The UK Election: 9. How Does the Election Differ Across the UK?

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Hello, and welcome to Understand the UK Election, your essential guide to the general election.

I'm Adam Fleming.

My day job is presenting newscasts, which is the BBC's daily news podcast.

and I've been covering general elections since 2005, meaning this is my sixth general election.

Today's episode is going to be about how the campaign plays out in the constituent nations of the UK, other than England.

First of all, let's speak to the BBC's Scotland editor, James Cook.

Hi, James.

Hi, Adam.

I noticed both Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak went straight to Scotland in the first couple of days.

What do you think was going on?

Yes, it was very striking, wasn't it?

I think that suggests that Scotland is particularly important to particularly Sir Keir Starmer in his attempt to get into Downing Street.

For years and years and years,

Labour returned dozens and dozens of MPs in Scotland.

Labour leaders could turn to Scotland to help get them into Downing Street.

And Labour really have been the powerhouse of Scottish politics for a long time until 2015 when the SNP turned everything upside down, swept the board at the general election.

And now we're in a position where at the last general election in 2019, Labour had just one seat, just one seat in Scotland.

And the Scottish National Party, it's probably too strongly to put it as an identity crisis, but they've been having a bit of an identity issue, haven't they?

Yes, polls suggest the party has really slumped and Labour has jumped in Scotland since the last last election.

And partly that's because

they are also an incumbent government.

Since 1999, Scotland has directly taken care of a lot of its own domestic political affairs, most notably health education and so on, in the Scottish Parliament after devolution came in.

And the SNP has been in power running the Scottish Government since 2007.

So it's a government that's been there for a long time.

It's had struggles with the NHS, struggles with the education system.

The last year there's been a lot of debate about social issues such as gender and the party's to a certain extent become bogged down in that.

On top of that it's been under police investigation because of allegations relating to the funding and finances of the party.

And of course we've been through a couple of leaders.

And the Scottish Greens were recently part of the government and that was part of the downfall of Hamza Youssef.

But I suppose that's because the electoral system for the Scottish Parliament helps them and they haven't had that same success when it comes to the first past the post Westminster voting system.

Yes, that's right.

It's a proportional representation system.

That means that it is easier for smaller parties to get elected.

Whereas the history of Westminster politics, parliamentary politics in Scotland has been the Labour Party has dominated.

Then in 2014, Scotland voted on whether or not to become independent.

And maybe things were changing already with the advent of devolution and the nationalist movement was building.

Even though Scotland rejected that proposition, the remarkable thing was in the next election, the SNP won 56 of Scotland's 59 seats.

The other three parties, and this gets to your point about first pass the post and how brutal it can be, got one each, one seat for Labour, one seat for the Conservatives, one seat for the Liberal Democrats.

And it's a much more kind of varied place than some commentary suggests, isn't it?

There's like definite kind of political zones.

Yeah, I think that's an interesting point.

And the Liberal Democrats, you know, do well in some particularly rural parts of the country, but not exclusively.

They had four MPs at the last election.

The Conservatives have six MPs or had, and they're really clustered in the northeast, where there's a big debate about oil and gas, hugely important industry for Scotland now in the process of a transition towards renewable energy.

And they've also got three seats along the border with England, which tells you something, I think, about their adamant opposition to independence.

But yeah, there's fault lines in different ways.

There's traditional left-right fault lines.

There's social conservative and social liberal fault lines.

And then, of course, there's this underlying issue of the Constitution and independence, which, you know, it's not really gone away.

James, thank you very much.

Thanks, Adam.

Now let's head to Cardiff and speak to political correspondent for BBC Wales, Catron Half-Jones.

Hello, Catherine.

Hi, Adam.

Now, often at Westminster, you hear Wales being described as a blueprint for what a Labour government would do nationally because they are the government in Wales.

What's your take on just how that is used by the parties?

Yeah, I mean, Labour has been in power in the Welsh Parliament or Senate, as it is now, for the whole of Devolution, 25 years.

It has consistently played into criticism of the Labour Party more generally, and that was true even before the election was called.

We heard Rishi Sunak criticising the Welsh NHS for waiting lists and missed targets and so on.

And that's really been built upon by the Conservatives in particular during this campaign, especially given, of course, that Kirstarma did call Labour in Wales a blueprint for what Labour could achieve in power across the whole of the UK.

And he said that from the stage of the Welsh Labour Conference in North Wales in March 2022.

Here in Wales, a Welsh Labour Government is the living proof of what Labour looks like in power.

How things can be done differently and better.

Every day you demonstrate the difference that Labour makes, a blueprint for what Labour can do across the United Kingdom.

He has shied away from it in more recent years.

He's been asked about it.

He hasn't repeated it.

And that's probably due to two things.

The policies that have become a bit problematic for the Labour brand in Wales, but also the Welsh Labour Government have been in a cooperation agreement with Plight Cymru up until recently.

And UK Labour are a bit more sensitive about any talk of cooperating or working alongside any nationalist parties at a UK level, having been burnt previously by accusations that they'd work with the SNP.

Interesting.

Now, let's talk about the voters.

How would you describe what the main issues are in people's minds?

Well, the NHS health is a big issue for Welsh voters.

It is in every election.

The Welsh government often say that they're constrained in how much they can do on health because of the money that they have from the UK government.

So, around 80% of the £20 billion budget that the Welsh Government has does come from the UK Treasury.

And the Welsh Government's argument on that is if you had a UK Labour government, they hope more money would be coming down the M4 to support health.

But the other issue, of course, that's coming up when we talk to voters here in Wales is the cost of living, the economy.

It's the price of fuel.

And that's no big surprise because Wales is a pretty rural country.

