Progressives have a Senedd majority, but it counts for little when politics is reduced to partisan games and point-scoring

The Senedd, home of the National Assembly for Wales. Photograph: Senedd from Pixabay (License) (Cropped)

Following an election that left Labour one seat short of a majority, the Senedd sat down to vote in a new First Minister. A majority of votes was needed to appoint the new head of Wales' government, who was expected to be Labour leader, and current First Minister, Carwyn Jones.

Instead, the Senedd was left in deadlock, 29 votes to 29 (BBC, 2016). Apparently disliking the attitude of the Labour leadership, Plaid Cymru put forward their own leader, Leanne Wood, for the post - a nomination that received the backing of both the Conservatives and the newly beseated UKIP.

It was a move that almost produced the upset of Leanne Wood, as leader of a party with just 11 seats of 60 in the Senedd, being nominated to the post of First Minister. Wood's rise on the back of Tory and UKIP support was stopped by, the now sole, Liberal Democrat Assembly Member Kirsty Williams.

Williams said she opposed the 'ragtag coalition' that included UKIP, and nominated Carwyn Jones because Labour where the only party given something approaching a governing mandate by the people (Williams, 2016).

Another vote, to try and break the deadlock, will take place next week, with negotiations ongoing in the mean time between Plaid Cymru and the Labour Party. However, the two parties have long been known to have a difficult relationship, seen not least in Plaid voting against a public health bill because a Labour minister had insulted them.

The decision was criticised by health unions, who called on the assembly to stop playing games with the nation's health (BBC, 2016{3}). Whether because of bad blood, or Plaid seeing an advantage in Labour's obviously weak position, the Senedd has been again reduced to games. Plaid might even be tempted, as negotiations continue, to keep exploiting the situation to extract policy concessions (Servini, 2016).

That would be a dangerous move. Reducing politics to a game, to scoring points, to a language of wins, gains and losses, undermines a fundamental reality - that politics is supposed to be about representation. The 'any method so long as we win' mentality also ignores our methods always have consequences.

That is an idea that George Osborne and the rest of the Conservative establishment failed to grasp during the London Mayoral election. Osborne was quoted as saying the Tories offensive negative campaign was just the 'rough and tumble' of 'robust democracy' (Sparrow, 2016).

This is a fundamental misunderstanding of what it means to 'govern from the centre'. Without even a robust internal debate (Kuenssberg, 2016), the Conservatives attempt to bully their policy through using whatever tactics suit them and with little testing or consensus-building.

To truly govern from the centre, means having proper respect for the democratic method (Urbinati, 1994):

"...the method of pursuing a political goal through free discussion by replacing force and imposed consent with dialogue and the search for consent... a pact of civility through which citizens and groups defend and develop their ideas - their diversity - without losing the attributes of their common humanity."

In Wales, progressive parties have been handed a comprehensive majority of votes and seats. That presents an opportunity for Labour, Plaid Cymru and the Liberal Democrats to get to work on moving Wales forward over the next five years.

But first Labour and Plaid Cymru have to get past their differences. In refinding the capacity for civility, they may find a renewed progressive political strength and will - and through cooperation achieve far more than they might with petty divisive squabbles and cheap tactical gamesmanship.

Local Elections: Conservatism is far from dominant in a divided Britain, but people still await an alternative

Yesterday saw local council elections across England and assembly elections in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, that emphasised how varied the politics of Britain's provinces is becoming.

With so many pressures, on so many parties, from so many directions, the local and assembly elections were always going to be a fraught and complicated affair. As it happens, the changes forced were in small increments and, in broad context, left matters largely as they were (Kuenssberg, 2016).

But the biggest story of the night is really the way in which politics has taken on different shapes in different parts of Britain. In its different provinces, politics is being reshaped to fit provincial rather than British themes (Mason, 2016; Mason, 2015). Old divisions are being broken down, new ones are springing up and some groups are adapting while others are not.

The broad picture showed the Labour Party largely hanging on, with inconvenient losses matched by surprising gains and holds. However Corbyn still finds himself wrestling with the internal contradictions left to him by previous leaders, who failed to solve the fundamental disconnect between the party and its supporters. The Conservatives too managed to broadly hang on and even made the publicity friendly gain of becoming the official opposition to the SNP in the Scottish Parliament.

The Liberal Democrat slump also seemed to have hit bottom, with the party's vote mostly stabilising at about 8%. Yet there were also signs of life, with some gains won on the back of astounding swings of around 10-15% - an increase in supporters in the thousands - that will provide some useful fuel for their #LibDemFightback narrative.

