Spanish elections: gains for regionalist parties

In the UK most of the coverage of yesterday’s election in Spain went little further than reports of a resurgent far right, reflecting the obsession of metropolitan journalists. Spain’s new populist far-right party Vox in the end won just over 10% of the vote, lower than many were predicting. In fact Spain’s voters displayed a lower level of support for the far-right than voters have done in the past in either the UK or France.

BBC news headline

More restrained spin on Vox in Spain’s El Pais

Let’s transcend the excitable infatuation of Britain’s liberal journalists with the far right and look at the bigger picture. The clear winners at the state level in Spain were the Socialists, who bucked the slow, apparently terminal, decline of European social democracy. Although they won only 29% of the vote, this was well ahead of the next biggest party, continuing the extremely fragmented picture that we recently saw in the Finnish elections (and will see in the possibly upcoming UK Euros). However, the Spanish voting system, which is a lot more proportional than our archaic historical curiosity, is not as proportional as others, such as the Irish, German or Dutch. As a result, the Socialist Party in Spain was rewarded with a third, or 123, of the 350 seats in the Spanish Congress of Deputies.

The other winners apart from the far-right Vox, which begins its parliamentary presence with 24 seats, was the centre-right Cuidadanos (Citizens’) Party, which managed to increase its seats from 32 to 57, even though it gained less than three percentage points. The C’s, like the Lib Dems, is a centre-right party but even more opposed to regional independence movements. Both Vox and the C’s picked up votes at the expense of the traditional conservative People’s Party (PP), which saw its vote almost halve, although just holding on to second place with 68 seats. Mired in corruption scandals and incompetence when in government, a viciously anti-Catalan independence and Spanish nationalist stance was not enough to save it – lesson there for the English Tories perhaps?

The main loser is the left-wing and green coalition of Podemos. Although polling almost as strongly as the C’s, it saw its number of seats fall from 71 to 42. Some of this loss was accounted for by a switch to regionalist parties in the bigger autonomous communities of Spain. For the final group of winners, although you’re less likely to read about them in the British press, are the regionalist and nationalist parties of Catalonia and the Basque Country.

Spain’s regions

In Catalonia the regionalist parties saw their combined share of the vote rise from 33% to 39%. The left-wing Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC) took over from the Podemos coalition as the biggest party in the region and gained six seats. In addition, the centre-right party of Carles Puigdemont, the Junts per Catalunya, held on to seven of their previous eight seats. Meanwhile, the PP, which launched a vicious legal and physical attack on Catalan autonomists in 2017, lost all but one of its seats.

Even that performance was better than in the Basque Country, where voters returned no deputies from the Spanish right at all. There, Basque parties, the centre-right Basque National Party and the radical left-wing nationalist Euskal Herria Bildu, each gained seats. The Basque regionalist party vote rose from 38% to 48% while the parties won a clear majority of seats. The Basque nationalist vote also rose in Navarre, from 14% to 19%, but the split there between moderate and radical nationalists prevented this being turned into a seat.

The other success story was in Cantabria where the Regionalist Party of Cantabria (PRC) gained its first seat in the Congress.

While regionalist parties in the Canaries held their two seats, the story was not so promising in Galicia or Valencia. In both those regions nationalist parties won seats in 2016 as part of coalitions with Podemos. Those coalitions did not survive the events of 2016-19. In Galicia the Anova-Nationalist Brotherhood in 2012 split from the Galician Nationalist Block (BNG), which had been the principal home of Galician nationalists for some time. Anova won two seats standing with Podemos in 2016 but did not contest the elections this time. However, the vote from the BNG doubled from its low point of 2.9% in 2016. Although not enough to win a seat, its 5.7% was higher than that of Vox in the region and well above the other nationalist grouping En Marea. The results suggest the BNG may be on the road to recovery.

It was a similar story in Valencia. There, Compromís, a coalition of Valencian nationalist and green parties founded in 2010, had won four seats in 2016 in alliance with Podemos. This time around, while Podemos won five of Valencia’s 32 seats, Compromís 2019, standing on its own, only won one seat and 6.5% of the vote. Nonetheless, that was still noticeably more than at the last elections they had fought on a separate ticket in 2011.

It appears that the resurgence of a virulent Francoite Spanish state nationalism has triggered a counter-reaction in Spain’s autonomous communities. The vote for regionalist and nationalist parties, most of them of the left, has generally risen and their total number of seats in the Spanish Congress expanded, from 32 to 36 despite losses in Galicia and Valencia. This is 12 more than Vox’s total. In the regions and nations discussed here, Vox won just four seats (and three of those were in Valencia). The regionalist and nationalist parties in Spain continue to act as a bulwark against the rise of a populist far-right.

Foreign news: the English local elections with special reference to minor parties

Since 2009 local elections have become rather rare events in Cornwall. In contrast, over the border in many parts of England sub-state elections can still occur every year or two. Such is the case this year in the big English conurbations and, where two-tier local government survives, for District Councils. The main exceptions with no elections are London, the rural unitaries of Wiltshire, Shropshire, Durham and Northumberland, and Bristol. In Northamptonshire and Buckinghamshire local elections have been postponed for a year while local government is re-organised and new unitary authorities established.

