Another U turn, Council elections this time.

[Imdunfer]

Love him or hate him Farage has gone to court to force the government to give people the democratic votes they are legally entitled to.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c70ne31d884o

Labour are so going to be stuffed in these elections, how long will Starmer last?

Like anything that they should know by a reasonable amount of research will not be legal.

Anything.

Just exactly what I wrote, in fact.

Vote or don’t. Others do want to and will be glad to do so.

See my post timed at 17.34

Local elections are not just to appoint Councillors to local councils.

They can change the course of government level politics.

They are the only way people can influence a government mid term, with a protest vote for a party they possibly wouldn't vote for in a GE that can cause only limited damage. It's actually the Council staff who keep councils running, and with this set of elections in particular they are very time limited in ability to create any real change.

Politically though, they are huge this year. I think the Greens will do well. I don't think Starmer will survive.

It’s not my government, as I don’t live in the UK anymore :)

Not agreeing with you doesn’t mean I am missing the point, it just means I don’t agree. By their own choice, non voters don’t really have any right to complain about how the money is spent. But those that do vote do have every right to object to their democratic right being taken away, and that’s the democratic right to not only have a say in who runs their local authority but also to send a signal to the national government.

Who would have thought that the UK would get to the stage where people were arguing it was absolutely fine to take away peoples right to vote, and under a Labour government as well!

Democracy is the bedrock of our country . Maybe you should change your focus to Keir Starmer who as he keeps reminding us was the Director of Public Prosecutions, apparently one who doesn’t know the law . He should have foreseen this .

I think you’re looking at reform through rose tinted specs. Do you watch GBEEBIES? The absolute horrific job they are doing in Kent and elsewhere is enough to kill them stone dead.

If democracy was the bedrock of the country we wouldn’t have FPTP.

Fairly sure with Starmer flipflops these local government reorganisations won't be happening in the near future.

It’s generally accepted that FPTP is more democratic than other systems in two key areas - (1) knowing which party will be the government and (2) retrospective government accountability - the ease of getting rid of the governing party. In the current climate and with politics in the UK and Europe in the mess it’s in more not less accountability is needed IMO.

If you’re interested, Dr. Richard Johnson (Lab) has written an interesting paper on it only recently.

https://www.qmul.ac.uk/mei/media/mei/qm-policy-hub/briefs/Queen-Mary-Policy-Brief---Is-First-Past-the-Post-Undemocratic.pdf

Good. People will show their anger with their votes. This government is a disaster and people aren’t prepared to wait to get them out.

This is a left-leaning forum so you would be right. If the conservatives were doing the same there would be uproar.

This won't do anything to get the goverment out. It might help change some future policies, but it's biggest impact, i think, will be to continue the trend of revolving door Prime Ministers.

It is a great pity that Labour got such a huge majority. If it had been smaller then Starmer might have had better control of his back benchers and actually been able to choose and then implement his policies.

I do think it's time we dropped FPTP because of societal changes, but there are huge problems with PR without one strong party. Many countries in recent times have been left without a government, ie no national level democracy at all, for lengthy periods of time while the parties argue amongst themselves who's going to be in control. They then often form a "coalition of the unwilling" to coin Starmer's phrase, which promptly collapses again a short time later.

Germany, for example, has been in political turmoil for years after losing the strong leadership of Merkel. At the same time, their economy is collapsing (compared to its previous success). The two may be related.

I was denied a vote. We live in a democracy and the right to vote must be protected.

All I know is that with FPTP more than half the people who vote don’t get the government they want. It doesn’t look much like democracy to me.

You were denied voting twice in two years, probably for exactly the same council representative.

@Petrine You didn’t lose a right to vote. You would have had the same vote at a later date. Only around 30% turnout for local elections anyway. The majority don’t care.

At the last general election, the turnout was 59.7%. Absolutely dreadful. Mainly because we have parties espousing policies no one wants or dislike of politicians, or probably both! Labour got 34% of the vote. So 2/3 of votes went elsewhere. They got over 60% of the seats. Most sane people would question how democratic this is in terms of people being represented in terms of their views. They did get a vote though! So it’s democracy! Few other countries use this system and you csn see why.

