies depends to an ever greater extent on capturing our sociality and redeploying it for profit (this, indeed, is the business model for social media and so much of our digital infrastructure). And because capital aims at capturing our social qualities, it does not so much organise production any more but piggy backs off our spontaneous capacity for social production.
What has this got to do with politics? For one, because socialised workers acquire their competencies through, well, being social, there is a broad tendency for them to be more socially liberal. The right can moan about political correctness and diversity quotas as much as they want, when it is the system they hold sacrosanct that is feeding off the very social stuff that, over time, is eroding the sorts of attitudes they used to skilfully push and exploit for a good old bit of divide and rule. The second key characteristic is as immaterial labour has expanded in scope over the last few decades, it follows that the younger someone is the more likely their job now and their future career trajectory will be characterised by work of this sort. Younger workers are more likely to be socialised workers, which helps explain not just the values differences between the generations, but their tendency to vote in opposite directions too. And lastly, unfortunately, they are less likely to encounter the traditional institutions of the working class and when they do, well, what have unions got to offer them? Apart from bits of the public sector where the strength, power, and purpose of unions are more evident, why would a bar worker, a book seller, a dressing room attendant, a Deliveroo courier, or call centre worker sign up? Well, we know the reasons why and, it appears, increasing numbers of socialised workers do too, with unions posting the second successive year of membership rises - though this is mainly in the public sector.
And Corbynism? The bulk of its support who came to the party, and those who voted Labour in 2017, did so not because they were spontaneously socialist, though the alignment of values were a factor, but because Labour produced a programme that spoke to their interests. The cuts, the decimation of services, the running down of the NHS and education, crap jobs, the housing crisis, zero prospects, the insecurity, the sense nothing could get better, all of a sudden Labour offered something else that spoke to this diffuse and at times keenly, and times faintly felt complex of pressures. The new working class connected with the party of the old working class, and a programme the right wing careerists and the sneerists damned as a hard left throwback because Corbyn's rebooted Bennism offered the most modern solutions to the most current questions. It wasn't out of affection or magic grandpa nonsense, but was something a wee bit more mercenary: it was transactional. Socialised workers voted Labour in disproportionate number because it offered them something. As far as the party continued doing so, it had an advantage over a Tory party in long term decline as its base rose and fell on Brexit.
Unfortunately, in the context of the EU elections this transactional relationship came a cropper. Immaterial labour tended to vote remain over leave in the EU referendum, and since this constituency has grown as younger voters have been added to the electoral rolls and leavers have passed away, there is a sense that the vote to leave has robbed younger people of something - be it greater economic stability, the amorphous possibility of a better future, as well as a rude rejection of liberal internationalism, which, of course, is also a component of social liberalism more generally. Immaterial labour tends to believe staying in the EU is in its interests, again, on a transactional basis, and so is more disposed to a soft Brexit, a second referendum, or no Brexit at all - with the latter being the most preferred. Therefore, while you can put down an unwillingness to compromise to a certain impatience, the instinct to remain spontaneously arises from the experience of being a socialised worker where nothing is permanent, nothing is getting better, and what you do have is threatened.
An obvious problem for the Labour Party then. Given the opportunity to state their preference on matters Brexit-related, unsurprisingly the parties of second referendum/remain did well as immaterial labour asserted its interests regardless - well, those sections that thought it important enough to vote did. Unfortunately, crossing our fingers and hoping this was a mere flirtation is not good enough, especially as the next election will have Brexit front and centre, whether it takes place in early autumn or comes later. To keep the bulk of its 2017 support the party's position has to pivot more towards them. This does not mean going full remain, the party cannot reduce itself entirely to one side of the Brexit schism because it needs to appeal across it to win. But never again can it leave itself so dangerously exposed. If Corbynism is to realise its promise and be the vehicle by which immaterial labour sets about reworking society in its image, the party must shift to a soft Brexit plus confirmatory referendum position. It's not something I particularly like, having fulminated against it previously, and it will cause us a great deal of difficulty in some leave-voting seats, but we're in no easy option territory. In such a situation, our best bet is to go with the wisdom of our crowd.
Who were the runners and riders in the month of May. Did Brexit dominate ALL THINGS or were the Tories the object of fixation? Behold:
1. Sympathy for Gavin Williamson
2. Why Labour Went Backwards in Stoke
3. Why Farage Snubbed Galloway
4. Is Politics Melting Down?
5. The Allure of Change UK
Well, it was a mix of all of those things. It seems like an age ago now, but Gavin Williamson's defenestration (just!) came top of the pops, bizarrely followed by a very Stoke-centric post. I know there is a market for Stoke-related material, but usually it's smaller than even the lower-circulating Trot newspapers. You really want more Potteries politics? Then we had some thinking about the character of the Brexit Party, the (then coming) meltdown of the main parties in the EU elections, and lastly a pondering why not a few lefties are fascinated by our friends, Change UK.
What next? Well, tradition obliges me to throw a bone into the second chance saloon, and in this case it's a look the political character of Change UK and the Brexit Party, a character that owes more to the 19th century parties of the age prior to universal suffrage. What has resurrected such outfits?
And how about next month? I've got something brewing on the crisis of Corbynism following the EU election results, and I'm pretty sure the Tory leadership contest and Trump's state visit will throw up matters of interest.
