The Decline of the Minnows

The real news of the local elections alongside the collapse of the Lib-Dem vote, it seems, is the demise of the small parties and independents – the so-called "minnows".

Reflecting the general disillusionment with the three main parties, we have seem slow, erratic but nevertheless steady gains of small parties and a number of independents – all reflecting, the arrogance of Cameron and his "new" Conservatives, and a more general indifference to the political classes.

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Not a few were predicting that we would see a continuation of this phenomenon, but it was not to be. UKIP was sadly invisible, the rise of the BNP stalled. So, with 308 of 312 council seats declared, the "Others" had lost 140 seats.

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With the Lib-Dems also losing 242 seats and Labour losing 485, the big winners were the Tories with 875 gains, far in excess of expectations. However, despite desperate attempts to "spin" otherwise, the Tories have not made the breakthrough in the North. In fact, they lost control of Kirkless, they lost councillors in Bradford and Leeds and halved the number of Tories in Sheffield from two down to one.

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Although early days, what this seems to be is the resurgence of traditional two-party politics, with a strong element of the North-South divide. The Tories are strong in the South while Labour is still maintaining its grip over the metropolitan Northern councils.

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What might be happening is that the Tory deserters, scenting power, are returning to the fold, bolstered by others who detest Blair – and have no love for Gordon Brown. On the other hand, Labour maintains its core vote but is been strengthened by those who hate Cameron, and would not vote for him at any price.

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If this is the case, we can expect to see a greater polarisation of politics, as Gordon Brown takes over and the gap to the next general election shrinks. But each side will be recruiting not supporters, but temporary allies who have in common only their detestation of the other side.Today, therefore, we may be looking at a shift in the fault lines of British politics.

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It is with sadness that the editor notes note how badly UKIP's vote desintegrated in Scotland. In 2004 following the Euro Elections UKIP had become established on the Scotish political scene.

On Thursday the anti-EU party performed so badly (less than one percent of the vote in all of the regions) it could have made a grown political activist cry. The reasons why this state of affairs has come to pass are varied - but not least the reason is that UKIP failed to continue to communicate to the vast majority of Scots who are resentful of the EU treating their ancient Country as a region of the EU and not a country (with varieing degrees of independence) within the UK.

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During the 2004 campaign the Scotish media was well tuned into UKIP's message. At any of the many events UKIP Scotland staged the press turned up; their imagination had been set alight by a campaining team that exuded enthusiasm and ideas. Since then UKIP lost the attention of the press, the party became irelevent in the tussle between SNP and Labour - the argument that Scotland has very little independence in a centralist EU was simply not being made.

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One must ask the questions - what happened to the stucture that was put in place at the time of the Euro Elections? What happened to the many enthusiastic UKIP supporters? Is UKIP Scotland dead or just lying down ?

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{The Editor, Peter Troy was UKIP's lead candidate at the EU Parlimentry elections in June 2004}