Welcoming Natalie Elphicke

One, two, many defections? Hot on the heels of Dan Poulter crossing the floor and another round of terrible Conservative election results, at Wednesday's Prime Minister's Questions Keir Starmer welcomed the honourable member for Dover to his party's benches. Eh? That was the first most had heard that Natalie Elphicke had joined Labour.

It's fair to say of all the Tories the whip's office have on defection watch, she would not have been among them. Elphicke has, in the recent past, attacked Labour for wanting open borders. She accused asylum seekers of "breaking in to Britain". She is on the record of favouring the right of the state to strip British citizenship from those it takes umbrage at, and has voted with the government on Rishi Sunak's efforts to cut the green crap and curtail the rights of trade unions. Most damning of all, she said her former husband (and former MP for Dover, Charlie Elphicke), who got sent down for sexual assault, was guilty of nothing apart from being attractive to women. The Times also reported that tried influencing the judge on the trial. Her punishment? A one day suspension from the Commons.

Knowing her record, the statement snuck out by Labour whips just before PMQs reads like a bad joke. "When I was elected in 2019, the Conservative Party occupied the centre ground of British politics." Err, no. "Since 2019, it [Labour] has moved on from Jeremy Corbyn and now, under Keir Starmer, occupies the centre ground of British politics." Elphicke cites housing and "the borders" as her top concerns. On homelessness in particular, she pledges to work with the Labour leader to sort that out. As she won't be standing at the next election, like Poulter one can only assume this "support" for Labour's efforts will come from a sinecure in the House of Lords. A body, not that long ago, Starmer promised to abolish.

That in mind, it's obvious what Elphicke gets from the deal. But what about Labour? Yes, another defection discombobulates and demoralises the Tory benches further. And for those who look at politics askance, the news compounds the government's woes and adds to the sense of crisis and doom. But really, did Labour have to accept this most awful of MPs, a woman who Jonathan Gullis described on Channel Four News as being very close to him politically? Her admission simply reinforces the truth that the party operates with a hierarchy of racism. Right wing MPs say and do as they please, and racism only exists as a factional tool. Just as the astroturf Jewish Labour Movement, right on cue, illustrated today.

Why Starmer accepted Poulter also applies in Elphicke's case. It's not about chasing Tory voters or leaving nothing to chance where the election is concerned. Despite what the Prime Minister says and, for appearance's sake, Starmer affects to believe, the general election result isn't in any question. The only imponderable is how large Labour's majority is going to be. Contrary to long-winded articles trying to discern what Starmer's real beliefs are, his project is simple. The renovation of the British state, the restoration of the authority of its institutions, and by tackling the intentional (and reckless) neglect of the state's capacity to do things, its legitimacy will be restored. It's an elite endeavour, and Starmer wants to build an equally elite consensus around his mission. With the Tories on a rightward trajectory and extremely unlikely to come back any time soon, this isn't going to be hard to accomplish.

The problem for Labour is this strategy and orientation is destroying its base. This has been obvious for some time, and explains why the the Greens are on the up, how there is a revival in Liberal Democrat fortunes, and there are potentially serious challenges from the likes of George Galloway and a smattering of left independents. Welcoming Elphicke has done its bit to accelerate this decomposition by fuelling a few more resignations. At this rate, campaigning is going to be an affair of paid regional officials "taking holiday", and that minority of councillors who do door-to-door canvassing. As far as Starmer and his shadow cabinet of briefcases are concerned, it doesn't matter because they'll get their ministerial offices and their status as very important people. But all it takes is a huffing and a puffing of the political winds, and absent the firm foundations the Labour leadership have excavated, the whole Starmerist edifice will get blown over.

What is the Point of TUSC?

There were some very good results for the organised far left in last week's local elections. But only if you count George Galloway's "Workers' Party" as a left wing organisation. It won four seats in all. In the WPB's new Rochdale stronghold, the party won two seats and 13% of the votes cast across the borough. Leaving aside the very significant issues with the organisation's politics, this could be interpreted as a straight forward protest against British complicity in the massacre of Palestinians. Moving to another stronghold, and I use that term advisedly, the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition stood in all the seats in Coventry's council elections. After more than 30 years of standing under a variety of labels, TUSC managed a princely 2% and failed to come close in any seat. The results elsewhere were hardly encouraging. Despite promising to publish its results on social media as they came in, they were so bad TUSC's Twitter feed publicised just two: the five per cent achieved in Blaydon ward in Gateshead, and the (admittedly very good) 32% in Bevois in Southampton. For some reason, presumably an oversight, the other 16 TUSC candidates in the city didn't merit a mention. And it's not hard to see why. It could only manage 1,072 votes between them, and in Coxford - a ward a TUSC-aligned Independent held as recently as 2019 - the coalition came at the bottom of the poll with 43 votes. Or, to you and me, 1.5% of votes cast.

