I am glad that I did not stay up all night waiting for the by-election result in Runcorn and Helsby, because it was only called at 6.00, after several recounts.
Reform has overturned a Labour majority of more than 14,000, winning the seat by just six votes.
It is also clear that Reform is doing well elsewhere. It looks likely to win the Lincolnshire mayoralty election. It is also thought to be on track to control the council of that county, and it is almost certain to win Staffordshire Council, where the vast majority of the Conservative candidates, who almost completely controlled the council until this week, look set to lose their seats.
That said, they did not win the West of England mayoral race, or that in Doncaster, but in both cases did come second. That was quite surprising in the West of England, where the Greens were thought to have a good chance, but fell well behind.
My immediate reactions are sixfold.
The first, and most significant, is that we might be seeing the demise of what has always been claimed to be the most successful political party in the history of democracy. It is the Conservatives who are being decimated, most of all by Reform. In advance of these election results, Kemi Badenoch said that it would be a good result if they kept any seats, and it now looks as if her assessment was not far from being correct. It would seem as if right-wing voters have lost all faith in them. It is hard to see how Badenoch can survive this. It is as hard to see how the Tories do, when we've known, for so long, that their ability to recruit and retain active supporters below the age of 70 has been so limited.
The second lesson is obviously for Labour. The message is unambiguous. It cannot try to beat the far right by moving to the far right, which is what it has been doing. There is no path to electoral success for it there, even if the Tories do collapse. It will always be outdone on that political fringe by the insanity of Reform, at least until the electors of this country have had the chance to witness how truly terrible their ability to govern might be. Unfortunately, an inconsequential mayor and a county council or two are very unlikely to prove that incompetence unless they totally collapse local services.
Third, in many ways, this is going to prove to be a bad night for first-past-the-post. Reform candidates are winning with as little as 25-30% of the votes in many cases. That is far from convincing support. When will we get a democracy that genuinely represents the people of this country? Even in mayoral elections, the first-past-the-post system fails people very badly. In council elections, it is very much worse. If Labour does not wake up now and realise that this is the moment for electoral reform, then they too deserve to be consigned to history.
Fourth, this may well be a bad night for the Greens, Liberal Democrats, and other parties who have traditionally picked up protest votes. Precisely because we have the injustice of the first-past-the-post electoral system imposed upon us, those who wished to block Reform candidates were forced to vote for Labour. Even so, tactical voting failed in Runcorn. It might have saved Labour in Doncaster and the West of England. It will not in Lincolnshire or in Staffordshire, but it might well have done with a proportional representation system. Are we really going to let fascism take control in this country because we will not change the electoral system?
Fifth, though, and perhaps most important of all, the message coming from the electorate is that wherever votes were cast, people are utterly fed up with our mainstream politicians. Their incompetence. Their lack of passion. Their inability to solve problems. Their trite comments. Their refusal to be accountable. Their arrogance. Their contempt for ordinary people and their utter indifference to their needs. All of those things lead to what amounts to a vote for “none of the above“. Some of that was expressed in a vote for Reform. A great many more people simply did not bother to turn out at all.
Our politics is rotten. Neoliberalism is destroying everything of real value in our country, including democracy itself. The writing is on the wall for the Tories. Most Labour MPs will be profoundly worried by the results of these elections, and they should be. But what is really being said is not that people are overwhelmed with enthusiasm for Reform, because the results make it very clear that they are not. Instead, what is clear is that they are utterly fed up with the two-party system, and the incompetent people, totally lacking in ideas and conviction, let alone anything that looks like ability, that this has recruited into these parties.
Sixth, then, is the unfortunate fact that the fate of democracy is now in the hands of the Labour Party and the game player, Morgan McSweeney. Precisely because Labour won with a big majority last July, he, and its leadership, will be deeply reluctant to change the electoral system, even though doing so is the only obvious way that is available to prevent the rise of the far-right within a first-past-the-post electoral system. Will they save democracy, provide us with real choice, reinvigorate politics, and risk the chance that they will win fewer seats as a consequence? Or will they be the gatekeepers for fascism? Of those two, I think the second is much more likely. If that is the case, then last night's result is very bad news, indeed, and the only hope we have is that Trump will make such a mess of the USA that the impact on Reform might be significant. But now, I am clutching at straws. We are in deep trouble, and it is time to admit it.
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I agree with all of your comments.
McSweeny/Labour have also failed to control the media/social media accountability, which is how Reform spread their lies.
“The people of Runcorn and Helsby have spoken”. Aye they have , 53.8% did not vote . ie none of the above
In your penultimate paragraph, I think “totally like in ideas and conviction” should read “totally lacking in ideas and conviction”
Corrected, thanks.
And absolutely spot on.
At least Blackadder and Baldrick had a cunning plan.
New Labour Mk2 have no plan whatsoever.
