It’s been a few days since Medway elected a brand new council, and chose to change course for the first time this century. Now that the dust has settled and we’ve managed to catch up on our sleep just a little bit, let’s ponder the lessons that can be taken away from Medway’s seismic local elections.
Labour can win when they put the work in
It’s been a joke for over the last few elections that the biggest challenger to Medway Labour is Medway Labour itself. Previous election cycles have seen the party bogged down in candidate scandals and unfocused campaigns. In 2023, the party were ruthless in their campaigning, only targeting the exact wards they needed to win thanks to a strategy devised by Cllrs Naushabah Khan and Harinder Mahil. Selections were largely smooth, and activists knew exactly where they needed to put the work in. The final weeks of the campaign saw repeated visits from Labour’s national leadership and prominent MPs, a sign that the party was increasingly confident of their chances in Medway. It might be easy to dismiss Labour’s success as being a result of the anti-Conservative political winds nationally, but it’s worth noting that the Conservatives didn’t lose any vote share in Medway, scoring 34% in both 2019 and 2023, while Labour jumped from 27% to 38% in the same period.
A more diverse council in some ways, less so in others
With Medway Labour taking control of the council, we should be seeing a more diverse council that looks more like the community it represents. Do we though? Kind of. The proportion of men on the council increases ever so slightly. Labour did their bit here, electing more women than men, and have already put forward an equal cabinet for the first time in Medway’s history. But the Conservatives only have one woman in their ranks of 22 councillors, and every independent councillor is a white man, continuing that long tradition. There are marginally more councillors from minority backgrounds than before, and the council will certainly be younger overall, but there’s still plenty to do before Medway Council resembles its residents.
For the Conservatives, rebuilding looks challenging
Given the perfect storm that hit the Conservatives in Medway this year, they perhaps did well to cling on to the 22 seats that they did. Their campaign was disorganised, with candidates breaching electoral rules, a lack of coordination between the three constituencies that make up Medway, and some of the worst campaign literature we have ever seen. Now there’s the thorny issue of who takes charge of the group in their chamber. Potential contenders Stuart Tranter and Rupert Turpin both lost their seats, leaving no clear successor to the departing Alan Jarrett. The old guard seems to be lining up behind Cllr David Brake, while many of the new faces want someone not tainted by the past administration. The new leader faces the unenviable role of leading a party that has not experienced opposition in decades while trying to find a way to turn around their fortunes.
Labour did well even in areas they didn’t try
It will be alarming to the Conservatives just how close Labour ran them even in areas where they didn’t put any resources. Labour performed well across much of Rainham, coming within 100 votes of taking a seat in Rainham North, something all the more surprising given it was a low-key target for the Lib Dems. While they didn’t come quite as close in the other Rainham wards, they performed respectably in all of them, with Christopher Brown in Rainham South West significantly overperforming against expectations. 2027 is a long time away, and Labour might have to act more defensively by then, but if the national winds are still behind them, even places like Rainham could be in play next time around, leaving few safe areas for the Conservatives.
The Greens become Medway’s third party
It’s easy to view the Greens lack of success in winning a council seat as a failure for the party, and they will no doubt be disappointed to get within 50 votes in Cuxton, Halling & Riverside without getting over the line. But it is worth noting that the Green Party only started contesting Medway elections in 2011, and have seen their vote share increase in every election since. Their 11.5% here cements them as Medway’s third party, and with enough resources and campaigning in the right place, it’s only a matter of time before they break through to Medway Council.
A council return still eludes the Medway Lib Dems
Since being wiped out from Medway Council in 2015, the Lib Dems have rarely looked like serious contenders to get back into the chamber. Their 2023 campaign was stronger than their 2019 non-starter, and they did manage to increase their vote share from 5% to 9%. But even their hyper-targeting of St Mary’s Island and Fort Horsted at the expense of almost everywhere else didn’t yield any returns. While the party came second in both of those wards, they are further back than they would have liked. With Labour performing strongly even in the areas that might naturally be Lib Dem, it’s going to be a difficult path to victory for the yellows.
New right-wing parties were non-entities
Long gone are the days of 2015 when UKIP took 23% of the vote in Medway. After evaporating from the picture in 2019, we were left wondering how many of the new right-wing populist parties might pop up this time around. Turns up they needn’t have bothered. Reform stood in two wards, taking 5% in All Saints and 1% in Hoo St Werbugh & High Halstow. Elsewhere, the Heritage Party put up a candidate in Strood North & Frindsbury for some reason, where they managed to take 2% of the vote. Heady stuff.
Peninsula belongs to independents
Independents firmly remain in control of the Peninsula, with the group in Hoo St Werbugh & High Halstow led by Cllr George Crozer taking three-quarters of the vote, a bigger victory margin than in any other ward in Medway. The Conservatives, who used to control the peninsula, collapsed back to only 13% of the vote. Less clear cut was All Saints, another peninsula ward, that saw two independents duke it out for victory, with veteran local election campaigner Chris Spalding finally winning a seat.
Voter ID didn’t seem to have much of an impact on the face of it
We’ve written extensively about voter ID in the past few weeks, and in the end, it doesn’t seem like there were any big issues with the system in Medway at least. Anecdotally, polling station staff reported only a handful of issues with people being turned away. Obviously, it’s hard to grasp the full picture as there’s no way to know how many voters didn’t turn out because they didn’t have ID in the first place. It’s also likely that a General Election might present a bigger challenge as voters are more inclined to turn out then than in local elections. Early indications suggest the impact might not be as dramatic as we feared though, however unnecessary the concept may be.
Medway is in play in a General Election
Speaking of General Elections, we know one will be coming before the end of 2024. While they operate on a different level to local elections, it’s clear from the results here that the Conservatives are facing a challenge for the seats they have held since 2010. With a disorganised and demoralised set of constituency parties and a highly motivated Labour Party, we’re looking at our tightest Westminster elections in a long time. Electoral Calculus are currently predicting that all three seats would go red in a hypothetical General Election, with Rehman Chishti looking particularly vulnerable in Gillingham and Rainham on the back of these local election results.
Footnotes
Unless anything dramatic happens, this should be the last local election piece that I publish. Until 2027, anyway. A more general Medway newsletter schedule will be kicking in again from next week.
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Music that soundtracked the creation of this newsletter: Love Keeps Kicking by Martha, and Jamboree by Beat Happening.
An interesting read. Thank you. I think voter turnout, while maybe around what was expected, must be on the list of priorities for the new council. High visibility, honesty and change where it matters will all be factors in helping to retain, and increase seats next time.
This is a very good evaluation of the result. I agree that the results show that if Labour continues to be popular locally and nationally we could see a Labour councillor from Rainham in 2027. Either way this should be a big warning to Chishti, who relied heavily on Rainham voters.