COUNTRY PROFILE: BRITAINMIGHT THE European and English local elections spell the end for Gordon Brown's leadership?
Labour had been warned to expect its worst county election results for 30 years, the loss of some 200 town hall seats, the erosion of its remaining local government base in the south, and a share of the Euro vote that could crash to just 20 per cent.
But that was weeks ago, before the expenses crisis that has engulfed Westminster and inflicted the largest damage on a governing party elected to rid the country of Tory “sleaze”.
Now? Nobody can know what will happen, or how all the main parties will be affected, as the Greens, UKIP and the British National Party (BNP) hope to benefit from a tidal wave of outrage.
Just a few short weeks ago – before the Westminster world was turned upside down – some senior Labour figures were warning that Conservative attacks on Europe were preparing the ground for a surge in BNP support.
The far-right party needs between 9-12 per cent of the vote under the PR system to make a breakthrough. The prime minister certainly knows that it will look bad for him if any BNP advance actually comes in Labour heartlands in regions like the northwest of England.
Tory leader David Cameron is perceived to have done much better than Mr Brown in response to the Westminster expenses scandal, articulating the British public’s very real anger. But he has no cause for complacency either.
Some Liberal Democrats have also taken a hit in the Daily Telegraph’s ongoing expose. That said, party leader Nick Clegg has given constituency activists a powerful card to play locally by outflanking Cameron and Brown with his commitment that Lib Dem MPs will not be allowed to profit from the sale of any second homes purchased with taxpayers’ money.
In the midst of recession, and even without the expenses furore, there is much for voters to be angry about.
The fight for the UK’s 72 seats in the European Parliament was obviously never going to be much about Europe.
David Cameron’s “deputy in all but name’ William Hague did float the idea of June 4th as a last opportunity for Britons to repudiate Gordon Brown’s broken manifesto promise and demand a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.
Mr Cameron in turn decided to treat the elections as a referendum on the prime minister himself – the last chance until the general election “to tell Gordon Brown exactly what you think of him and his tired, incompetent and failing government”.
With the scale of Labour’s drubbing now impossible to predict, Mr Cameron’s obvious hope is that the results might finally trigger a Labour revolt against Brown and precipitate the general election itself within a matter of months.