Polls apart

Throughout England and Northern Ireland this past Thursday, elections were held for local councils.

In England 248 councils held elections, with six directly electing mayors. Both of the two main political parties suffered significant losses, collectively losing  control of more than 40 councils. The Lib Dems proved to be the biggest winners, managing net gains of 11 councils and 676 councillors, while the Conservatives lost 1,334 councillors.

Theresa May’s response to the results was that voters clearly wanted the main parties to “get on” with Brexit – particularly confusing if you consider that local councils don’t exactly get a big say in Brexit negotiations, but there we go. The Prime Minister was heckled during a post-election speech as she called for unity following the party’s worst results in English local elections since 1995.

Former Conservative party leader Iain Duncan Smith called for Theresa May’s resignation, describing her attempts to reach a Brexit deal with Labour as absurd. Speaking of Labour, the party failed to make any net gains in these local elections as the swing from Labour to the Lib Dems was about 13% and to the Greens was 10%.

And now onto the important stuff.

In Northern Ireland voters took to the polls in 11 council districts and results appeared to signal a change in times, as support for smaller parties grew to the detriment of the two biggest parties, the DUP and Sinn Fein.

The Alliance Party saw a 65% rise in its representation, with leader Naomi Long hailing this “incredible result” as a watershed moment for Northern Irish politics. The Green Party and People Before Profit also saw an increase in popularity, doubling and quadrupling their share of the vote respectively from the 2014 local elections. In addition to all of this 24 Independent councillors were also elected, an increase of nine from 2014.  Meanwhile the DUP took a 24.1% share of first preference votes – a 1% increase from the last local election, while Sinn Fein’s vote was slightly down by under 1% to 23.2%. The SDLP also made gains on Derry City and Strabane District Council, while the UUP has been reduced to just two councillors from seven in Belfast City Hall.

(Cartoon by Ian Knox in the Irish News)

History was made as Alison Bennington became the DUP’s first openly gay representative to be elected in Northern Ireland, winning a seat on Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council, despite assembly member Jim Wells claiming that DUP members had been “shocked” by the decision to let her run. Party leader Arlene Foster congratulated Bennington and stated the new councillor is a “committed Unionist” who “joined the party for the union”. Foster also condemned comments made about Bennington by Wells, who had said former party leader Rev Ian Paisley would be “aghast” that an openly gay DUP councillor had been elected. Rev Paisley once led a campaign to, in his words, “Save Ulster from Sodomy” and stop the decriminalisation of homosexuality.

Foster said the party will look at a number of issues including “bad behaviour” by party members after the conclusion of the elections, but that there was no change to the DUP’s policy that marriage should be between a man and a woman.

The success of smaller parties  has been hailed as a move away from “themmuns and ussuns” politics in Northern Ireland, with new voters being credited for this small but significant breakthrough. All eyes now turn to the European Parliamentary elections due to take place at the end of this month; as voters, politicians and political-junkies alike ask if this trend is likely to continue and, indeed, whether the EU elections will even take place at all.

Follow the details of the story through the #LE19 hashtag on Twitter, and check out Northern Slant’s pre-local election coverage here (spoiler – two of the first-timers in our ‘meet the candidate’ series were elected).

I did it Huawei

From this past week at Westminster I have good news and bad news. The good news: some political drama happened that has basically nothing to do with Brexit. The bad news: everything is definitely still not as normal and stable as it should be (whatever that means).

It all kicked off in this past week over Sir Mark Sedwill’s Huawei leak inquiry. Sir Sedwill became the UK’s most powerful civil servant last autumn promising to take a hard line on leaks, with some believing that he was actively seeking an opportunity to prosecute a leaker. This past week turned out to be Sir Sedwill’s lucky week, when Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson was sacked by Prime Minister Theresa May following an inquiry into a leak from a top-level National Security Council meeting. The National Security Council (NSC) is chaired by the Prime Minister, and meets weekly to discuss the UK’s national security, intelligence coordination and defence strategy, and includes only certain ministers from the cabinet in order to keep its talks as secret as possible. This formal inquiry followed the Daily Telegraph publishing information from a meeting about using the Chinese telecoms firm, Huawei, to help build the UK’s 5G network.

Gavin Williamson has been replaced by Penny Mourdaunt, who is the UK’s first female Defence Secretary. However, Williamson isn’t going down without a fight. The – now former – Defence Secretary has denied having any involvement in the leak, even going as far as swearing on his children’s lives that it wasn’t him. Bit dramatic? Well, yes, but this leak is a big deal. The leaked information from the NSC has already strained the relationship between the UK and US, with Washington threatening potential consequences for intelligence-sharing between the two countries.