In a lengthy piece in last week's issue of The Socialist, Socialist Party general secretary Hannah Sell regurgitates exactly the same arguments that were put forward when TUSC officially launched 14 years ago. It is "gaining ground" and "TUSC is not a mass party but it is an important lever to fight for steps in that direction." This is pure piffle. For instance, not only does TUSC's vote not improve from one election to another it lost its sole trade union affiliate a couple of years ago. Some progress.

There are three interlinked problems with TUSC. The first is political. Its pitch as doughty defenders of public services is worthy, but completely uninspiring. They say cutback we say fightback is alright for chanting on demonstrations, but does nothing to contest the politics of public service provision. When politicians have talked about the "necessity" of cuts since before the Tories took office in 2010, simply saying "no cuts" and pretending everything would be fine if local authorities launched campaigns to get back the money denied them is, at best, a prospectus for a society in which there are greater generalised levels of class consciousness than there is now. In its absence, the SP and TUSC are doing King Canute cosplay. They do not explain the class politics that lies behind programmes of cuts, despite positioning themselves as the working class opposition to them. And without this, they don't tell a story that punters might find engaging and convincing. For example, one reason why Jeremy Corbyn was successful for a time is he did offer a simple explanation that linked up society's ills. It owed more to moralism than class analysis, but his brand of anti-cuts politics proved much more effective and appealing than the SP/TUSC's economistic fare.

The second is strategic. In all the years the SP and its forerunners have been involved in left regroupment projects, it has fetishised a federal arrangement for participants. It often cites the original Labour Representation Committee to give their stance a principled gloss, but in reality it's about protecting the sanctity and coherence of the SP itself. Over 20 years ago in the Socialist Alliance, it preferred to walk out of the organisation rather than accept majority voting and a membership structure. And now, in TUSC, it reserves the right to stand as Socialist Alternative in seats where they think the opportunities for party building are particularly strong. Needless to say, results show that label doesn't offer any electoral premium over TUSC's. The behave like this because they have a very narrow, Leninist view of themselves. I.e. That they are the revolutionary party, and it's through participation in broader parties and movements that they will grow and, hopefully, overthrow capitalism. With such a millenarian conception of themselves, TUSC, their allies in TUSC, the rest of the labour movement, and so on are but foils for their grand ambitions. In this they don't differ any from the Socialist Workers' Party, the newly minted (and absurdly named) Revolutionary Communist Party, or virtually every other far left organisation that claims some fidelity to Lenin and his works. Where they differ is how they get to become the Bolshevik top dog.

Because TUSC is a means, this flows into its third problem. Because the SP is the revolutionary party, its energy has to be devoted to reproducing itself as a combat party of class conscious militants. This means prioritising the much derided stalls and paper sales, the trade union work where its approach to class politics has, in the past, awarded the SP some profile, and whatever it determines its organisational priorities to be. Putting energy into TUSC dilutes the SP's primary purpose. What this means in practice is TUSC is a useless electoral front that has no real life of its own. And this is a problem if you want to use elections to push an anti-cuts politics. For example, the current surge in support for the Greens to the point where they're in contestation for a handful of parliamentary seats hasn't come from nowhere. It's the result of targeting and campaigning consistently in the same seats over years. For the SP, supposedly the repository of the most advanced theory ever wielded by the working class, this super basic approach to building a profile has passed them by. Either that, or the SP don't want TUSC to grow into anything other than a conveyor belt of one of two recruits per election campaign. Readers can be their own judge.

We've already seen that the pathetic failure of the SP and TUSC to amount to anything has left the floor open to Galloway. Remember, this is not only a party whose ostentatious anti-woke posturing effectively attacks the working class it claims to speak for, it has selected candidates who are antisemitic and anti-Muslim. This will be the face of the extra-Labour left going into the next election, giving the enemies of the labour movement another stick to beat us all with. But everything is not lost for TUSC. It's too late to make a difference between now and the next election, but in the longer term it could profit from the same disaffection with Labour the Greens and Liberal Democrats are poised to do well put of. Provided TUSC dumps its unserious approach to elections. Nadia Ditta's campaign in Southampton did well because it appears she is a community rooted campaigner who has and is likely to continue working her seat. She points to TUSC's future as a viable opposition to Labour. But only if the SP allows it.

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There Won't Be a Hung Parliament

When this stupid piece appeared on Sky News after the Tories' drubbing in last week's polls, I didn't think anyone would be daft enough to give it credence. Extrapolating from the votes cast, it argues Labour are on for 294 seats and the Tories 242. This means no overall majority and a hung parliament, and every single poll for nearly two years has been wrong. False hope is hope for some, and so this morning The Sun ran with it, and none other than our bruised Prime Minister himself was bandying it around as the most likely outcome.