UKIP's night was largely devoted to establishing themselves, securing their bridgeheads rather than breaking new ground. Their results matched 2015 and followed suit by again paying off in second places, and this time with both council seats and seats in Wales' Senedd.

Yet this broad, federal, party picture hides a much more complicated set of movements beneath the surface.

The results in Scotland redrew political lines to reflect the new reality of debate in the country. The SNP, now without a majority but still in position for a strong minority government, have set out Scottish separatism as the movement with the momentum. The Conservatives are the opposition, and Unionism is their opposing force.

In that debate, other issues are being sidelined and with them the other parties. Labour, who are really struggling to distinguish themselves in the separatism-unionism debate, look the most lost. The social democratic Centre-Left have seemingly rallied around the SNP, while the those following the Unionist cause have unsurprisingly gathered about the Conservatives. The principled opposition to the SNP approach to governing, on issues of civil liberties and the environment, has gathered around the Greens and the Lib Dems. That doesn't leave much room for the Labour Party.

The Liberal Democrats night in Scotland lays out their own particularly strange journey. While across Scotland their support seemed to settle to the national average of around 8%, in particular constituencies they won huge victories, even against the SNP, with 15% wings bringing thousands of voters. That was enough to give Will Rennie a constituency seat with a 3500 vote majority in North East Fife, along with gaining Edinburgh Western.

By contrast with Scotland, the election in Wales almost felt like a delayed continuation from the 2015 general election. The Lib Dem vote levelled out at around the 8% margin seen elsewhere, and in Wales, last year, but in this situation that meant Lib Dem seat losses suited to the 2015 slaughter. And yet, party leader Kirsty Williams won her constituency with a 10% swing to increase her majority by thousands of votes.

Meanwhile UKIP gained representation in Wales through the regional list vote, taking seats at the expense of the Conservatives and the Lib Dems, thanks to 13% of the vote gained mostly at the expense of Labour. That number reflected their Britain-wide 2015 performance, and seemed to confirm the Senedd election as almost a rebalancing - representation adjusting to match their performance.

In the local council elections in England, Labour lost seats but - again - largely held their ground. The Lib Dems showed more surprising resilience, taking a projected 15% of the national vote share and even an overall gain of more than forty council seats and control of a council. As in Wales, UKIP appear to be rebalancing, losing votes but claiming some council seats, in seeming redress from a year ago. The Conservatives lost almost fifty seats and control of a council, but for a sitting government the results are as undramatic as could be hoped.

That stands in contrast to London. After eight years of Boris Johnson, with Labour struggling, the Conservatives must have thought that this was a clear cut opportunity. Yet it was Sadiq Khan's campaign that has had all the momentum, despite the dirty tricks and negative campaigning of the Conservatives - run not only by Khan's opponent Zac Goldsmith, but endorsed from on high by Conservative leadership (Hattenstone, 2016).

As the dust settled, Sadiq Khan had become the new Mayor of London and Labour hold a commanding position in the London Assembly. Presented as the candidate representing a diverse and inclusive London, his election confirms the stark contrast between the politics of London and the Conservative majority in Southern England won in May 2015.

The sum of these results is to say that Conservatism is far from dominant in the UK because Britain is, beyond the simplistic divisions of Westminster majorities, composed of a number of different provinces over which Conservatives do not hold sway. London is a progressive beacon in the conservative South. Scotland is dominated by a fundamental question of its identity, while Wales seems to be struggling to find its own in a post-industrial world. Across the North, Labour's former heartlands, that post-industrial world has left Labour increasingly locked in a struggle with UKIP for its soul.

The results show conservatism to be an ideology ruling others from outside, at arms reach. But they also suggest that people are still waiting for a real and clear alternative to be put forward - and for someone to stand behind it. At the moment, progressives do not have a clear alternative pitch to offer and they are too divided into factions, and parties seemingly incapable of cooperating.

There are sparks here and there that show a pitch might be formulated in time for the 2020 general election. Support for Proportional representation is widening. There is growing acknowledgement of the need to tackle the housing crisis, including the rental sector. Welfare, inequality, austerity, basic income - these are all showing up on the public radar.

The future of these ideas, of turning them into policies, will require progressives to recognise the necessity for an alliance backing a clear positive alternative. An alliance internally within Labour, an alliance between Labour and other parties, an alliance between different parties in different provinces. Britain is divided, but progressives can do what conservatives can't and unite it behind a common cause.