I remember some years ago the then Green Party leader Natalie Bennett talking about FPTP creating a crisis of democracy with successful candidates getting a very small share of the vote
Just look at the West of England Combined Authority votes
Labour got 25%
Reform 22%
Greens 20%
Tory 16.6%
Lib Dems 14%
Not exactly a democratic triumph
Agreed
Turnout was 30% so LAB “won” with the support of 7.5% of the electorate
Why are no steer Keir and the genius McSweeny determined not to take the practical steps to improve the lot of the majority of the UK population which would snuff out Reform?
The answer to your question Mr Fairhall is contained in the phrase “no steer Keir”. As RM has noted, repeatedly, Starmer is a (not very good) manager, not a politician. McvSweeney (the political brains?) had his successes @ a local level, not national. Thus, a-political “not-very-good-manager” coupled to a local-fixer that is out of his depth (nationally) and you have the result you have. Prediction: LINO are hoping that something (anything) will turn up – nice little war, national disaster, anything. Obvs, complicating the about is the influence of the B.Liars on Tweedle-dum & Tweedle-dumber/LINO apparatchiks.
Now step back & pretend its 2015 – & somebody told you what was coming down the track.
Try telling anyone what you could see this coming down the line back in 1978. The corruption in high places and its easy get out of gaol free card for those who knew how to play UK’s race and class bigotries to cynically silence its victims, unchecked, was always obviously going to eventually lead to social breakdown. The total corrupting of the City of London by Thatcher was the starter’s gun on this moral degradation going global. Neo liberal fanatics are now destroying us all.
The postwar colonial nepo boys like wizard of Oz, Murdoch, inherited a hardwon growing egalitarian opening political and economic landscape. They chose, as individuals, to use and abuse this emerging socially openweave progressivist structuring and the war’s shock induced goodwill, to thieve, rape and exploit others for personal power and profit. In Murdoch’s case deploying, through his media empire, all of the sophisticated military Psyops knowledge and expertise developed over two world wars in joint intelligence operations in the UK and US in order to control, manipulate and demoralise nation state civilians. Farage is simply the latest global criminal oligarch’s individual political choice for the UK.
Those in these circles knew Starmer would be elected as soon as they saw him attend Murdoch’s summer party in St James’s. As for McSweeney…well, these ghouls underestimated the destruction to their Brexit plans capable by the seemingly easily led fools in the DUP and were too lazy and incompetent to begin to bother to comprehend the UK’s ‘Irish Problem’. The DUP’s crazed intransigence proved a serious setback.
Hence Farage abandoning his support of them in the last election. McSweeney is there to make sure reunification does not derail the global neo liberalisation project in play across both islands.
I am watching now how to see just how they choose to control, sideline and/or destroy socialist Sinn Fein and its voting bloc coming up to the next Irish election.
In light of the election results, the only rational course of action for Starmer is to banish McSweeney from no. 10 – indeed, from the party.
But how often does the monkey sack the organ-grinder?
Unfortunately I don’t think Starmer would know what to do without McSweeney
“Reform candidates are winning with as little as 25-30% of the votes” – and what of turnout?
In the byelection it was just 46%. Reform won just over a third of less than half the possible votes.
In the Lincolnshire Mayoral election turnout itself was less than a third of the electorate – and Reform won less than half of that third. Seems to me, the thing about populism is that it’s not very popular. It appears to be popular in the media because the media’s focus is overwhelmingly on vote share and swing – but the real story (as throughout most western democracies) is that most people are disengaging from electoral politics altogether.
But we need people to vote for someone else, all the same.
I think the demographics disengaging most are the young and the working-class – the left’s natural constituencies – it’s this that lets Reform come through with what is really the support of a very small proportion of the electorate.
Part of the problem is that lots of young and also lots of hard-pressed working class people feel that no party represents them – Labour because it’s obviously doing nothing to change their lot, and the Greens because environmental issues and, I think, identity politics, are perceived as less relevant than pressing economic oppression – unmanageable rents, precarious employment, waiting lists, lack of opportunities for their kids, etc…
But it’s also the simple fact that voting really doesn’t change much – and politicians and the media are always reinforcing this. UK local government really has little power now, partly because powers have been taken away (eg. in education), and partly because national austerity policies have constrained local budgets. But even at national level, the messages coming from both politicians and media are consistently that governments can’t do anything much because of ‘the markets’, ‘capital flight’. etc…
Politics and the media are full of hand-wringing about the rise of the extreme right, and worries about the future of democracy – but at the same time keep telling everybody we’re all helpless.
I found this interesting:
From The New statesman:
“In Runcorn, the combined Green and Liberal Democrat vote (3,256) far exceeded Reform’s majority. Though Farage’s party was long the favourite to win the seat, this was not enough to prevent a progressive divide.”
First Past the Post has got to go in the USA and the UK. The “progressives” have to figure out a way to unite and defeat the far-right if FPTP is not eliminated. In Runcorn, the Reform candidate winner is actually not a representative of al the people that voted.
Why should we vote for Labour?