With Tory disaster in the air, everyone is comparing now with 1997. Here's mine: even at the Tories' darkest moments John Major never publicly entertained the possibility his party wouldn't get anything other than a majority. The crisis now is deeper, and so Sunak's official optimism has been downgraded to match.

I don't expect anything else from lazy journalists with an agenda, or from a desperate Tory leader combing the entrails of defeated mayors and councillors for encouraging signs. But, unfortunately, there are those who take anything that suggests Labour aren't on course for a crushing victory as proof it's not going to happen. This has become more pronounced in recent years, where reduced turnout in by-elections and local elections supposedly provide evidence that pollsters have raised an illusion of Labour's inevitable victory. This is nonsense.

There are two types of election. There are first order elections, which are general elections. For most people these matter the most because the electorate gets to vote on who forms the next government, and this directly impacts on their lives. As such, more people take an interest and turn out to vote. Second order elections are those that are not a general election: by-elections of all kinds, local elections, Police and Crime Commissioner elections, mayoralties, Welsh Assembly and GLA elections, arguably elections to Holyrood. Because these "don't matter" for most people, voting numbers are lower. Because the stakes aren't as high those who do turn out are more likely to register a protest vote. Recall the special case of the 2019 EU elections, in which the Brexit Party topped the poll while the Liberal Democrats came second and the Tories limped in at fifth in their worst ever nation wide electoral performance. How did that play out in December's general election?

Extrapolating from local election results is a bit of fun, so only clowns take these exercises seriously. In the Sky numbers we read that 'others' can expect to occupy 66 seats in Westminster. As these are England-only results, are we supposed to believe that the Greens (who are targeting four seats and can reasonably expect two), the pro-Palestine independents (who might win a couple), George Galloway, and a whole host of residents associations and localists are going to win these seats. That will not happen because, again, people are voting for a government. A better guage of what's likely to happen are polls that ask for general election voting intention, and the periodic MRP polls that undertake seat-by-seat field work. And what they consistently report is Labour are going to win a big majority, and the Tories are on for a defeat of historic proportions.

None of this is to say all is peachy for Labour. As long forecast and argued, Keir Starmer is chipping away at the party's base. If there is something to take away for Starmer supporters and Labour strategists to chew on, it's that these elections are suggestive of the significant opposition the party can expect when it's in office.

The End of Tory Hopes

What a catastophic set of results for the Conservatives. Losing almost 500 councillors, the Tories met and exceeded what was the grimmest scenario as briefed by government supporters to friendly journalists. The Blackpool South by-election was much worse than all the polls forecast, with Labour enjoying its third biggest swing toward them from the Tories since the Second World War, and who only beat the overhyped Reform by 117 votes. The mayoral votes were similarly sobering. As widely forecast, Sadiq Khan stomped the far right fool Susan Hall in London. Who could have thought that a platform based on hating your own city and campaigning against clean air might have performed so poorly? In the East Midlands Labour's Claire Ward brushed aside the double-jobbing, thuggish Tory Ben Bradley. Andy Burnham breezed to victory in Manchester, where the Tories could barely muster 10%. The consolation was Teesside, where Ben Houchen's personal vote hoisted him above the Labour tide - despite being dogged by allegations of corruption about his peppercorn land transfer to a pair of business pals.

There were two results that stood out, one that has received plenty of coverage. One hardly any. The first is the ousting of Andy Street from the West Midlands by Richard Parker. Labour should have scooped this with ease, but the margins were exceedingly tight thanks to the impressive result of Akhmed Yakoob, the pro-Palestinian independent who came third and, to a lesser extent, Street's own personal vote. Because, like Houchen, he was able to defy the doldrums affecting the Tories nationally, but only up to a point. Yet in Tory land, this is being treated like a cataclysm to end all cataclysms. And in so doing, they're overlooking what they should see as the real disaster. For the new York and North Yorkshire combined authority, Labour swooped in and saw David Skaith returned by an eight point margin over the Tories. This isn't just another region. It is home to some of the safest Conservative constituencies in the country. Skipton and Ripon (23,694 maj), Thirsk and Malton (25,154), and Rishi Sunak's own Richmond (27,210) are here, along with three others with majorities hovering around the 10,000 mark. The Tories should have been able to rely on this rock solid support to gift them the mayoralty. That they didn't suggests the hole they're in is much deeper than even their critics appreciate.

