Tag Archives: 2024 local elections

The 2019 Conservative Party manifesto: were its pledges on the constitution delivered? 

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The 2019 Conservative Party manifesto contained a number of constitutional policy commitments – on Brexit, UK institutions, elections, civil liberties, and devolution. As the manifestos for this year’s general election emerge, Lisa James assesses the delivery record of the 2019–24 Conservative governments against the pledges made in 2019. 

The 2019 Conservative Party manifesto contained a wide-ranging set of constitutional commitments. Since its publication much has changed – the UK has left the EU, experienced a global pandemic, and had three Prime Ministers and five Chancellors of the Exchequer. But delivery against manifesto commitments still matters, so with the 2019–24 parliament dissolved, now is the time to reassess the pledges that were made. 

Getting Brexit done 

The single highest profile – and titular – pledge of the manifesto was of course the promise to ‘get Brexit done’. The election followed a period of parliamentary deadlock, and the negotiation of Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal. The manifesto pledged to pass this deal, limit the length of the ‘transition period’ for negotiating new trade arrangements, end the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) over the UK, and end the supremacy of EU law. 

The Brexit deal was rapidly passed following the Conservative general election victory, and the UK left the EU on 31 January 2020. The pledge not to extend the transition period beyond the end of 2020 was also kept. The deal largely removed ECJ jurisdiction from the UK, but the court retained a continuing role in relation to Northern Ireland as a result of its treatment under Johnson’s Brexit deal (discussed further below). The supremacy of retained EU law (a special category of legislation derived from the UK’s EU membership) was ended by the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023. 

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The new voting system for mayors and PCCs: how it affects democracy

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This month’s elections for mayors and police and crime commissioners were contested under a revised voting system. In a post published yesterday, Alan Renwick found that this change had a substantial impact on the results, to the benefit of the Conservatives. Here, he concludes that it also harmed democracy. 

Elections of mayors and police and crime commissioners (PCCs) were previously held under the Supplementary Vote (SV) system, where each voter could express first and second preferences. Now they take place using First Past the Post (FPTP), where there is a vote for a single candidate. The previous post in this series showed that this change produced a marked shift in the outcome of the elections held earlier this month, and that it did so entirely to the benefit of the Conservatives.  

That a change in the rules should favour those in power who instigated it is already cause for concern: democracy requires a level playing field. But ministers might defend the reform on the basis that the new system is superior on democratic grounds to its predecessor and that it was introduced fairly. Both of these claims therefore require interrogation. How do the two systems compare in terms of democratic quality? And was the process through which the change in voting system came about appropriate?  

Which voting system is more democratic? 

As I outlined in a blogpost published when the bill changing the voting system was before parliament in 2021, ministers argued that FPTP is the more democratic system: SV, they said, allows losing candidates – those coming second in terms of first preferences – to win. But this argument is circular: it works only if we have already accepted the FPTP definitions of ‘winner’ and ‘loser’.  

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The new voting system for mayors and PCCs: how it changed the results

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This month’s elections for mayors and police and crime commissioners were contested under a revised voting system. In the first of a two-part blogpost, Alan Renwick examines how the shift affected the results. He finds that the impact was substantial, and that it specifically benefited the Conservatives. 

The elections held earlier this month for mayors and police and crime commissioners (PCCs) took place under a revised voting system. The Elections Act 2022 abolished the previous Supplementary Vote (SV) system, under which voters could express first and second preferences, in favour of straightforward First Past the Post (FPTP). The changed rules were applied in four local mayoral elections last year. But this year’s local elections offered the new system its first large-scale outing: every part of England and Wales had either mayoral or PCC elections; a few had both. 

So how did the new system fare? Did it affect the results? If so, whom did it benefit? This post endeavours to answer these questions, while a second part, which will be published tomorrow, will examine how the change affected the democratic quality of the elections in the round. 

How the change affected the results 

Ten combined authority mayoral elections and 37 PCC elections took place on 2 May. Under the new FPTP rules, Labour won nine of the mayoral contests, while the Conservatives won one. In the PCC contests, the Conservatives won 19, Labour 17, and Plaid Cymru one.  

We cannot be sure what the results would have been had the former SV system still been in place, but we can make estimates grounded in evidence. To do so, it is easiest to break the contests down into three groups. 

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