Thankfully the election of illusions is over and we can settle down to another five wasted years of political incompetence from the English ruling class. Looking at the election results Cornwall has now converged with rural south-east England, with a very large block of Tory voters and Labour and the Lib Dems trailing far behind vying for second place. In fact, politically Cornwall now resembles West Sussex. This embarrassing outcome was probably inevitable ever since local government in Cornwall adopted its high population growth strategy in the 1970s. Their plan to suburbanise Cornwall has worked.
The Conservative vote is now at a record high at over 54%. The next best performance was in 1979 and then then it fell (just) short of 50%.
Yet Cornwall still managed to differ from southern England in one way. Virtually everywhere east of the Tamar the Liberal Democrat vote rose. In Cornwall it fell again, to a record low. Are the Lib Dems paying the price for the failures of the Lib Dem/indie run Cornwall Council in the same way that northern English voters have punished Labour in Labour-led council areas?
Cornwall may still be exceptional, but this is an exception that is now the diametric opposite of the (albeit exaggerated) radical tradition of the late 1800s and early 1900s. In the meantime, as the old political parties revert to the 1950s and resolutely ignore the need for fundamental and far-reaching reforms, it’s imperative that the Green Party, MK and others begin to discuss an agreement in advance of the elections to a truncated Cornwall Council in 2021. The luxury of continuing to split the progressive vote is madness in the current climate.
Kernowpolitico: notes from the periphery 