Why is a marginal mayoralty being treated as if pregnant with existential menace while the loss of a safe heartland gets a shrug of the shoulders? There are a few reasons. The first is expectations. Despite North Yorkshire being ultra safe, the loss was already priced in. A regional poll undertaken at the end of April reported a 14-point lead for Labour. In the head of those Tory MPs who follow public opinion, the contest was a write off. This was not the case in the WestMids where the polling put Labour and the Conservatives quite close. It offered MPs and activists a bit of hope, which was cruelly snatched away by the fates. The second is precisely because of the marginal nature of the WestMids. Had the Tories won there, they might have convinced themselves that matters aren't as bleak in the country as the polls keep saying. North Yorkshire, you might suppose, would stay Tory come what may when the election comes. And lastly, MPs wanted to see proof that name recognition can out perform party identity. Why? A surprising amount of MPs fancy themselves as someone who got into Westminster because of their character, abilities, and campaigning profile. The colour of the rosette, to their mind, was incidental. If Street had won, some Tories would have felt they too could buck the trend by marketing themselves as arms length local Conservatives whose fantastic personalities and constituency following might escape the toxicity of the party label. This is why a pall of dread has descended over so many of them. The good people of the WestMids region have closed off their slight ray of hope.

Five Most Popular Posts in April

A little later than usual, but such is life! Here are the posts that did the business on the blog last month.

1. Wes Streeting and Ideology
2. Routing the Tories is Good, Actually
3. The Hounding of Alan Duncan
4. The Tory Obsession with Angela Rayner
5. The Defection of Dan Poulter

In at one was Our Wes and his inability to get over his left baiting student past after likening his left wing critiques to ideologues. As the piece argues, the frequency with which politicians deploy "ideology" as a term of abuse covers the essential truth about politics. That it is a field of struggle structured by interests, not jolly nice ideas about how best to run things. In at two is a reminder that despite Keir Starmer and the road to rack and ruin he's taking the Labour Party along, it is still in the interests of our people - the working class - to see the Tories smashed utterly. In at three is a rejoinder to all the conspiracy-adjacent stuff found on social media about Israel driving British politics. It doesn't, and an explanation of what the Israel lobby are doing in this country is located in the dependent relationship Tel Aviv has on the Western powers. In at four was Angela Rayner's troubles over her tax affairs from before when she was an MP. But, as ever with the Tories, their reasons for targeting her are bound up in class politics. And sneaking into the rear is a quick piece on Labour's newest MP and what this says about Starmer's state modernisation project.

I'm going to abuse this place's nominal status as a politics blog by plugging April's two science fiction posts. The first is on Robert A Heinlein's celebrated The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and the second is Ian Watson's less well known novel, Alien Embassy.

What's on in May? Chances a piece on Starmer's further dilution of workers' rights will appear after he's made his speech on Saturday defending pathetic abandonment. There will be reflections on tomorrow's elections, some SF, and who knows what else the fates throw at us. As ever, if you haven't already don't forget to follow the monthly newsletter, and if you like what I do (and you're not skint), you can help support the blog. Following me on Twitter and Facebook are cost-free ways of showing your backing for this corner of the internet.

Whither the Workers' Party of Britain?

At a slick rally-cum-press round outside of Westminster on Tuesday, George Galloway set out his ambitions for the Workers' Party of Britain. If the general election is "early" (June/July), there are 500 parliamentary candidates ready to go. If Rishi Sunak forces us to wait until November, they will stand in every seat in Britain. He added that he's in negotiations with three Labour MPs about defecting, and one member of the House of Lords. No hints who they might be, sadly. But he then bowled us a googly by announcing Monty Panesar as a star candidate. "I'm standing up for working class people", he said in a short statement. Asked about other candidates, Galloway said his party wouldn't contest some seats where there are strong independent challengers. He mentioned Jeremy Corbyn, should he decide to stand again, and hinted the same for Diane Abbott. Also, presumably, pro-Palestinian campaigns like that surrounding Leanne Mohamad in Ilford North - standing against Wes Streeting - will get a free run. But everywhere else, Galloway was adamant the coming election campaign would be a party building exercise. Those Labour MPs who are opposing Israel in Gaza will face a challenge as a vote for them is a vote for putting Keir Starmer in Number 10. Lest we forget his repugnant interview with Nick Ferrari, in which he endorsed war crimes.

There will be some on the left who routinely stand against Labour in elections who'll be put out by Galloway's ambition. The next steering committee meeting of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition is bound to be a hoot. But as Richard Seymour rightly observes, that section of the left can't complain. The two biggest parties on the far left are more interested in sect building than anything more ambitious than that. Small wonder the RMT packed its bags and left TUSC hanging. Why put resources into an electoral effort that is furloughed from one election to the next? Galloway is responding to a political vacuum that, for others, is treated nothing more than an opportunity to recruit a few dozen paper sellers.

