The results are a surprise, to say the least. After four years of endless calls for change, firmly pro-Establishment types like Lyndon Farnham, John le Fondre and Ian Gorst got in comfortably, with those three lining up to run for Chief Minister. Reform Jersey, while picking up two extra deputies - Carina Alves and Rob Ward - in St Helier No.2, received a bloody nose in the parishes. A shock result in St Helier No.1 saw the party rejected utterly, with not one of the three candidates getting in, and results weren't any better elsewhere.
A few interesting points.
Starting off at home, Richard Renouf returned in St Ouen with what he described as a "thumping majority". Cliff le Clercq, whose rather embarrassing lying about his accreditation as a counselor was exposed a fortnight prior to the election, received only 218 votes to Richard Renouf's 1,338. Ultimately, while le Clercq had a better grasp of issues surrounding young people, Renouf's record as the chair of the Health and Social Services scrutiny panel - the panel that pushed for Susie Pinel's abhorrent cuts to single-parent benefits to be overturned - is high-standard stuff, while le Clercq didn't have much in the way of policy that didn't essentially boil down to "reaction over action".
The Wicked Witch herself returned, far too easily than I would have liked. Susie "Jersey has a culture of entitlement" Pinel, responsible for the brutal 2016-19 Medium Term Financial Plan that cut benefits for single parents, the elderly and other vulnerable groups, topped the poll in St Clement. As one of the Chamber's most right-wing members, she has consistently voted against raising the minimum wage and voted both times to cut £40 of benefits for single parents. Her tenure at Social Security has overseen an era of falling living standards, rising in-work and single-parent poverty and a continued maintenance of the culture of bullying that infects Social Security and is a curse for so many ordinary people. Facing opposition from two Reform Jersey candidates, as well as the brilliant direct democracy activist Phil Renouf (the author of the attempt in 2016 to start a "Jersey Pirate Party" modeled off the anti-corruption, social-liberal, direct-democratic pirate politics movement), Pinel nevertheless made it in with a convincing majority. How sad that the voters of St Clement have chosen to spite their fellow islanders and elect someone so damaging to those unlucky enough to have to interact with the social security system.
Mark Baker of St Mary, the crypto-fascist confluence of Chris Lamy, Susie Pinel and Viktor Orbán, while being roundly rejected, still managed to receive 309 votes to Dave Johnson's 495. Baker is a well-known anti-Islam and anti-immigration activist, who believes English people should be banned from being Chief Minister and has professed belief in his "birthright" to the land of St Mary. I can't be the only one worried by the idea that an out-and-out racist like Baker could receive such a high percentage of the vote, even in an ultra-conservative parish like St Mary.
"The Reform Jersey Party", an anti-Reform blog noted in the past for disingenuous reporting and outright lying, announced that it was going to be mothballed until further notice. "Thank god", I thought. "Maybe the lies and slander might finally stop". Alas, it wasn't to be. A day after this announcement, the blog was reactivated - back by popular demand, as they called it, though I suspect the Nigel Farage "resign but not really" trick has gone on here.
In any case: the business of governance awaits.
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