A very quick UK politics update

[dolorosa_12]

This is not a post where I wail and grieve about The Current State of the UK Labour Party, join the circular left wing firing squad, or offer one of the various hot takes that will allegedly solve the Labour Party's problems and make them electable again (be more left wing! be more right wing! be more centrist! make an electoral pact with the other opposition parties! change the leadership! rally behind the leadership! build an altar to Saint Corbyn and worship before it! etc). We've got newspaper opinion pieces and perpetually aggrieved Twitter leftists for all that.

This is, instead, a rather amused post about the specific local races where I live, which went surprisingly well.

Our county council (which was previously Conservative-led), went to 'no overall control,' which means that no party has a majority. But far more astonishing was the race for our regional mayor, a position which has only existed since 2017. This position was, again, held by a Conservative, and he appears to have been especially dodgy and corrupt, even by the normal standards of local politics (money disappeared, funds were awarded to stuff in a not-very-transparent manner, the usual). The local Lib Dems had taken to deluging everyone with campaign leaflets filled with copious references to 'notorious Mayor Palmer.' Unfortunately, because our region doesn't just cover Cambridge, Ely, and a handful of other satellite villages, but rather takes in much more conservative areas, we assumed that the 'notorious' mayor would get reelected, due to the usual problem of city-dwelling progressives getting out-voted by more conservative voters elsewhere.

However, this was not what happened, thanks to the transferable vote system we have at local level. It's not quite as good as the system in Australia (where you rank every single candidate): you get a maximum of two votes, meaning you put your first choice first, and then the person you can live with second. If no one gets fifty per cent when the first choices are counted, the two candidates with the highest number of first round votes move onto the second round, where voters' second choices are added to each of those two candidates, and whoever emerges with a majority at that point is the winner.

'Notorious Mayor Palmer' had the most votes in the first round, but not a majority, so he and the Labour Party candidate fought it out in the second round. The only other candidate was a Lib Dem, and the majority of people who had put Lib Dems first had put Labour second, but the count was agonisingly slow, so we watched all this unfold over several hours, via Twitter, where an intrepid local journalist was livetweeting things from, of all places, Soham. Because the smaller counting centres were able to tally things up faster, we were waiting (and counting) on the votes from the city of Cambridge, which of course took longer. The whole thing was extremely dramatic!

And so it's goodbye to 'Notorious Mayor Palmer,' and our new mayor is a) an NHS paediatrician b) the Labour candidate and c) took his mum to the count. I'm delighted. As I said on Twitter, I'd like to raise a glass to every single one of those ridiculous Lib Dem campaign leaflets.

Obviously things are dire nationally, but there are glimmers of light, and I feel that what happened here actually offers some lessons as to a way to move forward.

Comments

[wheatear]

The transferable vote seems to work really well for the mayoral elections. I'd like to see something like it implemented for other votes as well. (Australia's system in general sounds much better than FPTP...)

[dolorosa_12]

Unfortunately, because the system works so well at keeping out the Tories in progressive parts of the country, they're talking about ditching transferable votes for mayoral elections next time around and having it be first past the post. (That wouldn't have prevented e.g. Sadiq Khan from being reelected in London, or Andy Burnham in Manchester, but obviously in my area we would have been stuck with the Tory mayor, even though a majority of people voted 'not Tory'.)

I like Australia's system, and I like the transferable vote system, and I like proportional representation. They're all much more democratic, meaning either that whoever gets elected has a genuine majority (not just the most votes), or that the parliament truly represents the exact breakdown of votes in the country/region. FPTP is really anti-democratic, and no wonder it results in apathetic voters who feel their votes don't matter: unless they live in a swing seat, their votes really don't matter at all!

[bruttimabuoni]

I did see that, and some delighted tweets from local friends who've never had an outside-of-Cambridge vote go their way.

[dolorosa_12]

It was such a change to have a political result that reflected what I actually wanted, and all the more delightful because literally no one here was expecting it. (I met up with my friends who are active in the local Labour Party on Friday and they were gloomily predicting that 'Notorious Mayor Palmer' would be reelected.)

[merit]

Yes, I always side eye when conservatives want to get rid of preferential voting I SEE YOU.

I suppose they're not used to that sort of vote counting? Either way, yay!

[dolorosa_12]

I suppose they're not used to that sort of vote counting?

Definitely not. Although Scotland and Wales have different voting rules for their devolved parliaments, in England most other votes are first past the post — which means that people who live in progressive parts of the country (as we do) have not really had any vote go their way for more than ten years at this point (although of course we have elected progressive MPs — they just haven't been in government).

I live in terror that the LNP in Australia will suddenly decide to implement first past the post and remove compulsory voting (as both things would obviously benefit them immensely). My understanding is that compulsory voting is really popular and it would be unlikely to pass without a referendum ... but these days I don't trust referendums either!

[trepkos]

How fabulous. We need to change the voting system nationally.

[dolorosa_12]

We really do, although sadly the only changes being talked about are the Tories trying to get rid of this transferable vote system for mayoral elections, rather than change in the other direction.

We're obviously not going to get a system change with the current party in government, and my feeling is that the only way it will be possible is for all the opposition parties to govern in coalition against the Tories (say that it's a hung parliament and the LDs, Greens, SNP etc say they'll form a coalition with Labour), and for those smaller parties to make electoral reform a condition for them to go into coalition with Labour.

That said, the LDs tried to do exactly that in 2010, and voters refused to implement it because they were so furious with the LDs going into coalition with the Tories...

[lirazel]

I am so jealous of any voting that's not first past the post. This is so interesting--thanks for posting about it!

[dolorosa_12]

Pretty much all other elections in England (and referendums) are done by first past the post, and I hate it. And of course because these transferable votes benefit the progressive parties (as was so obviously demonstrated in my region this time around), the Conservatives are trying to get rid of it for the mayoral elections too — they can't bear to have even one level of government where the electoral system isn't weighted to their benefit.

The only thing worse that first past the post is first past the post with the US Electoral College. The idea that a vote in Pennsylvania matters more than a vote in New Jersey (for example) is just absurd, and completely anti-democratic. (Likewise that Electoral College votes seem to have very little connection with the actual voting population of any given state.)

[lirazel]

they can't bear to have even one level of government where the electoral system isn't weighted to their benefit.

I won't even say anything about what's going on in my own country with Republican-supported voting laws...

AGREED re: the Electoral College. I hate it so so much.

[lokifan]

Oh FANTASTIC. (And, I feel, a good argument for transferable votes as a system). My parents live in a satellite village, I'll have to ask if they get to vote for the mayor - I'm pretty sure they'd have gone Labour, Lib Dem.