Monday 6 May 2019

England's local election results


By Robin Baker


The results of the local elections in England on 2nd May were:

Councillors
Change
% change
Conservative
3561
-1335
-27%
Labour
2023
-82
-4%
Liberal Democrats
1351
704
109%
Green
265
194
273%
UKIP
31
-145
-82%
Others (mainly independents)
1179
662
128%
Of course local election results are heavily influenced by national political issues, but one must be careful not to misinterpret these figures.  They do not show that anti-Brexit parties came out as winners.  Indeed Conservative and Labour between them won two thirds of the seats.  But they do give a strong signal that the swing in popular political thinking today is away from Brexit.  Bearing in mind the narrowness of the referendum result in 2016, the change in what we now know what Brexit would mean and the appreciation of the lies used by Brexiteers to win the referendum, I do believe that they provide strong evidence in support of a people’s vote.

The Prime Minister’s comment on the result was that they show that people “want us to get on and deliver Brexit”.  That seems to me to be as intelligent and honest as most of her comments on Brexit.