That still leaves around 9,000 councillors to be elected across 248 councils. In addition, there’s the interesting local elections in Northern Ireland, being conducted under a more rational single transferable vote system.

So what do the nominations for these elections tell us? Despite much wailing and gnashing of teeth in the Tory press, the Conservatives are still presenting candidates for over 90% of the seats. In the meantime, Labour has increased its candidate numbers considerably since the last comparable round of elections in 2015. Gains may be more difficult however as those elections coincided with a general election, which always helps the mainstream parties by inflating turnout.

What about the minor parties? Any voters keen to cast their vote for the new media parties of Brexit and Change UK are doomed to disappointment. The chiefs of these appear to have had no indians who were able to organise to stand in the local elections. In contrast to the free publicity these top-down creations receive three old-established major minor parties are offering candidates, while a host of far smaller minor minor parties are presenting more than the odd (in both senses of the word) individual.

First, the major minor parties. The Liberal Democrats seem to be recovering from their nadir in 2015 and are contesting just over half of the seats available. They’ll hope to garner the anti-brexit vote and appeal to the nebulous centre in the absence of Change UK (but not very much, maybe, if people would like to of course).

The second is the Green Party. Although candidate numbers are down on 2015, Greens are still contesting around 2,600 or almost 30% of the seats. The Greens suffer from a chronic problem of being regularly overlooked by the media. Only this week I heard a BBC report of the local elections in Brighton that focussed almost entirely on Labour and Tories, while bracketing ‘the Lib Dems and Greens’ together in a solitary mention. This despite the fact that Greens are contesting all the seats in Brighton and the Lib Dems only half while in 2015 the Greens won 11 seats there to the Lib Dems’ none. However, this time the Greens might hope to benefit from spin-off from the Extinction Rebellion actions, as the hitherto peripheral issues of climate catastrophe, mass wildlife extinction and a soon to be uninhabitable planet belatedly creep into the news.

The other major minor party is obviously Ukip, well down in candidate numbers from 2015 but still managing to contest around 1,400 or 15% of the available seats. Ukip will be looking to hoover up the brexit hard core in the absence of the Faragistes and the squabbling of the Tories. However, in some areas they are being opposed by other even further right parties, although the number of candidates from these minor minor parties is well below that of the above three.

The For Britain Movement, which split from Ukip in 2018, has 41 candidates by my count, and has attracted some former members of the BNP, which in contrast seems virtually defunct electorally. As is another old far right party, the National Front. Meanwhile, also on the right there’s the English Democrats. They can only put up ten candidates this time and appear to be on the road to inevitable extinction. They’re outnumbered by two ‘veterans’ parties, a new phenomenon in British politics. The Democrats and Veterans Party is another spin-off from Ukip that combines its Eurosceptic British nationalism with support for veterans and a call for ‘direct democracy’, which seems to mean stopping those pesky Europeans telling us what to do. They’re not to be confused with the Veterans’ and Peoples Party, which looks to be a more centrist populist party, with a nice line in anti-establishmentarianism.

On the left the biggest minor minor party is the Socialist Party (standing under the name Socialist Alternative, as the purist and miniscule Socialist Party of Great Britain nicked the title Socialist Party first). It has 45 candidates, the highest number of the minor minor parties. This Trotskyist party was the main driving force of the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition, which has decided not to stand in these local elections to give a free run to the Corbynite left in their optimistic project to breath life into the tired old Labour Party.

Also on the (centre) left is the Social Democratic Party, with nine candidates. The SDP is pro-brexit as is its twin throw-back to the heady days of the SDP/Liberal Alliance of the 1980s – the Liberal Party. The latter has 33 candidates, although two thirds of them are in Liverpool.

The new presence on the left over the past four years is the Women’s Equality Party. This had the bad luck to be launched in 2015 just before the Brexit fog descended to shroud the political landscape in the mists of madness and just as increasingly gloomy scientific reports about the state of the planet began to strike horror into anyone with half a brain. However, the WEP persists and is standing 26 candidates this year, mainly in urban areas. This is about the same number as in last year’s English local elections, although that involved a far fewer total of seats.

The final group of minor minor parties are the regionalists. The Yorkshire Party is building on its steady progress since 2014. However, its electoral presence in Yorkshire remains patchy. Almost all its 38 candidates are in the old industrial areas of South and West Yorkshire, with just one in rural Yorkshire north of York. The highest number is in Wakefield where the YP is contesting over a third of the seats. While the North East Party is still just about alive with a couple of candidates, there’s now a Black Country Party in the midlands. Fifteen are standing under this label, although it looks to be a community group of independents rather than a regionalist party as such. The same goes for Putting Cumbria First, with seven candidates but a rather professional-looking website.

Apologies to all those minor minor minor parties that I haven’t mentioned. These didn’t manage to break the five candidate plus barrier that I arbitrarily erected and include the familiar, such as the Official Monster Loony Party, the Socialist Labour Party, the Animal Welfare Party, the Alliance for Green Socialism or The Peace Party, as well as new appearances, such as the Foundation Party, Our Nation and Renew among others.