The question is can the Workers' Party capitalise on Galloway's by-election victory and make a breakthrough at the next election? Labour seem convinced that they'll oust the Gorgeous One from Rochdale, but I'm not so sure. It was often said that the coalition of support Tony Blair and New Labour built was a mile wide but only an inch deep. Yet, the party won three elections and enjoyed significant poll leads over the Tories for the majority of that time. Regardless of what one thinks of its politics, the Labour government showed resilience in office. The same cannot be said for the coalition Starmer is putting together. Attracting Tories is no substitute for putting down the social roots required to prevent his project from getting buffeted by the howling political winds. Yet, not only is this what Starmer is intent on doing his constant retreats from popular, Labourist policies are actively pulling up those roots. Speaking about hope without offering any is a fool's errand. While we see huge polling leads for Labour popular enthusiasm is lacking and Starmer's personal ratings are firmly in the negative. As such, with a Labour victory a complete certainty there isn't a better time for a left electoral challenge. Which Galloway knows well.

Therefore, it's quite possible the Workers' Party could make some significant inroads. At the campaign event, Galloway introduced Aroma Hassan, who is standing against Angela Rayner in Ashton-under-Lyne. He boldy predicted she would capture 10,000 votes, which puts Labour's deputy leader at risk (her majority is 4,263). Many have been the times when Labour politicians have lectured others about splitting the vote, and Galloway is deliberately playing up to this well worn fear. And why not? You only have to see the rhetoric from leading shadow ministers to see how they hold significant chunks of their voter base in contempt.

Knowing British politics, it's exceedingly unlikely the Workers' Party will poll anywhere near 10,000 votes in any constituency. Except Galloway's own. But apart from the well known issues with its leading personality, there are issues with the Workers' Party's politics that puts its long-term viability into doubt. Despite its name, the most enthusiastic support is drawn not from Muslims per se but Muslim business owners. The operation is well-funded by the standards of the British far left, and though Galloway is not short of a bob or two his consistent campaigning has attracted donors that would previously, as a matter of course, given money to the establishment parties. This helps explain why, despite the differences between the Workers' Party and Reform/Brexit Party/UKIP, on social issues and "values" they are equally as socially conservative, if not authoritarian. Hence the anti-trans posturing we saw in Rochdale. But also like other populist projects, it's irredeemably nostalgic. For instance, Amjad Bashir, the restaurateur and catering businessman, lifelong supporter of right wing politics and former UKIP MEP for Yorkshire and the Humber at today's campaign launch said he wanted to see manufacturing brought back to Britain. Nothing wrong with this, especially when more manufacturing should be re-shored to cut down on shipping and air freight emissions, but in this context it's about evoking an image of a Britain that's passed to make the party's would-be supporters feel secure about the future. A backward looking, small-c conservative, old Labour Britain you might say.

The problem is such a prospectus is extremely time-limited in its appeal. As argued here many times before, the anti-woke rubbish peddled by establishment politicians and their useful idiots is a reaction against the diversity of the working class as it exists today, in 2024. Galloway and the Workers Party fetishise an image of the worker that doesn't exist any more. Their resolutely hetero, masculine characterisation of the salt of the earth working class might play well to retired people and a petit bourgeois imaginary that appreciates graft, but for the rising generation it's likely to be a huge turn off. And that's before you talk about Brexit and "strong borders". As Starmer's government encounters difficulties, unless a different left force not so encumbered emerges then the Liberal Democrats and the Greens are well positioned to capture this discontent, precisely because the Workers' Party has put itself on the other side of actually-existing workers' interests. Therefore you might expect it to win votes in future from layers who have or might otherwise support Reform.

Nevertheless, that's for the future. Right now with the Israeli genocide of Gaza's Palestinians in full swing and the roiling anger hitting the streets weekend after weekend, Galloway is well placed to seize the moment and use it to power the strongest challenge from the left of Labour since Respect's heyday in 2005, if not the Communist Party at its height in the 1940s. And he's in such a position because the others outside of Labour have readily ceded the political ground to him.

The Defection of Dan Poulter

Dan Poulter's defection from the Tories to Labour is interesting. As a mental health doctor who has pulled shifts for the last decade, he said he couldn't look his NHS colleagues in the eye any more knowing the state the NHS has got into under this government. He also says the Tories have gone off to the right, and no longer approach the poorest and most vulnerable with compassion. On the face of it, a straightforward statement of one nation principles against a party that bears no resemblance to its philosophy and values.

The more cynically minded might have a different take. Poulter entered the Commons in 2010 and apart from chuntering about Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, he has been a mostly loyal member of the parliamentary party. When the Coalition government was whipping its members to force its two nation Toryism on the country via the programme of cuts, privatisations, and petty conditionalities, it never troubled Poulter enough to affect his voting record. There were grumbles about Tory attacks on junior doctors, but that didn't alter his politics any. The real reason is therefore obvious. Like Christian Wakeford before him, Poulter is jumping before he's pushed. He can see the writing's on the wall and he wants to survive the coming battle by defecting to the opposing army.

