Politics

Vote Tory or UKIP in May

BY REBECCA HARRIS

The next Local Government Elections will be held on Thursday 3 May 2018 and will include:

  • London Boroughs
  • Metropolitan Districts
  • Shire Districts
  • Single Tier Shire Districts

For more detail on future elections, the Department for Communities and Local Government publish a list of election cycles by type of local authority in England .

It is hard to believe that anyone with a brain would vote for Corbyn’s Labour. Nonetheless, according to a recent YouGov poll, Labour is on course for a major election triumph in London that will see it seize Tory strongholds and win a greater share of the vote than any party for 50 years. The YouGov survey for Queen Mary University of London recorded 54 per cent of voters in the capital saying they would vote for the party in May’s elections, compared to just 28 per cent for the Conservatives. As a result, its forecast shows Labour is set to seize several Tory-held councils, including the flagship boroughs of Barnet, Wandsworth and Westminster.

The poll suggests Labour will see an increase on its 2014 London elections results, which saw the party win 43 per cent of the popular vote – their highest since 1971 – and control of 20 out of 32 councils.  In inner London, the gap between the two dominant parties is even starker, with 67 per cent of respondents backing Labour, compared to just 17 per cent for the Tories.

London is almost a state within a state and votes oddly.

Now, surely, outside of the Remain-voting capital, Brexit voters cannot be thinking of voting Labour. Not after Corbyn’s recent calls for a customs union which would leave the U.K. a colony of the EU – unable to take back control of borders or trade policy. Labour’s position has quite rightly been described as a “white flag” from Labour before trade talks even begin.

So, how should Brexit voters vote?

In effect, there are only two parties up for election in May, Pro-Brexit (Tory, UKIP) and anti-Brexit (Labour, Lib Dems, SNP, Greens). Make your choice accordingly.

With no European elections happening, in councils where Labour or the Lib Dems stand a chance of doing well, or where the Tories are weak, vote UKIP. EU citizens, banned from voting in the referendum, are allowed to vote in local elections and could make the difference in certain wards.

A strong UKIP vote in these elections will see Theresa May inspired to keep a steady hand on the Brexit tiller. It will embarrass the awful Corbyn. It may finally extinguish the Liberal Democrats who, under Vince Cable, seem as effective as Skeletor and his henchmen in their increasingly vain attempts to capture Castle Grayskull.

Until Brexit is done and dusted there is a place for UKIP. As long as its current interim leader – the sensible Gerard Batten – keeps the Mittys and Golliwog brigade at bay. If UKIP can find a new raison d’être after Brexit, it could yet keep the Tories honest and shred Labour (and the dinosaurs of British socialism) into the dustbin of history.