Local Elections 08

GJ Harris (London): On 1 May 2008, the British National Party won its most high profile office to date with the appointment of the party's mayoral candidate, Richard Barnbrook, to the London Assembly. He came fifth in the contest for mayor but then won his assembly seat through the top-up list, allocated by proportional representation with 5.3% of the vote. Whilst the BNP only narrowly met the 5% threshold needed to secure a place on the London Assebly, the result is perhaps all the more significant, considering the high turnout that was hoped would put the seat beyond their reach. The seat was solace for the party’s failure to capitalise on anti-Labour sentiment in competition with a revitalised Conservatives in the local elections outside London where the party increased its number of councillors by 10 to take its total to 55.

The far right in Britain usually provoke one of two responses: a complacency bordering on neglect, given the barrier to small party success by the British electoral system, or the hysterical ringing of alarm bells at the rise of a resurgent neo-fascism. Both are equally misguided. The BNP's recent political gains pose a problem to the democratic pretensions of a progressive opposition, as Barnbrook was quick to point out in his post election speech. The seat is potentially a stepping stone to gains in the forthcoming 2009 European elections, again allocated through PR. Success here would bring significant publicity and access to public funding, which could offer a real electoral breakthrough on the model of some of its continental cousins. It is a dangerous strategy to rely on the flaws of the democratic system as a bulwark against the illiberal democracy of the Far Right. As the BNP gains an increased pres-ence within the political arena this is a fundamental paradox for their opponents.

A breakdown of the local election results in Wales which were catastrophic for Labour.

(This is a revised post reporting the corrected results. Thanks to those who pointed this out in the comments on the original post.)

John Osmond (Cardiff, IWA): Labour's near century-long domination of Welsh local politics came to an end on May Day 2008. In a set of poor results for the party it lost a swathe of seats and control of six councils, confirming a trend of secular decline that has been underway for the better part of a decade.

Rupert Read (Norwich, The Green Party): So, it's Boris. Gulp.

I'm not looking forward to Boris Johnson's Mayoralty, partly for reasons of personal familiarity with his political methods (as indicated here). But one has to congratulate him on the audacity of having stood, and won - a year ago, him winning seemed a very distant prospect indeed.