Will Labour be able to contest all 5,000 council seats in the South?

Last night's stunning by election result in Barnsley demonstrates the depth of anger with the coalition parties. Stuart King wonders whether Labour will be able to field enough candidates in the South to take advantage of this in May's elections.

One month from today election nominations will close in local authorities up and down the country. For David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband, May’s elections represent their first significant and nationwide electoral test since last year’s general election.

It is clear that May’s elections represent a great opportunity for Labour. But party strategists also recognise that a threat exists alongside the opportunity. Labour must be seen to have done well in southern council seats; it cannot simply perform well in the north where its position is already solid. A strong performance that is restricted to our heartlands will allow our opponents to suggest that Labour has only been able to capitalise on anger that exists against the coalition within its urban and industrialised heartlands.

The challenge Labour faces, especially acute in the south, is the ability to stand candidates in as many of those seats up for election as is possible. Standing a full slate of candidates in the UK’s big cities and urban conurbations is often a fairly straight forward administrative process, albeit a time consuming one, with arms twisted to make up the slate with a number of “paper candidates”. In rural constituencies, often those with smaller memberships which, until recently had also been falling, a full slate has been an impossibility. Often party membership in a particular ward or electoral division has been insufficient to provide enough party members to nominate a Labour candidate.

Historically, many anti-Tory voters in the south have voted Liberal Democrat rather than Labour as the former has historically been best placed to defeat the Conservatives in their patch. As last night’s by election result in Barnsley demonstrated, voters are looking to punish both coalition parties, which means there is an even greater imperative on Labour to field the widest possible slate of candidates.

It will take 5,000 candidates to contest every single council seat in the three southern regions. No mean feat, especially if you look at the picture four years ago, when Labour last fought the seats up for election this May. Research and analysis undertaken exclusively by Southern Front has established the scale of Labour’s challenge in the south: in 2007, the voters in over 1,200 wards had no Labour candidate for whom to vote. More than two in five wards had no Labour candidate on the ballot and, in three councils there wasn’t a single Labour candidate fielded.

The findings are stark:

• Of the 140 councils with elections in 2011 (& 2007), 82 elect all of their councillors in one go (“all out” elections) and 58 elect one third of their councillors (election “by thirds”);

• In only 44 of the 140 councils was Labour able to stand a full slate of Labour candidates last time round;

• In 60 of the 140 councils (43%) Labour stood candidates in fewer than half of the wards electing candidates;

• Labour failed to stand any candidates at all in three local authority “all out” elections: Cotswold, Mid Devon and North Devon;

• Labour’s performance was better where the elections were by thirds, where in all but four of the councils Labour was able to stand in more than half of the contested seats;

• Conversely, Labour did much worse in those 82 authorities where all of the councillors were being elected, with it failing in 56 of the 82 to stand a slate of more than half the seats (68%);

• 2,981 electoral wards were contested in 2007, in 1,241 of which Labour did not field a candidate (42%);

• Across the south Labour stood 2,483 candidates – barely half of the total up for election of 4,787 (52%)

• Labour failed to fully contest a majority of the seats up for election, managing a full slate of candidates in 1,435 wards (48%);

• The outcome of the 2007 elections resulted in Labour failing to win a single seat in 64 southern councils; in a further 38, Labour groups of five or fewer were elected;

Smaller constituency parties will of course find it harder to stand a full slate of candidates where their activist base is so small. It is a more onerous and time consuming process collecting nomination signatures from members and supporters who live in large rural and sparsely populated constituencies.

However, CLPs should not allow themselves to use these difficulties to avoid even trying. It is inconceivable that the Labour parties in The Cotswolds and Mid and North Devon cannot find a single candidate despite memberships of 207, 118 and 98 respectively.

How is it that Bracknell CLP, where we have 167 members, managed to stand candidates in 34 of the 42 contests in 2007, but Saffron Walden, with 175 members, participated in only 2 of 44 contests? Similar examples exist throughout the south.

The appointment of senior shadow cabinet members to lead Labour’s campaigns in the three regions of the political south is important: it demonstrates Labour’s leadership recognises the need to do well in May’s local elections in the south. But to be able to perform well, the party must first give electors Labour candidates to vote for. One month from now we will learn whether that is to be the case or not.

Stuart King is editor of Southern Front.