UK elections. The last day of campaigning before major elections in England, Scotland and Wales

Wednesday is the last day of the election campaign in Great Britain before a series of elections at various levels, which may determine the political future of many party leaders, and in the long run – the future of the country in its current form.

The people of Scotland and Wales will elect their parliament on Thursday. Particular attention is drawn to the first party, because the Scottish National Party (SNP), which has been in power since 2007, aims to separate Scotland from the United Kingdom and has announced that if it wins the election again, it will be a social event. Mandate to conduct a new independence referendum.

The fact that the SNP will remain the largest faction in the Scottish Parliament is certain, but it is difficult to predict whether it will have an absolute majority in it. The latest opinion polls published on the same day give quite the opposite forecast – either they will run out of a few seats for a majority, or they will get several seats in more than half.

Independence tendencies in Wales are also intensifying, but they are much weaker than in Scotland and everything indicates that the Welsh branch of the Labor Party will again win the local parliament elections, while Plaid Cymru and the Welsh branch of the Conservative Party vie for the distant second place.

In England, local government elections will be held on Thursday in 145 cities or counties (about 5,000 council members), as well as the election of 13 mayors, including London, and the London Council. The election in London is getting the most attention, although opinion polls indicate that Labour’s Sadiq Khan, who is seeking re-election, will beat Conservative Party Sean Bailey, as well as more than a dozen other candidates not running. the game. But nationally, at the city council and county council levels, governors can expect success.

In addition, there will be a by-election for the House of Commons in the region of Hartlepool in the North East of England. This will be the first by-election in the current session of the House of Commons, i.e. from December 2019, and the first since Keir Starmer became leader of the opposition Labor Party, and thus attracted significant interest from the British media. Especially since Hartlepool was until recently – like almost all of northern England – a stronghold of the Labor Party. Hartlepool County has been owned by the Labor Party since its inception in 1974, but it appears that the Conservative Party will take over.

This may suggest that the Conservatives’ success in December 2019, when they took over many traditional labor areas in northern England, was not just a one-off response from voters to Labour’s hesitant stance on Brexit, but a more enduring transformation. in political geography.

With Hartlepool Bartłomiej Niedziński (PAP)

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