Labour Cancels Elections for 29 Councils Amid Slump in Polls
Labour will delay elections for 29 councils in a bid to “repair the broken foundations of local government”, the Government has announced – the second year that elections have been postponed amid a Labour slump in the polls. The Telegraph has more.
Steve Reed, the Local Government Secretary, told the Commons on Thursday that 29 areas would have their elections postponed and would not go ahead as planned in May.
He said he had “listened to what councils have told me” and had assessed more than 350 representations from local authorities.
Mr Reed said that out of 136 scheduled local elections, “the vast majority will go ahead as planned”.
Ministers have insisted that some local elections needed to be delayed to allow for a reorganisation of local government.
Some areas have two tiers of councils, with each tier handling different responsibilities. Ministers are replacing these with single unitary authorities which handle all local government services.
Reed and Sir Keir Starmer are relying on an obscure clause in the 2000 Local Government Act, which gives ministers the power to delay votes if there are exceptional circumstances.
The Telegraph has launched a Campaign for Democracy which calls for the clause to be scrapped. That would force ministers to seek a full vote in Parliament for any delay to elections.
Robert Jenrick, now an MP for Reform UK after his defection last week, said Steve Reed’s delays to local elections were “almost certainly illegally”.
Firstly would the Secretary of State stop saying this is a locally-led process? The power rests solely with him and each of these decisions is his decision and his decision alone.
Secondly, the real question here is why to delay for a second year? When I was secretary of state the legal advice that I received, including from Sir James Eadie, the Government’s chief legal adviser, was that it was not legally sustainable to delay for a second year. Hence, we didn’t, even during Covid we kept the elections going…
What the Secretary of State is doing is almost certainly illegal. If he is so confident of his position, publish his legal advice, and publish the legal advice that I received and the prime minister when we decided not to delay for a second year. Then we might be able to have faith in what he’s doing.
Richard Tice, Reform UK’s deputy leader, told Steve Reed:
A year ago, the then deputy prime minister assured us and promised us that none of the then delays would be for more than a year. And yet five of the current 29 that are going to be delayed are from last year.
And 21 of the 29 are Labour-controlled councils. The Secretary of State is aware that we have a judicial review that is due to be heard in February. And I obviously don’t want him to comment on the case.
But can he confirm that, as the Government believes in the rules-based order, that this Government will adhere to and comply with the rulings of the judge?
The full list of councils where legislation will be brought forward to postpone local elections is:
- Adur
- Basildon
- Blackburn
- Burnley
- Cannock Chase
- Cheltenham
- Chorley
- City of Lincoln
- Crawley
- East Sussex
- Exeter
- Harlow
- Hastings
- Hyndburn
- Ipswich
- Norfolk
- Norwich
- Peterborough
- Preston
- Redditch
- Rugby
- Stevenage
- Suffolk
- Tamworth
- Thurrock
- Welwyn Hatfield
- West Lancashire
- West Sussex
- Worthing
Worth reading in full.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
“Supreme Soviet elections were held in the Soviet Union on 12 December 1937.
The elections were originally announced as being multi-candidate; however, by halfway through the year the announcement was reversed due to the leadership worrying about the possible emergence of political opposition.” (from Wikipedia)
Perhaps that is what the Unholy Muslim-Marxist Alliance is planning for the UK: abolishing multi-candidate elections and replacing them with single candidate ones, in order to abolish elections altogether, while keeping up the pretence of “democracy”.
If the justification given by Labour and the suppoiorting Tory Councils had any merit the only logical solution would be either cancel elections for ever or run siingle party elections all to save money and avoid disruption that might happen if the Oiks had the temerity to chose someone other than as recommended by the great white father Starmer.
Indeed. Why bother with elections?
But then again, the communists knew how to reward their own too:
“The XVIIth Russian Communist Party Congress, the “Congress of the Victors,” assembled in January 1934 to celebrate the victories of the first five-year plan and the collectivization of agriculture. Few of those who attended were to survive the coming Stalinist terror: 110 members of the Central Committee (out of 139), and 1,108 delegates (out of 1,961) were shot or sent to the camps.”
