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Originally Posted by Mark.B  Today in the UK there were a lot of local council elections....I am not sure what the equivalent is across the pond, but local councils are the authorities responsible for running local services (maintaining highways, schools, libraries, emptying trash and suchlike). the elections typically involve one third of the council being contested.
It's a bit complex to be honest and I'm damned if I understand it all myself. Some councils elect a third, others elect the whole council, others aren't having elections at all.
We should know the overall result by Friday afternoon.
It makes no difference to national government but it does give an indication of how well the main parties are doing. |
It could make a difference to national government, because as well as local council elections, the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly are also having elections.
The Scottish National Party (SNP) are a party in favour of independence for Scotland. The predictions are that they will gain control of the Scottish Parliament tonight - if that happens, they will hold a referendum on independence in 2010. This could mean the breakup of the UK, with Scotland becoming an independent country in the next few years.
This will almost certainly have an impact on Ireland, too - it's extremely unlikely that the six counties of the North (Northern Ireland) will be part of a disintegrated UK, which means that Irish unification would also be on the cards.
The Irish issue is already in the process of being resolved, of course - after decades of violence on both sides, Sinn Fein (the nationalist Republican group, the political wing of the IRA) and the DUP (a militant Protestant party) are now working together. Tonight, the most extreme Protestant terrorist group there, the Ulster Volunteer Force who are responsible for killing more than 500 Catholics in Northern Ireland, have announced they're disarming too. The British government are happily withdrawing from control of the North to allow a new Ulster parliament to run the province. Love him or hate him, you have to give Bill Clinton credit for kickstarting this process - the result is better than anyone could ever have imagined.
The SNP is socially liberal and politically mildly left of centre, unlike the BNP (British National Party) which is considered on the far right of the political spectrum in the UK. Nationalism means very different things in Scotland than it does in England. If Scotland does split from the UK, it will remain part of the EU and will probably adopt the Euro. This would put major pressure on England and Wales to move to the Euro, too.
It also means that general elections in the future would be heavily skewed - Scotland traditionally votes for left of centre parties, so if they weren't voting in English elections, Labour would almost certainly not only lose in England, but would probably never form a government in England again.
So yes, tonight's results *could* have a very major impact.