Britain’s Big Little Elections

Welcome to today’s Morning Brief, looking at the broader implications of today’s local elections in the United Kingdom, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s regional tour, and more news worth following from around the world.

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Voters across England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland go to the polls today in local elections that could have major implications for the future of the United Kingdom and its leadership.

Although no parliamentary seats are up for grabs, it’s the first time voters will have a chance to signal their views on Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s leadership following months of high-profile media scandals, whispers of a leadership challenge, and a cost-of-living crisis.

As we’ve discussed before in Morning Brief, Johnson has shown remarkable resilience in recent months, weathering multiple scandals, with accusations of rule-breaking during Britain’s strict COVID-19 lockdown, known as Partygate, chief among them.

His staying power has been boosted by Britain’s focus on the war in Ukraine as well as the fading of his main rival, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak, who became embroiled in his own scandal over his wife’s non-domiciled tax status and was also issued a police fine, along with Johnson, for breaking coronavirus rules during lockdown.

His fellow Conservative Party members standing today have sought to distance themselves from the central government, with one leaflet pleading for voters not to “punish local Conservatives for the mistakes made in Westminster.”

Johnson has not helped his colleagues by appearing tone deaf in media interviews. Asked to react to a retiree who had chosen to ride the bus all day because she could not afford to heat her home, Johnson claimed to have introduced the scheme that provided her free bus fare. (He didn’t.)

Even as polls show the opposition Labour Party is ahead going into today’s vote, the results may not provide the knockout blow Johnson’s detractors hope for. That’s because the Conservatives have relatively few council seats to lose after a strong opposition showing in 2018’s local elections.

Asked recently whether he would remain leader until parliamentary elections, due in 2024 at the latest, Johnson replied: “Of course. And I’m also very confident we will succeed at the next election.”

Northern Ireland’s opaque election. Across the Irish Sea in Northern Ireland, voters are set to make the Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein—whose history, and some critics would say, present lies with the Irish Republican Army—the largest party in Northern Ireland since the region’s creation in 1921.

It may be only a symbolic victory, as it’s unclear whether the opposition Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) will join Sinn Fein in the mandatory sectarian power-sharing arrangement in the devolved Stormont government as set out by the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. If no government can be formed within six months, another election must be called.

It could even be a false dawn for Sinn Fein, as the centrist, non-sectarian Alliance Party’s popularity grows and is set for its strongest-ever showing, with one recent survey putting the party in second place ahead of the DUP.

Voter disaffection with business as usual was apparent on Tuesday night, as television viewers plumped for nostalgia over reality with the sitcom Derry Girls drawing considerably more eyeballs than the political leaders’ debate, according to leaked audience data obtained by the Belfast Telegraph.

Will it lead to a united Ireland? A Sinn Fein victory would also herald another first, making it the most popular political party on both sides of the Irish border. But despite that rosy picture, it’s unlikely to spell a renewed push for Irish unification—at least in the short term.

A study conducted by the University of Liverpool’s Institute of Irish Studies last December found that just 30 percent of voters in the north would choose a united Ireland if the vote was held the next day. (That figure only rose to 33.4 percent when asked to consider that vote 10 to 15 years ahead.)

Perhaps mindful of that reality, it’s no surprise that Sinn Fein’s campaign has played down constitutional questions to focus on bread-and-butter issues. Sinn Fein’s Northern Ireland leader, Michelle O’Neill, said in Tuesday’s debate that she was not “fixated on a date” for a unification referendum. “The things that the public want us to respond to is trying to put money in their pockets to help them deal with the cost-of-living crisis,” O’Neill said.

AMLO on tour. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador visits Guatemala today as the first stop on a five-nation regional tour that culminates in Cuba on May 7. In Guatemala, López Obrador is expected to discuss new social programs as well as migration.

The Mexican president’s travels follow a conversation with U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday and a meeting between Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday. Blinken said afterward that the two countries were “working together closely to deal with what is an unprecedented migration challenge throughout our hemisphere.”

OPEC+ ministers meet. OPEC+ oil ministers meet in Vienna today to decide on where to set oil production levels among its members. The cartel is likely only to agree to a marginal increase in production, as coronavirus restrictions in China are seen as sapping demand.

Sweden’s NATO future? Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde said she had received “American assurance” on the country’s potential plans to join NATO following a meeting with Blinken on Wednesday.

Linde did not detail what kind of assurances she had received from the U.S. side, but she told Swedish media that they “would mean that Russia can be clear that if they direct any kind of negative activities against Sweden, which they have threatened, it would not be something that the U.S. would just allow to happen … without a response.”

Linde’s comments come as Sweden’s ruling Social Democrats appear to be split on the issue of joining NATO.

Ukraine escalation. The risk of wider conflict stemming from Russia’s war in Ukraine increased on Wednesday following a New York Times report outlining the ways in which U.S. intelligence services had assisted Ukrainian forces in targeting Russian military generals on the battlefield. Twelve Russian generals have been killed so far during the war, though it’s not known how many were killed as a result of U.S. assistance.

The news comes as Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Russian forces would consider targeting NATO weapons convoys in Ukraine. Ukraine’s railway network has already been damaged by Russian strikes in recent days.