Horrific!!! Communists do love slaughtering humans by the million. It’s as if they enjoy offering mass ritual blood sacrifices to their deity Satan.
When will humans learn to stop letting Communists seize power?
I suspect Labour will lose this in the Courts. It’s unlikely a judge will want their name to a decision that makes it easy to cancel Elections more or less indefinitely. (There will always be ‘exceptional circumstances’ when you look for them).
Labour are just thrashing around trying to keep their head above the waves.
Another stupid piece of legislation from the Tony The Liar era that brings in more money for the legal trade.
Since when has any notion of “democracy ” been important for Kneel’s government?
Only when people vote the ‘right way’ as required by communo-fascists.
Indeed. The Communists are ‘saving democracy’ by cancelling elections. It is ‘the science’ after all.
The last elections on the Isle of Wight were cancelled because of the plan to join the Island with Hampshire in a unitary authority (against the wishes of most Islanders, but no-one has asked us of course) and Councillors still in office – who we’d like to have had an opportunity to get rid of – are keen to join the Island to the Unitary Authority of “Hampshire & Solent” Elections on the Isle of Wight have been cancelled once again, but the Isle of Wight doesn’t appear on the list above. Won’t Hampshire (Portsmouth, Southampton etc) also have had their elections cancelled since they, too, are supposed to be joining a unitary authority? It seems there may be other local authorities that have cancelled elections but are not on the above list. It would be good if someone can come up with a complete list and therefore show a higher % of the population being denied the chance to vote. This will be the 2nd election cancelled on the Isle of Wight and meanwhile Councillors have been voting to raise their personal remuneration, cancel elections, join the Island to Hampshire Unitary Authority (much against the wishes of the majority… Read more »
And bigger is rarely better. We in Surrey DO get a vote as we are acting as a trial for Labour’s ill-thought out reform. Surrey County Council goes to be replaced by East Surrey and West Surrey. The existing district councils are absorbed into one of the 2 new councils. West Surrey residents are unhappy as they get bankrupt Woking Council and another one that is financially stretched such that those not in those two are concerned at paying extra to bail them out. We also get to vote for a mayor of all Surrey I believe.
With local government reorganisation, many of the districts and boroughs will never again be contested so this is the end of elections in those places for those councils.
This push to establish “Unitary Authorities” is being painted as “English Devolution” (instead of giving the English their own Parliament). But it is the exact opposite, as others have pointed out: the Stalinist Centralization of Power in a few “elected Regional Mayors”, of which there are 14 so far (see map in link below).
Notice how the statement below emphasizes going “Beyond Authority”, which is precisely what Marxist Julia Middleton’s “Common Purpose” leadership courses taught civil servants under David Cameron: to “Go Beyond Authority”, as exposed by UK Column’s founder, retired Royal Navy Lt. Cmdr Brian Gerrish.
Regional mayors | Institute for Government
“Mayors are intended to provide “strong local leadership” as prominent individuals that local residents can hold directly accountable. They also provide central government with a single point of contact when they want something done in a region.
Beyond exercising the powers formally devolved to them and the authorities they lead, mayors can exercise soft power as champions of place. They can use their convening power for policies requiring coordination across public services, including in areas beyond their formal brief.”
And what about Parish Councils, assuming that there are some in the areas mentioned? Most of those have elections every four years, often (but not always) on the same day as the rest of them – either unitary, Borough and/or County ones.
It could be that there are one or two Parish Council only elections on the day in question. That could result in weird Parish results, it it is grabbed hold of by various Parties.
Apart from the cancellations mentioned, there are other reorganisation related electoral changes. E.g. this year Swindon Borough Council will have an all-out election, whereas for many years they had one-third seats every year, with a year off. https://www.swindon.gov.uk/info/20073/elections_and_voting/937/forthcoming_elections
29/136 = 21%
Just over 21% of elections will be cancelled for May. Sure, 79% going ahead is a majority – but not a vast majority.