Can we stop with the pedantry please, you know exactly what the poster meant.

People lost their right to vote this year.

It doesn't matter how few people would turn out, those motivated to turn out to express their dissatisfaction with or support for this government lost the ability to do so.

I wonder just how many people who are saying this is no big deal are also the ones on the "Reform wants women barefoot" thread saying that making it tax advantageous to have children is the first step towards a Handmaid's Tale society.

@Imdunfer Well they should express themselves accurately then. It’s a shame posters just use a headline instead of analysis. It’s not pedantry. They were incorrect. Are you policing the thread as well as starting it? Go you!

If you were truly concerned about democracy you absolutely would be concerned about turnout! Democracy is controlled by few people. Especially in marginal parliamentary seats. Maybe you should study politics?

And your last paragraph summarises a massive problem. As long as we use local elections as a referendum on Westminster rather than actually looking at potholes, bin collections and Social Care we'll get the Councils we deserve.

Backbenchers are not there just to do as they're told. The PIP changes upon which they revolted were not in the manifesto and were to a large extent plagiarised from what the Tories had left on the Ministers desk. Claimants found them deeply alarming and that overwhelmed MPs postbags and constituency surgeries.

If you're going to pull that trick a few months into government then you need, as a bare minimum, to 'roll the pitch' first. Starmer is said to really struggle with the dynamics of that sort of exercise.

As a Welfare Rights person I sau chapeau to the rebels.

And your last paragraph summarises a massive problem. As long as we use local elections as a referendum on Westminster rather than actually looking at potholes, bin collections and Social Care we'll get the Councils we deserve.

I've held two jobs under local council funding and known two councillors quite well, and my first hand experience was that the council members don't actually have a huge impact on how the council runs because of how much of the budget is not discretionary, a lack of any law making powers and the restrictions of virement (where a surplus from one budget cannot be used to help out another).

Even with planning, it's usually the Planning Officer who makes the decision and puts it to the Planning Committee who then approve it or turn it down after a great deal of hot air has been created.

It's a primary function of local elections to give people a mid term communication channel to the government.

It certainly is pedantry when you know exactly what a person means but pull them apart on the specific words they use.

Likewise to attack me on a lack of concern for democracy, when that was not the point I was addressing in saying it didn't matter how many people turned out, which you also knew, so even more pedantry.

And then a personal attack about a lack of knowledge about politics.

No I'm not policing the thread, write what you like, but don't expect to write it without getting called out about utter pedantry that adds nothing to the discussion and is written simply to attack other posters whose politics you disagree with.

It’s usually pro Labour with the voting is no big deal in this instance, probably because the votes won’t go their way.

You’re right though on all this.

If anything the Electoral Commission led the charge on the importance of local elections. Reform undoubtedly sought political advantage through the legal action.

but let’s be clear those elections that were initially cancelled and now will go ahead - in about 30 councils - won’t cost £63m to run. Or anywhere near it.

The £63m is for “new capacity funding to help local councils across 21 invitation area to best deliver local government re-organisation.” Admirably vague it has to be said.

And should we want to get the figures really spot on we’d reference from the same letter to councils published by government on Monday that

this “builds on the £7.6m provided for developing proposals last year.”

£70.6m and counting. For reorganising local government - essentially so senior civil servants have far fewer people they have to talk to. Throw in Mayors and they can just talk with an even smaller group of crumb recipients.

oddly we’re pretty much alone when compared with the rest of the developed world in thinking ever bigger local councils is the way to go. Birmingham such a success after all.

Local government - the clue really is in the name.

but maybe unelected technocracies is the way to go? Some democracy despisers on this thread appear to think that.

Its about time that we had laws on the books that held politicians accountable for their actions. I bet many would be either in prison or bancrupt because of actions they took that negatively impacted the UK