The Times is running a story at the moment arguing against direct election for police authorities (see also Jackie Ashley in today’s Guardian) . The story picks up on the BNP’s claims that they are going to seize control of police authorities if direct election is introduced. The BNP are quoted as saying
We have a staunch core of voters who are guaranteed to turn out and there could be enough of us to win seats in these circumstances.
Perhaps I’m going to be proven grievously wrong here, but I think the chances of the BNP taking control of any police authority are nil, and the Times and the Guardian should stop reprinting BNP hype as fact.
Let’s first dismiss the idea that the BNP have a meaningful core of voters anywhere except in a small number of deprived urban areas. A list of BNP councillors serving before the 2008 election cycle demonstrates the small number of seats where the BNP are really competitive. It fields candidates in only a tiny number of wards – 744 candidates in 2007 – and holds fifty seats out of 22,000 across the country.
So, the BNP does not have a core vote to speak of. But might it snatch a surprise victory in areas where it is strong? Very unlikely. The areas of strength for the BNP are often white working class areas, which are usually in former metropolitan counties (Burnley, Barking, etc). These metropolitan counties have large ethnic minority populations, and many prosperous suburban areas where the BNP message gains no traction. There is no chance that the BNP are going to overturn the hold of the major parties in places like Bromley or Camden.
What about outside the metropolitan areas? Police authorities are still huge – many provincial forces are multi-county such as Thames Valley, Devon & Cornwall, and Mercia. Even smaller single-county forces like Hertfordshire or Kent cover populations of a million or more. On such a scale, the BNP vote is going to be swamped (ho ho), even if it can put up a showing in Loughton (Epping Forest) or Coalville (NW Leicestershire).
And finally, what about a low turnout? Could the lack of interest in local democracy give the BNP a way in? Unlikely. Let’s get down and dirty with some data.
This analysis is based on the most recent election in Epping Forest, one of the BNP’s areas of strength. That Council elects by thirds, so only 33% of the seats were available.
This year, the BNP received 2,391 votes (8.597% share, fourth place). It won one seat and came second in a couple of others, all in Loughton. The Conservatives did best with a share of 44.757%, and a total vote of 12,448. The Liberal Democrats came second, and the Loughton Residents Association third.
Turnout was 37.4% overall – about average for local government, perhaps a bit on the high side. The BNP stood in 12 of 21 wards, and won in one of them. The ward in which they won had a 37.2% turnout. Wards where the BNP stood but did not win had an average turnout of 39.8%, perhaps because of media attention or an effective Stop the BNP campaign. So the BNP don’t seem to be relying on a low turnout, at least in Epping Forest. They are just contesting the wards they think they might win.
The BNP’s low vote overall is a sign of the mountain they would have to climb to win a police authority vote even in such favourable terrain as Epping Forest. Imagine that the whole council area had one seat on the Essex Police Authority, which is plausible. The BNP need to suppress the turnout among the other parties to win the most votes in the council area.
Let’s start by giving the BNP some unlikely advantages. Let’s imagine that the Loughton Residents’ Association aren’t interested in standing and (although they don’t seem to be a right wing group) half their votes go to the BNP and the other LRA voters don’t vote. That gives the BNP 4,392 votes. Let’s say that UKIP and English Democrat voters also all vote for the BNP (this is a gross slander on those parties, of course). The BNP are at 4,720. Now let’s imagine that the BNP have a really charismatic candidate, who increases their vote by 10% – that gives them 5,192.
Even if every single one of those 5,192 voters turns out, that still only gives the BNP the votes of 7.3% of the electorate. To win the most votes, they need to defeat the local controlling party, the Conservatives. At the 2008 district elections, 12,448 voters turned out for the Conservatives, meaning that even with our favourable assumptions above, the BNP need to persuade 58% of previous Conservative voters to stay home. A 58% reduction in turnout for all main parties, plus 5,192 votes for the BNP gives a total turnout in a BNP victory of 19% – an implausibly low number, particularly if, as is likely, the police authority elections are held alongside other local elections.
Remember, too, that we are putting favourable assumptions on the BNP vote in an area with sitting BNP councillors. Across the whole of Essex, turnout figures would have to be in the low single digits to allow the so-called BNP core vote to take the election overall. This is not going to happen.
None of this is to say that people should not worry about hard-right parties. They should not worry, however, about elected police authorities falling under BNP control.