Lib Dems walking the walk

Since the May Queen announced her pending coronation on June 8th there’s been a flurry of activity by Liberal Democrats in Cornwall. And some confusion.

First, the known knowns. To everyone’s huge delight Andrew George has reluctantly allowed himself to be convinced by squillions of people on Facebook to stand again against the evil Tory Derek Thomas in St Ives. At the joyous news folk in Penzance and St Ives were reported to be falling down in the streets with uncontrollable fits of ecstacy. Others began speaking in tongues. The price of saffron on the commodities exchange also rose by a couple of pence at the news before falling back to its normal level. Andrew is now be-friending all and sundry in the Facebook universe as the first part of his cunning plan to get elected.

More quietly and less dramatically, Dan Rogerson has confirmed what you read about here six days ago. He’ll definitely be a candidate in North Cornwall. Finally, something you also read here, Rob Nolan has announced his candidature at Truro & Falmouth.

Stephen Gilbert (right) and friend

Which leaves us with a known unknown. More surprising is the unconfirmed report in the West Brit that Stephen Gilbert has risen from the grave and is ‘set to challenge Steve Double‘ in St Austell & Newquay. Gilbert, who was fairly indistinguishable from the Tories in the coalition government from 2010-15, sank without trace after the last election. Indeed, many people in St Austell still haven’t realised he’s been replaced by Steve Double, so close are their politics.

Unlike George and Rogerson, Gilbert did not spend time working his old constituency and ensuring media coverage. Instead he was last heard of in March 2016 accepting a place on a postgraduate teaching course at St Austell, to begin last September. Surely the terrifying prospects of doing a useful job and teaching are not trumped by returning to the cosy Commons club?

The mystery deepens when we find that Joanna Kenny, Watford-born Cornwall Councillor for Newquay Pentire, is still listed on the Lib Dems’ official website as their ‘snap general election candidate’, campaigning on issues of dog shit and playgrounds. Kenny’s own Facebook page offers no hint of her candidature.

It was The Silent Majority (?) of St Austell Speak Out’s Facebook page that broke the shocking news yesterday morning of Gilbert’s candidacy. It claimed that Kenny had broken both her legs in a ski-ing accident (on a clay tip??) and been sadly forced to retire. Stephen Gilbert has therefore been hauled back into the frame, we have no knowledge of how unwillingly.

Fake news? It’s reliably reported that Steve Double, the most impressive of Cornwall’s trio of new Tory MPs, is not too perturbed by either prospect.

Dutch elections: what you won’t read in the UK media

Is the extravagant hair style compulsory for right-wing populists?

It’s the Dutch legislative elections tomorrow. If you rely on the British media for your info on this you’re probably thinking the Netherlands is the place likely to see the next populist domino fall into place. Geert Wilders’ PVV (Freedom Party) has for some time been touted as likely to ‘win’ the Dutch elections.

However, there are two problems with the simple picture painted by journalists obsessed with far right populism. First, our media seem to be constitutionally incapable of coping with multi-party election systems. Anything more than a two-protagonist contest and they start to struggle badly. Which is why they love US presidential elections. And why on Monday they homed in with a collective sigh of relief on a simple head to head debate between the leaders of the two parties that are polling strongest in the Netherlands. What they didn’t tell us was that at the other televised election debates, between seven and ten party leaders were invited. That includes tonight’s final eve-of-poll debate, which features eight parties.

The second problem is that ‘win’ in the context of an electoral system that guarantees a fully proportional result, is not quite the same as ‘win’ in our electoral system, which became unfit for purpose around 1900. The leading party in the Netherlands, according to recent polls, is on around 17% of the vote. Moreover, that party isn’t the PVV, but the VVD (People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy). This is an economically neo-liberal, centre-right party positioned roughly between our Lib Dems and Tories.

Wilders’ PVV is at 15%, not that much more than Ukip’s 13% share in the 2015 General Election, although enough to give it a lot more seats. Admittedly, for the PVV this is an increase (of about 5%) on its showing in the last Dutch elections in 2012. On the latest polling it’s set to gain 7-9 seats.

GL’s slogans: care for each other, share wealth, a clean economy and one society

While you wouldn’t know it from the BBC, another party is poised to gain even more – from 10-16 seats if the polls are accurate. This is the GroenLinks, or Green Left Party. Funny how we haven’t heard too much about them in the British media, even though their support has risen over the course of the campaign to record levels. They’re not that far behind the four parties vying to become the largest in the Dutch Parliament. Together with the VVD and PVV these are the CDA (Christian Democratic Appeal), the traditional centre-right moderate conservative party and D66, a centrist party similar to the Lib Dems.

The big loser in the Dutch elections looks likely to be the centre-left Labour Party, forecast to lose between 25-30 of its current 38 seats. A lesson here for those who put their faith in the ideologically very similar British Labour Party perhaps. The combined support for the two parties to the left of Labour (GroenLinks and the Socialist Party) leads to predictions of around 30 seats. This compares with the 22 predicted for Wilders’ PVV. But this is something you’d never guess from our media.