One thing’s for sure: there will be blood
COUNCILS IN SCOTLAND ARE SET FOR A SEISMIC SHIFT IN THURSDAY’S LOCAL ELECTIONS, WITH THE SNP LIKELY TO INFLICT HEAVY LOSSES ON LABOUR AND THE TORIES STANDING TO MAKE GAINS POLITICAL EDITOR ANDREW WHITAKER LOOKS AT THE WHERE THE ELECTION WILL BE WON AND LO
WHILE voting for local councillors has never been viewed as a political “main event”, this year’s contest to serve on Scotland’s 32 councils has been overshadowed more than any equivalent election in living memory.
From the moment Theresa May called a General Election for June 8, this Thursday’s vote was inevitably going to be seen as a warm-up act.
The fallout of the results will also be dominated by how they impact on Nicola Sturgeon’s plan for a second independence referendum, with the Tories seeking to make the vote a plebiscite on that issue. But whatever the implications for a second referendum, the SNP is on course to lead Scotland’s main cities, with outright victory looking almost assured in Glasgow, and the party set to be the biggest group on the Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dundee authorities. The SNP will also be in with a chance of making gains in Labour-held councils such as North Lanarkshire and Inverclyde.
Labour faces being forced into third place in a nationwide election for the second year in a row behind the Tories, who look set to make gains in areas in which the party held sway prior to its meltdown in the 1990s, such as Perthshire and Aberdeenshire.
For the SNP to preside over the demolition of Labour’s final major power base in Scotland will obviously strengthen its dominance. That vanquishing of Labour will be one of the main stories of election night. However, Tory gains on the back of a campaign that has centred on little else apart from the constitution will also receive top billing. With just days to go until the polling stations open, the Sunday Herald looks at some of the key battlegrounds in the election.
GLASGOW
AN SNP win in Glasgow would represent the most symbolic outcome at this year’s local elections. Opinion polls have long pointed to Labour losing its last major bastion of power in Scotland’s biggest city, making an SNP win a near certainty come polling day. The SNP, under the leadership of Susan Aitken, is on course to replace Labour as the ruling administration with an overall majority. Labour’s Glasgow council leader Frank McAveety is facing an inevitable defeat.
The SNP taking control of what is one of the UK’s biggest local authorities would make Aitken one of the most powerful politicians in Scotland at a pivotal time constitutionally.
She looks set to come to power on the back of pledges to transform Glasgow into the Barcelona of the British Isles and to dramatically cut car pollution in fuel-choked areas of the city centre.
But critics will claim the iron-like discipline associated with the SNP will see all significant decisions taken over the city by Nicola Sturgeon’s government.
Expected or not, the removal of Labour after decades in charge of Glasgow will represent a fresh humiliation for a party whose political dominance in the city once seemed unshakeable.
ABERDEEN-NORTH EAST
THE SNP is expected to return to power in Aberdeen after a five-year hiatus that has seen Labour lead the authority. Aberdeen and the surrounding North East is without doubt an SNP stronghold, with Alex Salmond repre- senting the Gordon constituency, that includes parts of the city area. With the SNP holding all Westminster and Holyrood seats in Aberdeen, the Labour-led administration represents a blip for Nicola Sturgeon’s party.
The SNP’s ongoing dominant position in the opinion polls over its rivals makes a victory for the party in Aberdeen highly likely this week.
Despite Labour’s success last time the party holds only one more seat than the SNP. Labour has also been forced to govern in coalition with independent and Tory members.
However, the SNP may not be able to count on an outright win due to remaining pockets of strong support for Labour in the city. Memories are also still fresh among sections of the electorate about the SNP-LibDem coalition that ran the council after 2007 and presided over millions of pounds of cuts.
Elsewhere in the North East, the Tories are expected to do well in the more rural Aberdeenshire council area, as well as in Moray, where the SNP deputy leader Angus Robertson is the MP.
EDINBURGH
AN SNP victory in the Scottish capital would represent another jewel in the crown for the party alongside Glasgow. The SNP is poised to replace Labour as the biggest party on the council, which has been run by a Labour-SNP coalition in recent years. However, unlike Glasgow, the SNP will be unable to lay the blame for decisions made by the ruling administration due to its part in the “capital coalition”. The national political dominance of the
SNP should still be enough to ensure the party is the biggest group on the authority after Thursday’s election. But the SNP will struggle to win an overall majority on the authority and may have to strike a deal with other parties – perhaps even whatever remains of the Labour group. The Tories are well placed to make gains in Edinburgh, now the base of Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson, who won the Edinburgh Central constituency from the SNP at last year’s Holyrood election. The Tories may even run the SNP close in terms of being the biggest party although the SNP as the biggest and the Tories overtaking Labour seems a more likely result.
DUNDEE/PERTH
SUPPORT for the SNP in Dundee, dubbed Scotland’s Yes city after its returned the highest proportion of independence votes of any area in Scotland in 2014, will be watched closely as a barometer of support for a second referendum. The party holds both of the Westminster and both Holyrood constituencies, as well as an overall majority on the local council. Even taking into account the lower voter turnout for local elections, how well the SNP does in one of its heartlands could form one of the stories of the night.
While the SNP will almost certainly stay in control of Dundee council, whether it keeps its overall majority and sustains its share of the vote will be taken by some as an indication of support for a second referendum. Labour, which forms the main opposition group on Dundee city council, again faces losses.
The Tories, who have just one councillor, are unlikely to make a breakthrough in a working class city hit hard by austerity and social deprivation. However, it could be a different story in another neighbouring SNP bastion of recent years – the Perth and Kinross council area – a top Tory target. While the SNP runs Perth and Kinross as a minority administration, the Tories are the main opposition on the authority and have a strong presence on the ground in the area. Perth and Kinross also voted against independence in the 2014 referendum by a considerable margin of 60.19 per cent to 39.81 per cent.
FIFE
RESULTS in Fife will also offer a pre-General Election insight into how the independence referendum issue is playing out with voters who switched to the SNP during the last decade.
Despite having won just three council seats at the 2012 local council elections and being weak in an area historically dominated by Labour and the SNP, how the Tories fare in this area could be a bellwether for national trends. Tory politicians in the area have based their local election campaigning almost exclusively on opposition to an independence referendum. Tory MSP Murdo Fraser has effectively sought to turn the council elections into a plebiscite on a referendum with an appeal to voters to back “anyone but the SNP”.
How that appeal plays out in voting in an area where the SNP remains the dominant force in terms of parliamentary elections, will be taken as a fairly strong measure of how successful that campaigning tactic has been. Labour, which runs the council as a minority administration, stands to lose seats to the SNP which is on course to emerge as the biggest party. But as with most of this week’s local elections, the result in Fife will be looked at more for what they indicate about backing for an independence referendum and General Election voting intentions.