Yet this explanation doesn't work either. His Central Suffolk and North Ipswich constituency is a super safe Tory seat whose status isn't going to be compromised much by the boundary changes. And Poulter has said he won't be calling a by-election as he's standing down at the next election. All he hopes for is some input into Labour's programme for dealing with the mental health crisis. Not your usual rat run from the sinking Tory ship then. More a matter of Labour moving toward the Tories on so many things that he feels at home among Keir Starmer's PLP. Whether a berth in the House of Lords awaits remains to be seen, but it does appear Poulter has determined, from the standpoint of the interests his politics protects and serves, that Starmer is offering more of a go-er than the current idiocies of his former party.

Whatever the nature of any deal that has been struck, there are two points worth noting. This was supposed to be Rishi Sunak's best week for months. He had demonstrated "leadership" by finally getting his disgusting Rwanda bill through parliament, which put clear water between the Tories and Labour ahead of the local elections. He must be feeling cheesed off that the political coverage on the Sunday shows and in the Sunday papers will be dominated by more evidence of his party's decomposition. And the second shows how Starmer's strategy of kowtowing to elite interests is bearing fruit ... among elites. The Tory adjacent position takings are partly designed to ameliorate a press they're terrified will turn against them, but this is only one part of Starmer's plan. In his project to modernise the state he wants broad support from as wide a section of the establishment he can get. Even those who oversaw the horrors of the Dave/Osborne years. Bringing Poulter on board is, therefore, more significant than capturing a flighty, unreliable 2019 intake Tory like Wakeford because it demonstrates that Starmer's plan to build a wider coalition of elite constituents that crosses political lines has made significant progress. Where Poulter treads, more former Tories in the state and in the boardroom, if not in the Commons and the Lords, will follow.

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Local Council By-Elections April 2024

This month saw 23,094 votes cast in 10 local authority contests. All percentages are rounded to the nearest single decimal place. Three council seats changed hands. For comparison with March's results, see here.

Party	Number of Candidates	Total Vote	%	+/- Mar	+/- Apr 23	Avge/ Contest	+/- Seats
Conservative	10	7,129	30.9%	+13.9	+2.7	713	+2
Labour	9	5,163	22.4%	+0.2	-27.4	574	0
Lib Dem	8	4,444	19.2%	-1.9	+5.7	556	-1
Green	5	1,232	5.3%	-7.3	+2.5	246	0
SNP*	2	1,816	7.9%	+2.0	+7.9	908	0
PC**	0						0
Ind***	8	3,307	14.3%	-4.8	+9.8	413	-1
Other****	6	1,361	5.9%	+5.0	+5.4	227	0

* There were two by-elections in Scotland
** There were two by-elections in Wales
*** There were two Independent clashes
**** Others this month consisted of Alba (107), Common Ground (573), Fateham Residents (307), Propel (292), Reform (141), Sovereignty (41)

A rally before the inevitable slump? April is a funny old month in council by-election terms. The nearer to the May elections we get, the more vacancies are held over until the locals' polling day. It makes sense so stretched party activists can have by-election campaigns folded into a wider local effort. As such, this month is usually quiet and can lead to some properly distorted results. For example, last year there were only three by-elections, which meant Labour came away with almost half the vote. In 2024 there have been a lot more contests, and would you believe it the Tories have come out on top in votes won and seats captured. Given the state of the polls, we can firmly put its performance down to local authority quirks. In both cases, the wards taken were previously Independent-held. So make of that what you will. None of it suggests that Labour, the Liberal Democrats, and the Greens won't make further gains at the Tories' expense this time next week.

NB Common Ground in 'Others' is a local pact between the Greens and Plaid Cymru in parts of Wales.

4 April
Cornwall, Looe West, Pelynt, Lansallos and Lanteglos, LDem hold
North Northamptonshire, Desborough, Con hold
Wealden, Uckfield New Town, Ind hold

11 April
Highland, Inverness South, Ind gain from LDem
North Yorkshire, Stray, Woodlands and Hookstone, LDem hold

16 April
Pembrokeshire, St Ishmaels, Con gain from Ind

18 April
East Cambridgeshire, Ely West, LDem hold
Waverley, Farnham Castle, Oth hold

25 April
Angus, Arbroath West, Letham and Friockheim, Con gain from Ind
Cardiff, Grangetown, Lab hold

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The Party's Over in Birmingham

No, not a comment on the hole Labour-run Birmingham City Council are in nor the chances of Tory mayor Andy Street holding on to the reins of power in the metropolitcam district, but a notice that I will be speaking in the second city!

