The danger for the Conservatives is that they may be sliding toward a tipping point in which Reform, rather than the Tories, become the default choice for voters on the ...
Nigel Farage’s Reform party did very, very well (click on the link for details) in England’s local elections on Thursday.
Reform UK is on track to win the next election, a major poll has predicted. A BBC projection of the local election results at a national level said Nigel Farage’s party would have won 30 per cent of the vote, 10 points ahead of Labour in second on 20 per cent. It is the first time a party other than Labour or the Conservatives has been top of the projection. The BBC put the Tories in fourth with the party’s lowest ever projection of 15 per cent, 10 points lower than their previous worst of 25 per cent in 1995.
Extrapolating the likely results for the U.K.’s next general election (which does not have to be held until 2029) from local election results in parts of England (there was no vote in Scotland, Wales, or Northern Ireland) is something of a stretch, even more so because of the way that Britain’s constituency-based, first-past-the-vote electoral system can make a mockery of national results (in last year’s general election, Reform won over 14 percent of the national vote but secured fewer than 1 percent of the seats in Parliament).
It’s also not unknown for there to be strikingly strong swings against an unpopular government in local elections (when turnouts are low). And Britain’s Labour government, which is as destructive as it is incompetent, is certainly unpopular. What is much more unusual is for the “official” opposition, currently the Conservatives, to do so badly. The danger for them is that they may be sliding toward a tipping point in which Reform, rather than the Tories, become the default choice for voters on the right. That moment, despite yesterday’s result, has not yet arrived, but if Reform can show both staying power and professionalism, it is clearly far closer than would have seemed possible even six months ago.
The Davos leftists of the Financial Times are very disappointed (not for the first time) in England’s voters:
The populist-nationalist bug first gripped the UK in the 2016 referendum vote to leave the EU. Yet Britain has long seemed an outlier among its peers in having no hard-right party that was a credible electoral force. The anti-immigrant, arch-Brexiter Nigel Farage’s previous parties did well in European parliament ballots. But they never made big inroads into domestic electoral politics. The striking breakthrough of his latest project, Reform UK, in England’s local elections means UK politics now look more like those of its EU counterparts. Its century-old two-party duopoly is fraying. Reform’s super Thursday demonstrates that its blend of far-right anti-immigration and anti-net zero stances with some soft-left positions on industry is capable of transforming its recent opinion poll surge into real votes…
Notice how Reform’s immigration and anti-net zero policies are described as “far right,” unsubtle code for extremist. Reform has its faults and its cranks, but those looking for extremism (at least as that word once was understood) would do better to look at the radicalized “centrism” typical of much of the British establishment, and frequently cheered on by the FT. This, after all, is an establishment that, by its social media policies, has shown itself to be no friend of free speech.
The FT continues:
Labour has correctly identified rekindling growth as the sine qua non of its programme. Only by getting the economy moving can it generate the revenues to fund the NHS, schools and defence. Its best option is to adopt a laser-like focus on growth, and jettison anything that detracts from that goal.
So, the FT favors scrapping net zero?
I doubt it.
But Labour’s problems are not confined to Britain’s poor economic performance. The emergence of explicitly sectarian politics among the Muslim voters upon which it could once safely rely continues.
A pro-Gaza candidate has won a council seat in Lancashire after campaigning in favour of segregation between the sexes. Maheen Kamran, who said “free mixing” between Muslim men and women was a major issue for Muslim voters, won the Burnley Central East seat on Lancashire county council at the local elections.
The 18-year-old, standing as an independent candidate, won 38 per cent of the vote, surpassing Reform UK’s 30 per cent and leaving Labour in third place on 14 per cent.
It comes after victories for a number of pro-Gaza candidates in the north of England at last year’s general election, which led to fears of rising sectarianism in politics. . . .
Also in Lancashire, Azhar Ali, who was suspended from Labour for anti-Semitism during the Rochdale by-election last year, was elected as an independent candidate as county councillor for the Nelson East ward. Reform UK won control of Lancashire county council from the Tories.