Severe electoral defeats
BRITAIN the Tories are already literally a fringe party in local politics. In Scotland the Conservatives received only 16 per cent of the vote, compared to 44 per cent for Labour and 18 percent for the Scottish National
Party (SNP). The Tories now hold only 64 council seats in Scotland compared to 227 for Labour, 41 for the Alliance and 37 for the SNP.
In Liverpool the Tories gained only 13 per cent of the vote. In the north west of England only a single town, Macclesfield, is controlled by the Tories.
THE LOCAL government elections and two parliamentary by- elections held in Britain on May 8 were a kick in the teeth for the
Tory government. The results were the biggest electoral setback suffered by Thatcher's government since 1981 when the split from the
Labour Party to form the Social Democratic Party (SP) took place.
how they pret each or chan pee
International Viewpoint a second article will look at the wider implications of the elections for the political scene in Britain.
PETER GREEN
Opposition to the Thatcher governcountry. The Labour Party advanced defeat at the last general election of
1983. But the SDP/Liberal Alliance retained its support at a level sufficient to head off the formation of a majority Labour government.
of the election for the Labour Party, and the most important for the future,
Labour's support in the against both the Tories and the challenge of the Alliance.
Equally in the the Alliance into the Tory vote - this being shown particularly dramatically in the two parliamentary by-elections.
Taken overall the Tories lost 705 seats in the local government elections
- a disastrous result. Labour gained
484 seats and the Alliance 270.
Labour gained local councils. The Tories lost 29, although in some cases they will be able to put together administrations
The SDP/Liberal Alliindependents.
ance gained control of three councils.
If the results are looked at in detail they show that the situation in
Britain is local government becoming almost catastrophic for the confirming
Conservative Party, the term decline of its support.
long
The Tories now control only half as many local councils as Labour - 91 for Labour and 46 for the Tories.
There are almost as many councils with no overall majority as there are
Tory controlled ones - 42 councils
International Viewpoint 2 June 1986 with no overall majority compared to 46 controlled by the Tories.
Of the 36 metropolitan (urban) districts in England the Tories now only control one - Solihull in the West Midlands. In terms of local government the Tories are rapidly becoming a secondary, or even fringe, party.
The process has gone even further in certain areas of the country, where
Black councillors
A MAJOR feature of the election results was the powerful advance of Black Labour Party (LP) candidates - in general supporters of the LP's Black
Section. In London, over 200
Black Labour councillors were elected - tripling the previous total. Ten out of 45 members of the Labour Group on the Inner
London Education Authority are now Black.
In Brent, north-west London, there are -19 Black councillors making up a third
Group. Birmingham in the Midlands has five councillors, all supporters of the Black Section.
Three Black council leaders were elected in London constituencies: Merle Amory Brent, Linda
Bellos in Lambeth and Bernie
Grant in Haringey. The re-election of Bernie Grant with an increased majority was a particular success.
The Tories had mounted a vicious racist campaign against him following his defence of the local Black community after an uprising against police harassment last autumn.
These are literally catastrophic collapses of support for the Tories in local politics. The Conservative Party at one time, in 1955, reached a post-war peak of 50 per cent of the vote in Scotland and 53 per cent of the vote in Liverpool. In Scotland and the big cities the Tory vote is now literally disintegrating: the Tory vote is down 34 per cent in Scotland, 40 per cent in Liverpool, 17 per cent in Leeds, and 16 per cent in Birmingham. In the Strathclyde area of Scotland, containing Glasgow, the Tories gained less than 10 per cent of the vote. Alliance cuts into Tory vote
If Labour advanced strongly in the big cities, however, the Alliance cut drastically into the Tory vote in the suburbs and the rural areas.
In the by-election in West Derbyshire the Tory vote fell from 56 per cent in the general election to 40 per cent and they held the seat by less than 100 votes from the Alliance. In Ryedale the Tory vote fell from per cent to 41 per cent, and a 16,000 Tory majority in the general election was turned into an Alliance majority of 5,000. These disastrous Tory results in rural constituencies confirmed the same trend seen in last years' country district elections.
The Alliance has now gained 652 council seats in the last four years. As the Alliance were in second place in 265 Tory parliamentary seats at the last general election, there is no doubt that the Liberals and SDP are poised to make major inroads into Conservative support at the next general election, which has to be held before June 1988.
It is difficult to project the local government results into the vote at a general election. But all the differing calculations roughly project Labour with 38 per cent of the vote, the Tories 34 per cent, and the Alliance with 26 per cent. Given the British electoral system, such a vote would leave Labour just short of an overall majority in parliament.
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for the Thatcher government the bie tear at it
BRITAIN of 1985 that by the end of that year they would have. 66,000 members.
At the end of 1985 they claimed to have 45,000 members.
What is now abundantly clear — we are getting