Local Elections 2021: Will We Vote?
Next Thursday 6th May local elections are being held across the country. With last year’s ballot postponed during the first coronavirus lockdown, there is a bumper catalogue of council posts up for voter determination at county and borough level.
Police and Crime Comm-issioner (PCC) posts are also being contested.
In East Sussex the Conser-vatives will be defending their county council majority and Katy Bourne’s position as Sussex PCC. In Hastings, conversely, the Labour party will be defending its dominant hold over the borough council. In Rother, there are no across-the-board district council elections, since all seats there were determined for four years by the radical 2019 ballot which ejected its previous Tory majority in favour of an alliance of Independents and opposition parties. There will, however,
be one by-election in Eastern Rother to find a replacement
for Sally-Ann Hart as a result
of her elevation as Member of Parliament for Hastings and Rye from December 2019.
In normal times, council elections rarely raise high excitement levels. The average turn-out across the UK in recent years has been less than 35% of those registered to vote – roughly half of those who vote in general elections. Electors realise that councils have limited powers, increasingly squeezed funds, and don’t regard them as having much influence on their daily lives – who can guess which set of politicians will get more pot-holes repaired or keep streets cleaner? Most will vote tribally for the party they align with. Or else not. The task of candidates from all parties (or none) thus becomes not so much to differentiate themselves from their rivals as to rouse potential supporters to the bother of casting their ballot.
The Covid effect
That task looks all the more difficult in the time of coronavirus. The election booths are promised to be Covid-proofed. Mask-wearing will be obligatory with hand sanitisers at the ready. Votes can be cast in the post – the Labour party, in particular, has been keen to advise its supporters to do so, with the local party leaflet intoning “Vote safely. Vote by post.” But a poll conducted last month by anti-fascist campaign group HOPE not hate concluded that over 25% of voters were “less likely” to attend a polling station because of coronavirus fears, that percentage rising to nearer 40% among BAME groups and younger voters generally. On the other hand, of those who indicated that they were unlikely to vote at all, the most common reason given was that “it won’t make any difference” rather than concern at risks of infection.
How about canvassing? Public gatherings are out of the question. All four main parties – Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats and Greens – have by now got the majority of their glossy leaflets delivered street by street through Hastings and Rother, but there’s little or no opportunity for discourse or debate in response.
Instruction has issued from the Labour party head office that traditional door-knocking should be avoided. Hastings and Rye Conservative Association chairman Martin Clarke released a statement challenging the other parties to “follow our lead and respect the safety of residents, candidates and volunteers …We value people’s safety in these difficult times, and while the UK Government has given its approval for door-to-door canvassing, we believe many people would not appreciate it and prefer we didn’t.” The Lib Dems have fallen into line, even declaring that they will “take extra care while leafleting”. Only the Greens have treated the Conservative challenge with some disdain, with local party secretary Andrea Needham commenting that it “suggests to me they [the Conservatives] either don’t trust their own government or they’re worried about getting a flea in their ears from voters”.
Instead, all parties seem to be reliant on social media, the essence of which may for the most part amount to a communion of the already converted – except that the aim is not to change people’s hearts and minds but rather to convert them into actual crosses on ballot papers.
HIP invited each of the four parties to take an advertorial slot in the next edition of our newspaper to set out their respective cases side by side. Only one was willing to take up the offer and, in the interests of balance, the proposal was withdrawn. Instead we will prepare our own independent review of the parties’ respective pledges or positions on particular local issues.
• In the meantime, for a consideration of relevant environmental issues in the elections, see “Environmental Hot Air”.
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