These are not delayed. The councillors who are not facing election will remain in office without democratic authority and future elections (if any) can never rectify that.
Further, with local government reorganisation, many of the districts and boroughs will never again be contested so this is the end of elections in those places for those councils.
Is it not telling that the MSM is not leading every news and documentary programme with attacks on this.
If these elections do not go ahead nobody sane could describe them as merely delayed or postponed. Those council seats will never be contested again if the reforms to the council structure are pushed through and the district and/or borough or county councils are abolished.
Yes. The word is cancelled.
It’s a short step from here to cancelling elections retrospectively when the elite don’t like the result.
Yes, just like in Romania, where the election was cancelled only 48 hours before the Romanian Patriot front-runner Calin Georgescu was due to win, then they actually banned him from running in the next election, and then made sure that a “liberal Mayor” won out over the new replacement Patriot candidate.
It’s not only an outrageous farce, but an open act of Treason.
Just like in Brazil and France, where they used lawfare to stop Brazilian Patriot Jair Bolsonaro and French Patriot Marine Le Pen, respectively. By the way, I thought Macron was supposed to be leaving, as he announced last year. Why is he still loitering there?
“repair the broken foundations of local government”
There is nothing that suggests repairing the broken foundations of local government quite like cancelling elections
‘repair’ in Labour’s La La Land seems to entail destruction.
No taxation without representation
That is 29 reasons why this hideous excuse of a government can never claim to support democracy, or condemn anyone else for lack of it!
Forget the rule of law, and the rules based world order – they have!
Blatant attempt to cling to power at any cost, and that includes the weaselly, corrupt councils themselves, suspending an election should not be a viable option unless we are facing a (real not invented) existential threat to the nations survival.
Seems there is no level this foul government will not sink to in its race to the bottom, to cling to power.
Where else are these losers going to find a fool to employ them and pay them what they get.
Face it they are scum, dole Queue fodder
That fact that this bypassing of council elections is happening illegally is self-evident from the fact that the local councillors will remain the same councillors as they were before the (cancelled) election date. Hence by definition they are unelected… and since most are Labour controlled, the default selection is of the SAME labour councillors in these regions.
Furthermore, most areas suffering this sabotage of their local democratic rights just happen to be in areas where Reform would have been tipped to win (obviously not a coincidence). Therefore, though it is not categorized as such, it has the same effect as election fraud / rigging.
As the author pointed out, if you can hold the full range of local elections in supposedly deadly “pandemic”, what are the exceptional circumstances here that give councils licence to waive their elections? That it might be more “convenient” to reorganize local government… sounds like some emergency to me!
Is democracy more important than bureaucratic reorganisation? I believe so. In which case hold the elections as normal and carry out any worthwhile reorganisations later.
Unless, of course, you hope to fend off a political challenge.
I am convinced that this is a trial run to see how the unwashed accept the idea of cancelling democracy. I have always assumed that the behaviour of Starmer and co was because they are not worried about what they do and how the electorate will react, because they will not be judged in the future. I assumed that a great event – war, pandemic etc would be triggered to cancel the election but now I see that they are happy to cancel for technical difficulties. Prepare yourselves for a switch to some form of PR in the next two/three years. It will be forced through Parliament and they will announce that the electoral system is not ready so the general election will be postponed ufn.
This is criminal and destruction of centuries old political traditions – no tax without representation.
“The poorest he that is in England hath a life to live as the greatest he … I think it’s clear, that every man that is to live under a government ought first by his own consent to put himself under that government; and I do think that the poorest man in England is not at all bound in a strict sense to that government that he hath not had a voice to put himself under.”
Col. Thomas Rainsborough – 1648
Great quote!
Outright denial of democracy.
It won’t do them any good, they’ll get hammered whenever they eventually hold these elections.
They cannot block the ability of the populace to have them voted out. This is illegal.
You couldn’t make it up if you tried – the party that accuses Reform of “fascism” brazenly cancels elections.