Will nationalist parties get a huge boost in local elections? Here’s why it seems likely
Vote in the May elections: this year, your preferences may count for much more than usual.
With at least half of Scotland wanting independence, 30 per cent of Wales ready to follow suit and Northern Ireland in flames, Boris Johnson seems set to preside over the end of the United Kingdom.
For the Conservatives, that is a terrible message when going into an election campaign, even if it is only for local government places.
But it’s also bad for Keir Starmer’s Tory-ised version of Labour, that has failed to oppose Johnson at the right moments, thereby contributing to the disillusionment with Westminster politics that is growing outside Little England.
And the nationalists know it.
In Wales, they are campaigning on a platform that echoes the old saying that if you repeat an action that hasn’t worked, expecting a different result, you’re insane:
A Plaid Cymru Senedd candidate has urged Labour voters to switch to her party, telling them that “if you keep doing the same thing, you’ll keep getting the same result”.
With Labour firmly under the control of the blue cuckoos, Carrie Harper has a point.
At the moment, it doesn’t matter what her own party’s policies are. As long as she opposes the Westminster consensus, she’ll win support.
That means May elections are likely to be a litmus test for the future. Nationalists in Wales are unlikely to win overall control but, if they make significant gains, Labour and the Tories will have to take notice.
Even this could be turned to the nationalists’ advantage, though: a political organisation that changes its policies simply because its leaders think they’ll be able to keep power that way has lost its direction and thrown away any moral authority.
Keir Starmer did exactly that, a year ago when he became Labour leader, and he has been sinking in the polls ever since.
This Writer’s advice: think carefully about your vote – especially if you’re in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland. You might not be able to change your government but you may influence change anyway.
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As a English man I will be sad to see them leave the union but I also understand and have no hard feelings. Heck can England declare independence from the Tory scum?
Sadly in the South east not much independence movement around here! The chinless wonders like the status quo…