Council Elections

[OneTealShaker]

The first declared seats going to Reform.

Reform +2
Labour -1

Buckle up people.

I swear to God Brighton has gone down hill. The roads are dangerous and the traffic a thousand times worse.

Well they did vote to trash the economy, deliberately they kept telling us, so obviously that was going to make it pretty much impossible for anybody to make anything better for them in the medium term. Again - they need to take responsibility for their choices as adults and stop blaming everyone else. They were already being subsidised and told the rest of us that they were deliberately voting to make themselves and the rest of us poorer, so obviously we will have less money and compassion to spare towards their self-inflicted plight. Particularly if they keep doing the same idiotic thing and don’t learn.

Exactly this.

I believe that is why Labour had a landslide at the last GE. People were sick of the Tories. They didn't necessarily believe in all Labour 's promises, just wanted someone else in charge. Labour didn't win, the Tories lost.

And while I'm here, I wish that all local government councillors were independent, not aligned to the major parties. Just local people who wanted to serve their communities to the best of their ability. Perhaps then they would focus on local and not national matters in these elections.

Ahhh, we’re back to the abuser’s charter of “you made me hit you!” Or “I’m going to hurt myself if you don’t do what I want!”.

Nope.

Gaslighting and abusive. Take responsibility for your own choices and the consequences of those and stop trying to blame other people who tried to warn you not to shoot yourself in the foot thenm stab yourself in the face.

Yes, have heard that. But Labour have held the council where we live for decades and have got power-crazed and complacent so we desperately need a change. It may come back to bite us on the bum, but like people voting for Reform in other areas, it's got to be worth a punt.

Yes wait for London. I didn’t vote for them but the only party canvassing was Greens. It’s going to the line when it has been Labour for ages.

@ThatNattyPlayer thank you for being brave enough to respond on here!

Reform definitely worked the hardest to get votes round here, we barely heard from the others. Do you mind me asking what local issues they had a specific plan to tackle in your area?

This...hopefully the main parties will wake up, stop treating the masses( particularly those lower in economic scale) as stupid, listen and take some action to address the problems. Then hopefully we will stop the tip towards an abyss and lose the hard fought rights and societal benefits of living in our democracy.

Ok. So in your world view there is no way to ascertain whether a woodlouse or a human is more intelligent.

As I said, just because there are nuances regarding different skills doesn’t mean there is no objective difference in intelligence that is measurable and frankly it is insane to claim otherwise, unless you somehow have a way to refute decades of statistically validated and peer reviewed research in medical and scientific journals on biology, neurology, genetics etc.

The only thing sadder than a loser is a bad loser.

As illustrated here in abundance.

It’s Labour’s fault the electorate turned the local elections into a referendum on immigration and welfare, not the electorate’s fault for voting the way they did.

I agree that many new won councils will be worse under Reform, but we are where we are because of Labour’s U-turns, indecision and bad leadership.

I think you’re right @Sonato.

Looking at this thread is a great example of why the human race can never work together to achieve what could be possible. It’s just descended in to personal insults and point scoring.

Councils cannot change National immigration policy but they can attempt some small local changes.

Regarding councils and refugees, Lancashire Reform Council have removed themselves from the Governments Refugee resettlement programme and are refusing to house refugees. This is recent, I’m unsure of legal challenges to this yet but they have announced it. Not a huge amount of immigrants are involved but obviously it’s popular amongst their Reform voter base. Just for the people who say councils can do nothing about immigration. Some Reform councils have also legally challenged hotels being used for housing asylum seekers.

Councils cannot change net zero policies but they can influence emissions because housing, planning and transport locally heavily influences emissions. Stuff such as putting forward proposals for a by pass, approving new housing estates. The expansion of a village by me is going to cause horrific congestion and therefore pollution with idling traffic as the infrastructure is just not there.

We are staying with a friend, they have just given redundancy notices to half the workforce, not his decision this if from way above his grade, it’s a global company, He gave a detailed explanation about how China has undercut his factory. They can ship finished product for cheaper than he can even get the raw materials. China are not tied by net zero. His factory is way below the current emissions target but it’s being changed to such a tiny amount it’s impossible to actually be sustained and would cost so much they are just shutting that part of the plant down. So 75 people are losing their jobs, massive knock on effect in the very small town this factory is based. I can imagine some of those workers will turn to Reform.

@Twiglets1 I think many of the new young voters will turn to the Greens, It was a self serving move by Labour that looks like it will backfire in a spectacular fashion but they are and remain the party of unintended consequences.

I think you'd be hard pushed to find a single authority where council tax hasn't gone up. It's not a party issue, it's a funding one.

Wait until the London results are called. They're projected to take lots of councils from Labour.

Are they projected to take lots of councils? I think they'll get a number of council seats, rather than take control

Thing is if you are voting for your own area for local reasons which you should be you might actually have a very good reform candidate.

Our best is cons followed by reform. As predicted cons won our area back from labour who did nothing. Although it was less than a 100 votes in it.

I wouldn’t vote Green either! I can remember when they cared about the environment.
But wouldn’t vote Reform either.
But our local council is Reform and I haven’t noticed any difference yet!
The local councillors respond to emails, just like the labour did.

They're currently projected to take Hackney, Haringey, Lewisham, Lambeth, all Labour strongholds, but pollsters are anticipating a surge in areas where Labour is projected to win but the Greens increase their seats.

The funny part is that the only losers in this particular election will be those who have elected Reform councils.

You make good points about local influence, @ViviousCurrentBun, thanks.

There is definitely massive appetite for political change. That much is clear. I wonder if the traditional parties will listen this time.

Interestingly, John Curtice, the election psephologist whizz, is saying Labour isn't performing as badly as feared. 1,200 seats lost compared to the 1,800 predicted.

Still bad, but actually on a par with mid-term elections.

No.

It’s Labour I’m afraid.

Your last point is patently untrue. The Lib Dem’s run some of the best councils in the country but are always sidelined at GE’s.

That’s interesting to me @Swiftie1878.

”Best” as in most balanced budgets? Lowest council taxes? Happiest constituents?

And why doesn’t that success translate nationally?

It's an interesting picture, and one that's by no means complete yet. Reform doing well (as expected), Labour not doing well (although not, so far, as badly as expected), but the majority of councils declared so far have no overall control, which means although Reform are certainly winning a lot of councillors there is little they will be able to force.

Scotland and Wales are going to be the really interesting ones....

Lots of intelligent, politically educated people are voting Reform as well. It's not just the so called 'stupid' people. By far the biggest agenda is immigration. That's why Reform are winning because so many people think so too.