
With a recount for one ward (Rainham and Wennington) due to take place on Monday, it is not yet clear who will be calling the shots at Havering’s Town Hall for the next four years. However, the most striking thing about this week’s election is the paltry turnout.
In the previous elections four years ago, turnout ranged from 26.6% in Harold Hill’s Gooshays ward to 45.47% in Upminster – with an overall turnout of 37%. This time the figures are lower still! The same two wards produced the lowest and highest turnouts, but this time they ranged from only 23.46% to 42.3%. Overall, barely 35% of Havering’s electorate casted a vote. Perusing the figures for earlier elections highlights this downward spiral – in 2002 for instance, turnout was 45%. The low turnout was a feature nationwide. So what explains this electoral fatigue?
On a national level, the revelations about the flouting of lockdown rules by both the Tory PM and the Labour opposition leader no doubt caused many supporters of those parties to chuck their polling cards into the recycling bin. And at a time when food and energy prices are rising at a scary rate, it’s likely that the minds of millions of others were focused on whether they would be able to eat and heat rather than on town hall comings and goings.
More locally, in many of Havering’s wards there was barely any sign of a forthcoming election at all – or at least if my experience is anything to go by. Apart from one doorstep visit from a (swiftly dispatched) Conservative candidate, a couple of leaflets by the Havering Residents Association and one from Labour, I did not see any active canvasing in St Edward’s Ward. Although it is true that a lot of election campaigning takes place online these days – as was the case here – most of this only reaches those who already feel politically engaged.
Of course, there is a myriad of other reasons too. But all in all, the clear winners of this election are the non-voters. So what happens now?