The Liberal Democrats have been hammered in the British local elections. They lost over 650 councillors and 9 councils as the British public punished the liberal democrats for broken electoral promises.
In a further blow to the Lib Dems, the public decisively voted against the Alternative voting system (68% to 32%). The Lib Dems had insisted on a referendum on AV as part of their coalition agreement with the Conservatives.
Embattled leader Nick Clegg said that they ‘had taken a real knock’. The Lib Dems and Clegg have come in for criticism over broken promises, particularly over issues such as tuition fees.
The Lib Dem wipe out was made all the more painful by the surprising resilience of the conservative vote. Their coalition partners had been expected to lose up to around 900 councillors but actually gained 78 new ones.
The Labour party did not have quite as good a night as was expected. They did however gain almost 800 councillors and 25 councils. They were also very successful in Wales where they won 30 of the 60 seats falling just 1 seat short of a majority. It is not clear whether they will seek to form a coalition or govern alone. The best story for Labour was their large increase in their share of the national vote which rose to 37% (10 points higher than the previous election)
However, there was a disaster for Labour in Scotland (their traditional stronghold) where their support collapsed, as it did in fact for all three main parties. The Scottish National Party (SNP) pulled out a stunning victory and perhaps the story of the night. A few weeks prior to the campaign the SNP had been 10 points behind Labour in the polls but they were able to pull off a remarkable turnaround.
The SNP gained a majority of the Scottish parliamentary seats, this despite a voting system which makes majority’s difficult to obtain. The question is when will they now seek a referendum on independence? Despite the SNPs own popularity, polling suggest only around 30% of Scots actually support independence itself. Prime minister David Cameron has said he will vigorously oppose any break up in the union.
The vote against AV was also much higher than expected. The YES campaign was defeated by more than 2 to 1. The NO campaign successfully overturned polls which had them behind six months earlier. The Labour party had been split over the issue with its members arguing both for and against. A BBC commentator said that, ‘Ed Milliband had been weakened’ by his association with the AV campaign.
The question now is will Clegg be able to hang on as Lib Dem leader? And will the coalition be able to survive? If not we all might be voting again quite soon.