The lovely people at the Department of Political Science and International Studies (POLSIS) are hosting me to give a talk on, you guessed it, the book. Undoubtedly we will be talking about the crisis in the Conservative Party, Starmerism, the upcoming general election. You know, all the lovely stuff.

It's taking place on Wednesday 8th May, 3.00-4.30pm in room 112 in Muirhead Tower on the University of Birmingham campus. All welcome!

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Rishi Sunak's Rwanda Fixation

Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak don't get on at all well these days, but the former Prime Minister should be flattered by his successor twice removed. Sunak's determination to see the cruel and ludicrous Rwanda scheme through is straight from his strategic play book.

This morning, Sunak was crowing about how the passage of his bill last night changed "the global equation" on immigration. I.e. The Tories have convinced themselves that flying a few hundred traumatised people to Rwanda will deter people from trying to come here and, by extension, discourage others from handing their savings over to smuggling gangs so they can escape their countries. There's no hint of understanding let alone compassion because these most wretched of the earth do not figure as human beings in their political imaginary. When quizzed on this, Sunak says the deal the government struck with Albania has stopped Albanians from clambering onto the small boats. Rwanda will, he hopes, be a universal deterrent for all nationalities.

As forecast a while ago, Keir Starmer was always going to fixate on cost. But there is a point here. Why is this self-styled fiscally prudent government throwing good money after bad to make sure the planes take off? Without regurgitating the basics, which have been discussed here many times goes to the heart of their party's politics. Immigration is a traditional "strong issue" for them. It's something they can mobilise their base behind, and is something of a necessity now Nigel Farage's Reform are menacing their right flank. It's a means of demonstrating the Tories have the competence to govern. And there's the hope that repeatedly smashing the magic bigot button will reverse the polls and hand them an unexpected victory. After all, Leave won the Brexit referendum following a scurrilous anti-immigration campaign. "Controlling our borders" was also an essential prop of Johnson's "Get Brexit Done" election win.

But there is one overlooked component of this pathetic strategy: Sunak's copying of Johnson's Brexit strategy. Readers will recall that this most dishonest of politicians overcame the quibbles some had about him in 2019 by setting himself up as the most Brexity of that year's Tory leadership contenders, and when he was in Number 10 making sure the referendum result was seen through was his sole focus. Johnson proved his seriousness and won over millions of Leave voters by bulldozing through everything that was out to stop him. The courts. Sections of the Tory party. His own brother. And, finally, the Opposition he was able to goad into an election. His manifesto was thin, and enough of the electorate handed the Tories perhaps their greatest and emptiest victory ever.

Sunak is trying to work the same trick. No matter the money, no matter what the courts say, no matter that human rights legislation must be torn up and, in defiance of reality, Rwanda declared a land of milk and honey, Tory strategy is banking on enough voters being impressed by their singular purpose to award them victory. Or at least salvage enough support to head off a cataclysm. It's desperate and delusional stuff, but for the sake of saving a few votes from Farage's clutches they are quite prepared to sacrifice the hopes and health of any number of asylum seekers to achieve it.

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Alien Embassy by Ian Watson

What if we're doing space travel wrong? Are there better ways of getting around than launching huge rockets and spending months/years in flimsy tin cans if we want to visit nearby planets? This is what Ian Watson explores in Alien Embassy. In this possible future, the answer to what is a monumental engineering challenge lies in Eastern philosophy and, particularly, passages from the Tibetan Book of the Dead and, because this book was published in the 1970s, tantric sex. A scientist works out the rituals contained therein can unlock the real star drive: the one in our brains. As such, the world 200 years hence looks very different. Where industry exists it's unobtrusive, the world is a managed social ecology, cities have more or less disappeared as the old distinction between town and country has faded away, capitalism's dead, and people rarely venture out of their own locales. Yet there is a space programme and, moreover, there are three alien embassies on the Earth.

How does this all work? Young people found to have latent energies are recruited to their nearby embassy. They undergo training, get paired up with a designated "lover", and when they have sex they learn to project their consciousness across space. Humanity has come into contact with three alien races this way: a bird/tree analogue symbiont, sentient inflatables that float about a low-gravity moon, and more-or-less static crystalline entities rooted to a world bathed by a hot sun. Communication is psychic so the humans, and presumably vice versa, occupy a volunteer's body so they can talk with their space siblings. Sounds far out. But is there more than meets the eye? Alien Embassy follows Lila, a young East African woman who has the talent. When she enters the embassy, she's told in no uncertain terms never to go through the doors with the red swastika on them. Whatever might happen next?

