The Faceless Election
Next Thursday 6th May will witness the widest-ranging local election ballot in Hastings in modern times. All 50 seats on East Sussex County Council, including eight wards of the borough of Hastings, are up for polling. Hastings Borough Council has 16 council seats at issue – half of the total – following postponement of the election that should have taken place a year ago. There is also an election for appointment of Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC).
The electorate is potentially more numerous than ever before, as the size of the adult population of the town creeps up, though whether that rise is translated into increased numbers of registered voters is less clear. What is certainly unknowable before Thursday is what proportion of those registered will actually vote.
Election count at Horntye, December 2019
PICTURE: Hugh Sullivan
The contest in almost every case is a four-way party battle: Conservative, Labour, Lib Dem and Green. UKIP, the Brexit party and other manifestations of nationalist or populist pressure have been seen off in the wake of Britain’s departure from the EU at the end of 2019. But there’s not a single Independent in the mix of candidates on Hastings ballot papers either, save for Roy Williams in the PCC poll.
One advantage of party organisation should be rationalisation of message, and economies of effort in getting it across. Which means, for this election fought under the shadow of the Covid-19 pandemic and its social restrictions, a reliance on delivery of written brochures, Facebook postings and other social media tweets – a literally faceless exercise.
Labour:
socialist values
The Labour party, which is seemingly bound to remain the dominant party in the borough council at Muriel Matters House, while very poorly represented at county council level, clearly prefers to highlight the personal and ideological suitability of its candidates rather than address any contentious local issues. Its glossy red brochure – “On your side in Hastings & St Leonards” – pledges to
• Keep Hastings safe
• Provide decent, affordable housing
• Tackle Climate Change
• Challenge inequality and poverty
• Boost the local economy
• Promote inclusion and diversity.
Rick Dillon, communications officer for the Hastings and Rye constituency party, proclaims that it “is fielding its most diverse range of candidates ever. Young women, born and raised in Hastings. People from ethnic minority backgrounds. Those with experience of prejudice, others who know what it’s like to be homeless and unemployed.”
Credit is claimed for the performance of the existing council under the leadership of Cllr Kim Forward over the last year in handling the pandemic, keeping essential services going through the lockdowns and tiered restrictions, co-ordinating the efforts of volunteers in a Community Hub, and distributing government support grants as quickly as possible. “But this is only part of the story”, says Mr Dillon. “What drives Kim and her fellow Labour councillors is their socialist values: a commitment to a fairer, more equal society.”
Conservatives:
planning issues
Conversely, the Conservatives, now led by Cllr Andy Patmore in place of Cllr Rob Lee, are very much the minority party on the borough council, while dominating at County Hall in Lewes.
The borough brochure – “Caring & Campaigning for our Community – our Plan for a better future for Hastings and St Leonards” – goes for three priority bullet points:
• Protecting public safety in local parks and streets
• Tackling social behaviour and littering
• Sorting out a ‘broken’ planning system.
Expanding on the first two issues, the Tories pledge to enforce Public Space Protection Orders and keep CCTV surveillance operational. They also promise to bring back free parking in the town centre after 6pm.
On the planning front, they criticise the council’s proposals to build on green spaces such as the Lower Tier site at Bulverhythe and Harrow Lane Playing Fields, arguing that “we must explore every opportunity to build on brownfield sites as a priority”. The bathing pool site at West Marina should be “rethought to provide a leisure hub as well as sympathetic development”. It seems likely that these stances will play well in West St Leonards where the Bulverhythe and West Marina developments have stirred local opposition over a long period, and the party already has strong representation – less so, perhaps, in other wards suffering from housing shortages.
Lib Dems:
looking for allies
Less than 25 years ago Liberal Democrats held a majority on Hastings Borough Council, and continued as main opposition to Labour until 2002. Since 2012 they have failed to win a single ward, and it’s difficult to see why they should do any better this time round, as they bump along on single percentage points in the national opinion polls.
Their local manifesto for the county council election is headlined by a call for an alliance of all non-Conservatives to band together to defeat the ruling party, while even the strapline – “Open, Engaged, Green” – seems to concede that their rivals for third party votes, the Greens, have a clearer and more identifiable brand to rally around.
But allies are few and lukewarm. Labour, in their current mood, were never likely to make common cause with the Lib Dems over any joint candidacies, the Tory/Lib Dem coalition government of 2010-15 having sealed Labour’s disdain for mutual co-operation. The Greens have agreed not to put up a candidate for a ward by-election in Rother District – the only poll taking place for that council on 6th May, arising from the retirement of former councillor, now constituency MP, Sally-Ann Hart. (All Rother council wards are polled together every four years, most recently in 2019, so other councillors remain unchallenged until 2023). Candidacies in other Rother wards at county level have been parcelled out between Lib Dems and Greens. But Hastings Greens (see below) refused to make any accommodation within their borough.
As to policies the Lib Dem brochure champions both house-building, with a focus on affordability and meeting the needs of the vulnerable, and protection of green spaces. Perhaps its most eye-catching proposal is to halve the number of councillors as well as requiring a greater transparency in the workings of both councils.
Greens:
a single target
Despite registering candidates in every Hastings borough ward, and in most county wards too subject to some trade-offs with the Lib Dems (see above), the Green party are unashamed in proclaiming a single–minded goal in Hastings: to get their leader Julia Hilton elected in Old Hastings. In 2018, she fell short by just 29 votes of toppling Labour candidate Dany Louise, who ironically resigned her party label the following year. This time Ms Hilton is up against a fresh candidate, Anna Sabin, who bucks the general trend of candidates across the spectrum claiming deep personal connections with the town by admitting that she has been here only since 2019.
The Green party website – straplines “For the Common Good” and “Vote for a Green Future”– explains that “what you can do to get Greens elected on 6th May” is to deliver leaflets and talk to voters on the doorstep (traditional canvassing that has been effectively abandoned by other parties) specifically in that ward.
Even candidates in other wards have been taking their turn to help out here. Sally Phillips, for instance, standing both in Braybrooke for a borough seat and in Braybrooke & Castle at county level, is helping out in Old Hastings; while she of course wanted to win her personal contests, she understood that Ms Hilton had the best chance. Once the latter had been elected and showed her mettle in the council chamber, all Greens would have a greater chance in future.
Other parties – Conservatives, Labour and even Lib Dems, though very much in that order – acquire campaign funds from wealthy individual donors. In the Green case, local people were paying for the campaign out of their own pockets, hence the need to target resources.
• Polls will be open between 7am and 10pm on 6th May, though voters have been encouraged to cast their ballots by prior post. Counting for the county and borough elections will take place the following day; counting for the PCC election will be delayed until Monday 10th May.
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‘Faceless’ is definitely the word. In Central St Leonards ward we received a leaflet from the Labour candidate, but absolutely nothing at all from any other candidate for any of the three elections.
PB