Despite Williamson’s claims that he was “tried by kangaroo court” before being sacked, Prime Minister Theresa May has defended her decision, saying there was “compelling evidence” that he was the one who leaked the information from the NSC. However, police said  the Huawei leak does not amount to a criminal offence, with the Met Police Assistant Commissioner stating that he was “satisfied” that the Official Secrets Act had not been breached. However such a high-profile sacking has had the rumour mill brewing, with reports that Williamson had attacked the Prime Minister in private as he calls for an investigation into the Huawei leak inquiry. As far as Theresa May is concerned, the case is closed, but it’s unlikely that this is the last we’ll hear from – or about – Williamson.

All Barr None

As US Attorney General William Barr testified before the Senate about the report by special counsel Robert Mueller,  it emerged that in March, Mueller had written to Barr complaining that the Attorney General’s early description of the investigation’s conclusions – that appeared to clear President Trump of possible obstruction of justice – did not “capture the context” of his team’s work.

This was the first time the Attorney General had testified before Congress since the redacted version of the Mueller report was released. Throughout the questioning over Barr’s handling of the Mueller report, it became clear that Republicans clearly wanted to bring the investigation to an end; Democrats however, pressed Barr on Mueller’s letter and on other important aspects of his relationship with the White House. 

Barr refused to testify the following day before the House Judiciary Committee and  Democrats did not respond well to this, especially in light of the fact that Barr had told the House Appropriations Committee (I know, seriously, another committee?) hearing last month that he was not aware of any concerns that Mueller’s investigators expressed over his summary of Mueller’s findings.  Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused Barr of committing a crime by lying to Congress, stating in a news conference that “Nobody is above the law. Not the president of the United States, and not the attorney general”. Several 2020 Democratic presidential candidates have called  for the Attorney General’s resignation, reigniting old debates about the impartiality of the top law enforcement official.

Robert Mueller is set to testify to the House Judiciary Committee on May 15, where he could clarify any remaining issues surrounding his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 elections. However this coming week, all eyes will be on Barr, who has been given the deadline of Monday the 6th of May to hand over Mueller’s full report and its underlying evidence, or else he may face charges of contempt of Congress.

Violence in Venezuela

The political crisis in Venezuela turned violent this past week as supporters of opposition leader Juan Guadio began holding mass protests following violent clashes with government forces. In this past week Guaido took the bold step of calling for a military uprising against President Nicolas Maduro in an attempt to revive his movement to seize power in Venezuela. These violent battles on the streets of the capital Caracas are considered the most serious challenge yet to Maduro’s rule, with Guaido describing them as the “final phase” in ousting the socialist leader.

This violence is the result of months of political unrest in Venezuela, which have led to millions of people have fled the country as it deals with hyperinflation and shortages of basics like food and medicine. Many, including the US and EU governments, consider Maduro’s re-election to the country’s Presidency to have been a sham. Guaido has declared himself interim President in a direct challenge to Maduro’s leadership.

Maduro’s claimed victory over Guaido and his followers in an address to the nation this past Wednesday, prompting US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to announce that US military action in Venezuela was a possibility “if required”. The US has backed Guaido as the legitimate leader of the country, although thus far has not provided the opposition leader with any military resources. The White House has also denied special help to Venezuelans seeking asylum in the US. In this past week dozens were injured and one 27-year-old woman was shot dead during violent clashes in Caracas.

Meanwhile, opposition politician Leopoldo Lopez sought refuge at the Spanish diplomatic mission in Caracas following violent clashes between the two sides. Lopez has disclosed that he had met with senior Venezuelan military officers and that more “military movements” were on the way. A warrant has been issued for Lopez’s arrest, stating that he violated an order that required him to remain under house arrest and restricted his ability to speak publicly. However the Spanish government has no intention of handing him over the authorities.

The political reign in Spain 

Spain’s centre-left Socialist party (PSOE), led by Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, won the country’s general election, taking 123 of 350 seats with 29% of the vote. However the Socialists will have to work with smaller parties in order to form a coalition, raising questions over the demographics of what a future Spanish government will look like (Spain’s far-left United We Can party, the most obvious party to go into coalition with, fall short of reaching the required threshold with only won 42 seats). Despite this having been the country’s third general election in under four years, turnout was high at 75.8% – up 9% from 2016.

There were fears going into this election that PSOE would be unable to gain seats and that a vacuum would be opened for right-wing parties in Spain. Despite these dears the main conservative opposition party, Popular Party, only won half the seats it did in 2016, marking the group’s worst performance in history. However Vox, Spain’s far-right and anti-immigrant party, did gain new ground with these elections, winning 24 seats after bursting onto the political scene last year. It has been noted that this is the first time that the far-right will be entering Spanish parliament since dictator General Franco’s rule ended in 1975.

Alongside questions concerning Spain’s future coalition government, all eyes will be on Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez as he sets out to address the major question of Catalonian independence. This question has paralyzed Spanish politics even since the illegal independence referendum in 2017. As Sanchez seeks support from smaller, regional parties to form a government – including Catalonian nationalists – it appears that he may have to address this question sooner rather than later.