I'm not going to say more than that about the plot. This is the first Ian Watson I've read, and it was very good though some aspects of it were, let's say, of it's time. His previous book was called Orgasmachine, to give you a flavour of where Watson's coming from. There are adolescent sexual encounters that, thankfully, aren't rendered in too much detail and would never make it into a mainstream publisher today. There's also the uncomfortable asides on breasts, but they're not as frequent nor as prurient as others one might mention. Thankfully, the rest of Alien Embassy rises above these awkward moments. The prose is literary, there is proper character development, and Watson is able to explain his esoteric melding of Eastern philosophy and Western science without intrusive and barely digestible info dumps. He sustains interest through two conceptual breakthroughs that completely upend the world he's built, highlighting a theme apparently common to his work - the manipulation of people and situations by elites.

Aside from being a well-written and entertaining novel, Alien Embassy could be thought of as a polemic against the arrogance of Enlightenment-centred thinking. Which, given how most of the main texts of French poststructuralism had appeared by the time this book did, certainly finds it swimming in a cultural current that hasn't got weaker on the 40-odd years since. The fantastical uses to which Tantric ritual and Tibetan mythology are put underscores how, despite their elision with mysticism in the West, they emerged as practical frames of reference for making sense of the world. And though exploiting the "mystery" and "exoticism" Eastern philosophy typically has for Western (British) readers, Watson makes the case that they are valid frames for interpreting the world. However, the fact the Bardo - the Space Communication Administration - that runs the embassies and is in charge of space flight might not be all that it seems could serve as a cautionary note to his more credulous readers; that they should beware anyone who touts Eastern philosophy as a cure all for the empty Western soul. As such, Watson is making a more nuanced point than some contemporary writers do about similar themes.

Alien Embassy is a stunning work of imagination, and is very much on the readable side of mind-bending genre fiction. Most of the uncomfortable sex stuff is toward the beginning . If you can get past that, an unsung banger of British SF awaits.

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The Tory Obsession with Angela Rayner

Some quick points about the Tories' obsessive attacks on Angela Rayner.

1. From their side of the fence, Matthew Parris's argument that the Tories hate her because she's an "uppity lass" rings true. These are the sort of people who can barely tolerate the few working class Tories they have on their own benches, let alone those with the temerity to oppose and hurl jibes at them from the opposition. She doesn't fit the briefcase image the Tories cultivate to affect seriousness of purpose. And one other Labour MPs of working class origin, such as Wes Streeting and Bridget Phillipson, aspire to by effacing their background. She stands out because she's unapologetic, refuses to submit to their style of politics, and whose presence might encourage more of the hoi polloi to enter into parliamentary politics. We can't well have that.

2. As Diane Abbott is temporarily unavailable as a hate figure for the Tories, they need a new target. For the above reasons, Rayner grates on the Tory psyche outside of parliament as well. Not only is she working class, but she was a favourite scapegoat of the recent pass - she was a teenaged mum. There are Tory voters for whom 1908s and 1990s press campaigns demonising single and unmarried young mums left a sweet spot their party can tickle at any time. And now they're in the direst of straits, the Tories are using anything, anything to try and consolidate their fraying core vote coalition. Their smears of Rayner, "coincidentally" coming at a time of Tory scandals, is a doomed effort at plugging the gaps.

3. This isn't just about style or not liking working class women. There is relevant political content here that goes beyond her simply batting for the red team. Because Rayner came up through Unison and is, rare these days, an example of the old shop floor to the parliamentary floor conveyor belt, she is a reminder of a labour movement the Tories have long thought was very dead. But also Rayner has taken up the championing of workers' rights. These, like everything else, have been diluted since Keir Starmer articulated the place for trade unions in his authoritarian modernisation project. But it says everything about how pathetic workers' protections are in this country that even as they stand watered down, what Labour is presenting today would mark a positive step forward. This is too much for a Tory party dedicated to driving out the barest influence of the labour movement on mainstream politics. They attack Rayner because she embodies what, in their view, is an illegitimate presence. A view that does have a following among Labour's ranks too.

4. Given the dismal part Rayner played in throwing Jeremy Corbyn and the left under a bus, and how she enables Starmerism, some comrades have wondered aloud why others on the left, and not just those remaining inside of Labour, have defended her? When the left was down she put the boot in, and she's hardly going to jeopardise her own meteoric rise in the party to defend socialists in the future. An entirely reasonable question. And the answer to this is why the Tories are attacking her. I.e. She's a working class woman who has no place in politics because of who she is, the fact she represents the labour movement on the front bench, and she is pushing a pro-trade union line that the Tories absolutely cannot countenance. They want her gone so, they hope, this agenda might disappear with her and that future leading working class MPs will steer clear of workers' rights to avoid getting hounded by the media.

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