And in terms of the political geography of the country, why is it that North East Wales has suddenly become so interesting?

Yeah, North East Wales is really interesting because that's where the Conservatives took six seats directly from Labour in Wales in 2019, winning 14 in all.

But they are looking very challenging for the Conservatives at this election.

And it's not just because of the polling that suggests they're in a bit of trouble, but also there have been boundary changes here in Wales, which means that the number of MPs that Wales sends back to Westminster after this election will drop from 40 to 32.

And that's really worked against the Conservatives, not only in North East Wales, but also in West Wales as well.

As well, of course, as the challenge from parties like the Liberal Democrats and reform, who are challenging on each flank of the Conservative Party.

And Welsh national politics has continued unabated.

And Von Gething, the relatively new First Minister, faced a vote of no confidence recently and he lost it.

Yeah, Von Gething has been in post as First Minister and Welsh Labour leader for about three months now and it comes off the back of months of questions around a £200,000 donation to Vaughan Gething's campaign to become Labour leader and then duly First Minister.

Now Vaughan Gething, despite that vote, despite all the questions, seems to want to tough it out.

He is getting a lot of support from senior UK Labour figures on that at the moment.

And no surprise, I suppose, there is an election happening.

The last thing they want is to lose a First Minister in the middle of all of that.

Catherine, thank you very very much.

And now we can cross to Londonderry to speak to Enda McClafferty, who's BBC Northern Ireland's political editor.

Hello, Enda.

Hi, Adam.

I suppose, actually, everyone's talking about, oh, who's going to be the next government of the UK?

Actually, Northern Ireland's been waiting for a government in Northern Ireland for a long time, and they finally got one.

That's the thing that's really dominated politics there.

Yes, Adam, this is the first time, in fact, in nine years that we're going into a general election with a functioning government in place in Northern Ireland at Stormont.

On the previous occasions, we went into a general election with lots of recrimination and lots of angry parties at the fact that we did not have devolution up and running.

And that, in a sense, was the main theme running through those previous elections.

And Ender, just introduce people to the political parties in Northern Ireland and give us a sort of sketch of their standings at the moment.

Well, we have 18 seats up for grabs in Northern Ireland.

Last time round in 2019, the DUP, the largest unionist party here, secured eight of those seats.

Sinn Féin, of course, the main Nationalist Republican Party in Northern Ireland secured seven of those seats.

The SDLP picked up two and the Alliance picked up the last remaining seat of the 18.

So that's how things broke down back then.

Of course things have changed since then.

For instance, one of those DUP seats was occupied by the DUP leader at the time, Sir Geoffrey Donaldson.

He has since stepped back from frontline politics because he's facing historical sex charges which he's planning to contest.

And as a result, the DUP are coming in to this election with seven, if you like, sitting MPs at Westminster, which introduces a whole new dimension, I think, for the party this time round.

Then we have smaller parties here as well, like the traditional unionist voice.

We also have the Green Party and People Before Profit will also be contesting seats.

But given the nature of the voting system here that is first passed the post, they're unlikely to feature when it comes to the final shakedown.

How do people in Northern Ireland feel when the leaders of the main Westminster parties turn up?

and their parties aren't even standing in the election in Northern Ireland?

Well that is something that we've become accustomed to in Northern Ireland, the fact that we have a Labour and a Tory government there.

But of course, people here feel somewhat detached because Labour and the Conservatives do not stand candidates in Northern Ireland with the expectation of winning any seats.

So, in a sense, there's no mandate risk for the parties in Northern Ireland.

So, there is a sense sometimes that we get left behind here by the powers that be at Westminster and that they simply come to Northern Ireland to, in a sense, tick a box at times.

And that's why sometimes people here can feel a little bit politically helpless.

And will there ever be a time where Sinn Féin take up their seats at Westminster?

Well, that's a big question, and one that's continually posed to Sinn Féin, not least, of course, during the Brexit times when we had so many knife-edge votes at Westminster.

And people here in Northern Ireland who were saying, who remember, voted by a majority to remain within the EU, were putting pressure on Sinn Féin to get more involved in Westminster, to take their seats and be involved in that voting process.

There's every chance this time round, Adam, that Sinn Féin might well become the largest party at Westminster from Northern Ireland.

That title has been held by the DUP but only by one seat and this time round I think Sinn Féin are pretty confident that they will be able to surpass the DUP.

You mentioned the B word Brexit and of course Northern Ireland's got special status under the the Brexit deal.

What effect does that have on the election campaign this year do you reckon?

Well it has put the DUP I think in a difficult position because the party as you know were locked in a battle with the government over trying to negotiate a deal post-Brexit, post-the Windsor framework because the feeling among unionists here is that they didn't get Brexit.

Well, the rest of the UK did, in a sense, that they were not part of the overall scheme that was finally negotiated, that they were still being aligned to the EU for foods and for single-market access, and that they were very much left behind.

So, the DUP has been continually fighting a battle to say very much that their election campaign is going to be framed around restoring Northern Ireland's place within the UK, as they put it.

As for the other parties, they're much focusing on the positives that now flow from Northern Ireland's position, having dual market access, access to both the UK and also the EU market.

And they say we need to bank these gains now and press forward and ensure that we can cash in by way of attracting future in-world investment.

So it has been framed around the election campaign, but for very different reasons by the different parties.

Anda, thank you very much.

Cheers, Adam.

Thanks for that.

And that's all for this episode.

Next time, we'll be looking at what happens on Election Day itself.

And you can find more episodes on BBC Sounds.

Just search for understand

the UK election.

And if you want to keep up to date with the day-to-day blow-by-blow news from the campaign trail, then you can listen to my other podcast newscast every single day.

And I will speak to you again soon.

Bye.

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