This month saw 102,630 votes cast over 45 local authority (tier one and tier two) contests. All percentages are rounded to the nearest single decimal place. Six council seats changed hands and two seats were contested for the first time. For comparison with April's results, see here.
Party
|
Number of Candidates
|
Total Vote
|
%
|
+/-
April
|
+/- May 18
|
Avge/
Contest
|
+/-
Seats
|
Conservative
|
45
|
26,881
|
26.2%
|
+11.6%
|
-13.0%
|
597
|
-3
|
Labour
|
39
| 29,574 |
28.8%
|
+5.6%
|
-8.9%
|
758
|
-3
|
LibDem
|
36
|
18,583
|
18.1%
|
-0.3%
|
+2.9%
|
516
|
0
|
UKIP
|
13
|
5,105
|
5.0%
|
+3.8%
|
+4.4%
|
393
|
+1
|
Green
|
15
|
4,905
|
4.8%
|
-10.7%
|
-0.2%
|
327
|
0
|
SNP
|
2
| 3,373 |
3.3%
| -14.1% |
+3.3%
|
1,687
|
+1
|
PC**
|
1
| 121 |
0.1%
| +0.1%
|
+0.1%
|
121
|
0
|
Ind***
|
15
| 9,704 |
9.5%
|
+0.7% |
+8.1%
|
647
|
+5
|
Other****
|
12
|
4,384
|
4.3%
| +3.4% |
+3.4%
|
365
|
+1
|
* There were two by-elections in Scotland
** There was one by-election in Wales
*** There were two Independent clashes this month
**** Others this month consisted of Women's Equality Party (71, 41), People Before Profit (151, 218), Democrats and Veterans (13, 28), Christian People's Alliance (52), Anti-Cuts (91), Citizens First (45), Tunbridge Wells Alliance (1,088), Upminster and Cranham Residents Association (2,421), British Union and Sovereignty Party (165)
Not a bad set of results if you're a follower of the two main parties. Both shed the same number of seats and Labour edged ahead again in terms of votes, even though it was fielding markedly fewer candidates than the Tories. This should give the latter pause for concern. As a lot of the seats contested this month were held over to this set of May elections, these were a) in seats that, at this point in the cycle, disproportionately favoured the Conservatives, and b) differential turn outs by age are accentuated in local by-elections. They fell back under conditions of a double advantage, which seems to continue the pattern established this year so far.
Of course, it could be that we're playing with new rules now. We saw the EU elections and the catastrophic results for the Tories and Labour, and that YouGov poll has since dropped that places the Liberal Democrats and the Brexit Party first and second respectively. If the latter is more than overspill from the excitement, such as it was, of those elections it's in the continual monitoring of these real elections where we'll see it first.
2nd May
Broxbourne BC, Broxbourne & Hoddesdon South, Con hold
Cambridge BC, Kings Hedges, Lab hold
Cambridge BC, Trumpington, LDem hold
Cambridgeshire CC, Trumpington, LDem hold
Cherwell DC, Kidlington West, LDem hold
Craven DC, Upper Wharfedale, Con hold
Cumbria CC, Thursby, Con hold
Dundee CC, North East, SNP gain from Lab
Durham CC, Shildon & Dene Valley, LDem gain from Lab
Durham CC, Spennymoor, Ind hold
Exeter BC, Priory, Lab hold
Gloucester CC, Churchdown, LDem hold
Hart DC, Hook, Con hold
Havant BC, Purbrook, Con hold
Kent CC, Northfleet & Gravesend West, Lab hold
Kent CC, Sittingbourne North, Ind gain from Con
Lewisham LB, Evelyn, Lab hold
Lewisham LB, Whitefoot, Lab hold
Manchester MB, Fallowfield, Lab hold
Newcastle-under-Lyme BC, Maer & Whitmore, Con hold
Newcastle upon Tyne MB, Monument, Lab hold
North East Lincolnshire UA, South, UKIP gain from Lab
Northumberland UA, Holywell, Lab hold
Portsmouth UA, Cosham, Con hold
Reading UA, Thames, Con hold
St Albans DC, Sopwell, LDem hold
Sefton MB, Norwood, Lab gain from LDem
South Tyneside MB, Cleadon & East Boldon, Lab hold
Sunderland MB, Sandhill, LDem hold
Surrey CC, Haslemere, Ind gain from Con
Three Rivers DC, Carpenders Park, Con hold
Thurrock UA, Chadwell St Mary, Lab hold
Tunbridge Wells BC, Paddock Wood East, Con hold
Tunbridge Wells BC, Park, Oth gain from Con
Watford BC, Meriden, LDem hold
Welwyn Hatfield BC, Hatfield East, Con hold
Welwyn Hatfield BC, Hatfield South West, Lab hold
West Sussex CC, Northgate & West Green, Lab hold
Wolverhampton MB, Tettenhall Wightwick, Con hold
Wolverhampton MB, Wednesfield South, Lab hold
9th May
East Lothian, Haddington & Lammermuir, Con hold
Havering LBC, Cranham, Oth hold
23rd May
Neath Port Talbot UA, Resolven, Lab, Ind gain from Lab
Tendring DC, St Osyth x2 (new seats), Ind gain x2
30th May
Gosport BC, Brockhurst, LDem hold
