From Essex County Council chamber to Nigel Farage’s speech at Reform UK’s Surrey conference, two very different events today tell you everything you need to know about why the government’s devolution overhaul matters.
Let’s start with the substance.
Councils in Essex have today decided to apply to turn 15 local authorities into two to five unitary authorities that would likely be overseen by a single mayor. The decision, which needs to be approved by central government, echoes what’s happening up and down the country, from Norfolk to Kent and Oxfordshire.
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It is the most wide-ranging overhaul of local government we have seen in decades. The government say it’s all about making the system simpler and more efficient; critics say it could dilute democracy and half a million people could be placed under the same unitary authority.
But the big political argument today is about the democratic rush.
Sir Keir Starmer‘s party may be slumping in the polls, but there are very few ways of knowing what the public really think.
May’s local elections across much of England are seen as the prime minister’s first big electoral test. A first sense of the public verdict on the political parties. However, councils who signed up to “fast tracked” devolution plans today are likely to see their May local elections delayed.
That leads us to Nigel Farage. At his latest rally-style conference at a Surrey racecourse, he tells me it’s “unbelievable” the government are using devolution as an “excuse”.
He says: “I thought dictators cancelled elections.”
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Reform UK had hoped to use May’s elections to capitalise on disillusionment with Labour and the Conservatives.
But around half of councils could now be postponing votes.
The government say democracy is not being denied, just delayed – and there will be elections to “shadow unitary authorities” in due course.
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Back in Essex, the Conservative council leader tells me he thinks it is the right decision for “practical and financial reasons”.
He says local elections have been delayed before, for example during COVID.
When I ask if he is running scared of Reform UK, he gets animated: “We’ve just beaten them roundly in a by-election!”
But the democratic rush for many may have to wait. Until then, Nigel Farage hopes to make as much political capital as possible.
