All this bluster was put down to Labour’s attempts at self preservation and the changes were heralded as bringing in greater equality and diversity, fresh talent for local government, a greater role for independents, more choice for constituents to seek out a councillor of similar political sympathies. Opponents called it a ‘political balkanisation’ of local government, an end to the councillor/ward link and a weakened role for local councils.
How should we judge the Kerley Report 22 years on as we approach the 2022 local elections? Well probably those who supported the changes all along will point to the successes of PR while those who opposed them will cite the emasculation of local councils and their standing with electors.
The changes did little to achieve gender balance. The breakthrough in that came mainly through positive action by the Labour Party and showed itself through the first past the post elections at Holyrood and Westminster. It is difficult to argue that the member/ward link has not been badly damaged by the new multi member wards. The original minority report argued that small multi member wards could maintain the link but at the price of proportionality while large multi member wards achieved proportionality but at the expense of the link. It would have been more honest of the political leadership of the day to admit that the purpose of the changes was to introduce PR regardless of all other issues instead of trying to sugar coat it with benefits it couldn’t deliver. We go into these elections with many towns and villages, worse still island communities, having no local person serving as a councillor for their area within the multi member ward. If you are already a political activist you may know the local councillor to go to from your party but many people no longer know who any of their councillors are. And as for ‘renewing local democracy’ with all the new talented fresh faces, that never happened. Instead we had a large intake of inexperienced, often ill equipped, councillors, who in the past would have been nominal flag bearers for their party with no realistic hope of ever being elected. To be fair PR did allow for a few excellent candidates to become councillors in areas where their party had struggled to get any representation over the years under first past the post.
In terms of political and strategic direction, the new system has made it virtually impossible for any one party to have a working majority to implement its manifesto. At the last council elections in 2017, Independents continued to have a dominant role in the island councils but for the first time ever, all mainland councils ended up with no single party in overall control. This diminution of a political mandate has gone hand in hand with the reduction in council powers and budgets.
But we are where we are, so what can we look forward to in May? I have long since learned not to predict outcomes in Scottish elections but I can try to predict trends. Over the next few months we will see our political parties pretending they never had anything in common with any other political party or grouping and offering us the red meat of party manifestos. The phrase ‘campaign in poetry, govern in prose’ is attributed to New York Governor Mario Cuomo. We can expect to see our parties campaigning as if they are going to sweep all before them while in reality preparing to make all sorts of political arrangements and accommodations to form administrations in government.
For the past four years we have had coalitions, partnerships, informal arrangements, involving Lab/Con, SNP/Lab, Con/SNP and sometimes with Lib Dems and Independents also in the mix. As we approach May we will be told by the SNP how Labour cooperating with the Tories is just another example of the ‘red Tories’, while the Tories will berate any Labour/SNP accommodations as Labour being soft on opposing independence. There will be bucketloads of hypocrisy in the air as they discuss the outcome of a process specifically designed to deny any one party overall control of a council.
Scottish Labour may talk big but they too know their best chance is to become the largest party in some council areas (although they could still get overall control in one or two). With this in mind, Anas Sarwar has hinted that there will be no formal arrangements with other parties. His strategy seems to be to become the largest party then shame or dare the SNP to allow the Tories in by opposing a minority Labour administration or vice versa, the Tories to allow the SNP in. Parties would be free to oppose and challenge policies they didn’t agree with but short of bringing down a minority administration on a vote of confidence. The inspiration for this approach must be the Labour led North Ayrshire Council. This is where the SNP threw in the towel in a big huff after the First Minister’s father failed to win a by election in Irvine. Labour under Joe Cullinane took over the reins and has since led an extremely successful minority administration, building council houses, pioneering community wealth building, energy projects, jobs creation, environmental improvements.
But before I get carried away with unbridled optimism let me come back down to earth. This will also be the election for councils who have never had fewer powers to deliver anything worthwhile for their people. The centralising SNP have prised more and more powers away from local government into Holyrood while year on year drastically cutting their budgets. Instead of a united opposition to this from across all the Scottish parties in local government, the SNP groups have demonstrated their skills at the Orwellian Newspeak of Oceania. Year on year they manage to touch the forelock and welcome the ‘generous local government settlement’ that has been graciously handed down to them. The real question we should be asking is ‘why would anyone want to stand for the council in May 2022?’