May 04, 2016•Update: May 07, 2016
LONDON
This week will see the U.K.’s “Super Thursday” – the single largest day of local elections the country has seen for many years.
Unusually for British local elections, every part of the country will have at least one contest to vote in.
Voters in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and London will elect the next representatives of their devolved assemblies, while contests are held elsewhere in England for local municipalities and police commissioners.
The election issues might be local, but the results will have implications for the U.K.’s national leaders.
Thursday will the first major electoral test for Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the country’s main opposition Labour Party. He was overwhelmingly elected last September, but several moderates within the party believe his policies are too extreme to be accepted by the British public.
A poor result on Thursday could further cause internal ruptures.
Challenges north of the border
Corbyn’s greatest challenge will be in Scotland, where Labour once was in government but now risks falling to an unprecedented third place.
The Scottish National Party (SNP), paradoxically resurgent since its defeat in Scotland’s 2014 independence referendum, is all but certain of a third successive victory.
The party may also once again win enough seats to secure an overall majority in the Scottish parliament, of which the rules were designed to encourage coalition governments.
The SNP’s dominance means the real contest will be to form the main opposition, where Labour risks falling behind the center-right Conservatives.
Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson told an audience on Tuesday that, as the main opposition party, Labour had failed to hold the SNP to account.
She told a rally on Tuesday: “The decision here isn't whether you're a Conservative or not, it's whether you want a strong opposition or not.
“You don't have to agree with everything my party says to back me in this campaign. You just have to want the SNP held to account.”
The latest opinion polls suggested the Conservatives and Labour were neck-and-neck in the race for second place.
London calling
But in terms of sheer voter numbers, the biggest contest on Thursday will not be not among 4 million Scottish voters electing the 129 members of their parliament. That distinction falls to London, where 5.4 million residents are eligible to vote for their next mayor.
The British capital’s incumbent mayor Boris Johnson is stepping down after two terms, amid strong rumors of ambitions in national politics. His successor as Conservative Party nominee is Zac Goldsmith, a millionaire environmentalist.
His opponent is Labour Party candidate Sadiq Khan, who would become Britain’s most senior Muslim politician if he wins on Thursday.
Opinion polls have shown Goldsmith lagging some distance behind the front-runner; the most recent survey for the London Evening Standard newspaper put Khan nine percentage points ahead of his rival.
But Goldsmith was still confident he could reverse expectations.
“I'm hoping to do a Leicester City here, zoom in from behind and win on May 5,” he told local radio on Tuesday, referring to the football team’s unlikely title victory in the English football Premier League this week.
Meanwhile, Khan dismissed claims that allegations of anti-Semitic remarks by Ken Livingstone, a former Labour mayor of London, would damage his own electoral chances.
He said during a campaign stop on Tuesday that his party needed to launch an investigation but added: “I think Londoners recognize on the ballot paper on Thursday you won't see Jeremy Corbyn's name, Ken Livingstone's name, David Cameron or Boris Johnson.”
Welsh hopes
Corbyn is likely to find some solace in Wales, where divisions among opposition parties could see Labour remain the largest party in the country’s regional assembly.
The Conservatives – the party that controls the national government in London – appears likely to be punished by voters angered by cuts to public services and the threat of job losses caused by the proposed closure of a major steel plant in Port Talbot, in south Wales.
Opinion polls suggest Plaid Cymru – the Welsh nationalist party – and the UK Independence Party, which favors Britain’s exit from the European Union, will both perform strongly among Welsh voters.
Northern Irish divisions
The final contest is in Northern Ireland, a territory that is part of the United Kingdom but has a devolved government for local issues.
Most of the main British parties do not contest elections here; instead, the battle will be between unionists, who favor the territory remaining part of the U.K., and Irish natıonalists.
Under a 1998 agreement that ended decades of an often-bloody conflict, Northern Ireland’s government must be a coalition between unionists and natıonalists.
Divisions among unionist parties could lead to the nationalist Sinn Fein party becoming the largest group overall, although most expect the present power-sharing deal it has with the Democratic Unionist Party to continue.
