All politics is local, or so it used to be said. But there was not much sign of that supposed neighbourhood granularity in England’s local elections on 4 May. Instead, a majority of English voters appear to have gone to the polls determined to register a national protest against Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government at Westminster. There has been even less deference to the parish pump in this week’s local elections in Northern Ireland. The 11 so-called super district councils, all proportionally elected, were up for grabs on Thursday for only the third time since the reform of local government in 2014. However, the Northern Ireland campaign has been overwhelmingly focused on a bigger political picture too, in this case the future of power sharing at Stormont and the wider tensions caused by Brexit.
None of this should imply that the Northern Ireland elections do not matter, despite an extremely lacklustre campaign. The results, which are due to be announced on Friday and Saturday, will at least produce local councils that are able to carry out their government functions in spite of the standoff at Stormont. Local democracy of that kind remains genuinely important. The results will also be studied, as ever, for what they say about the balances of political power within and between the two main traditions in Northern Ireland. They may also have something important to say about the health of the country’s third tradition, the non-aligned. This group may outpoll both unionists and nationalists this week, yet it is blocked by the Democratic Unionist party’s boycott of power sharing from putting its willingness to govern into practice.