Why should we vote Labour???
Vote Green! Vote Lib Dem!
Write your own name in! LOL! LOL!
I am an anyone but Farage, Johnson or Trump person!
I did not vote Labour.
Boris Johnson won an 80 seat majority for the Conservatives with only around 24% support of the total registered electorate (because nobody looks closely enough at turnout v. total electorate).
How bad is it?
In 1950 Turnout at the General Election was 84%.
In 2024 Turnout at the General Election was 60%
I suspect by the mid-2030s less than 50% will turnout, if FPTP remains. The major two political Parties will never change FPTP, because it is not in their interest to do so; and the risk of change is existential.
FPTP is a Two Party Cartel to serve Conservative and Labour. It is a Cartel; therefore, whomsoever you vote for, the Government formed will be the Single Transferable Party. Check the fiscal rules. Nothing of substance ever changes (it is all puff and sideshows). It is now collapsing in plain sight; but nothing will change. Conservative and Labour cannot afford to change it.
This has been obvious for decades. Nobody notices. You work out why …….
Thank you and well said, John.
One would think the politics nerds who dominate the ranks of political correspondents now might point this out.
It would be interesting to hear the thoughts of this community’s Scots contingent on the impact of a Reform surge, even government, and its impact on Scotland’s membership of the union.
Quite so two cheeks of the same Neoliberal arse.
In response to Colonel Smithers’ “call for the thoughts of this community’s Scots contingent on the impact of a Reform surge, even government, and its impact on Scotland’s membership of the union”, this has been a day of “foreign news” where local elections in England have dominated the mainstream media which represents about 95 to 97% of all media in Scotland. Given how Farage’s earlier incursions into Scottish politics required police protection from enraged natives, I can’t see him or Reform making much of an impression beyond the Orange Order brigade and the small proportion of misguided nutters who exist in all countries.
As for Reform’s impact on Scotland’s membership of the Union, support for Independence in Scotland is markedly higher than support for the SNP. Forget all the polls conducted by English-based polling companies which largely still weight their results with data from the 2014 referendum despite a substantial reduction (estimated at c500,000) in the oldest age-group in the last 10 years. In 2014 this age-group voted heavily to remain in the UK, but they have since been replaced by a cohort of young voters who are overwhelmingly in favour of independence. Meanwhile Scottish-based polling companies generally don’t apply 2014 weighting and their results tend to show a lead of circa 56-58% for independence against c42-44% against. In Scotland the people are sovereign (as stated in Scots Law Statute dating back to 1689 and ratified in recent times by both Holyrood and Westminster) and the gap between support for Independence and for the SNP reflects the people’s dissatisfaction with the SNP’s failure to put independence above its internal wranglings. Mind you, the SNP as the governing party in Holyrood has had to devote a great deal of time and energy to running the country and day-to-day parliamentary matters.
My personal view is still that the demise of the UK will begin in N Ireland, where the pendulum of public opinion is slowly sliding towards Irish reunification, and which the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement provides for. If/when that happens, it seems unlikely that the UK could realistically prevent Scotland from making a solid case for independence to the United Nations, given that recent UK governments have lost their international clout through ineptitude (Brexit) and a willingness to flout international agreements. Scotland in the UK already ticks a number of boxes for colonialism, which could be of particular relevance to any UN decision.
Scotland lost out hugely with North Sea oil, thanks to the McCrone Report and we mustn’t allow a repeat of the Westminster extractionism with renewable energy. We need the general public in Scotland to understand that the SNP government policies have made them markedly better off than their equivalents in England despite having virtually no levers of economic power in the UK. I’ve been saying this for years now that we couldn’t make a bigger mess of running our own affairs than we’ve experienced under Westminster’s control and, with UK politics becoming increasingly undemocratic, it seems clearer than ever to me that we’d make a far better job if running the state, improving the lives of our people and preserving our languages and culture, despite the state of the world economy.
Thanks, Ken
Of those that voted for Reform in Lincolnshire, few must have actually read or listened to what the candidate had to say. She spoke in slogans, blamed previous parties without saying what she would do differently, and the only clear opinion she expressed was favourable to fracking, not something that is welcomed by the majority in this county. I suspect her votes were protest votes, or from the die hards who can hear the Reform dog whistle and agree with it.
Now is exactly the time the SNP has to assert its authority (which is electorally far more robust than other UK Political Parties, however imperfect it is; it possesses active members who are under 70, and actually pound the pavements); and the SNP must make specific demands for greater autonomy, and the transfer of fiscal and borrowing powers to Scotland. Independence is not a prospect overnight (in any real political future; the British state only dies slowly), but Scotland is not going to settle for being run by any more Johnsons, Trusses or Farages in the interim. And Starmer’s Labour has shown the Scots how to destroy poltical trust in an instant, like never before. Labour has labelled itself in Scotland as shifty and untrustworthy. That is not a place to be.
In the middle of this stew, one salient fact stands out. FPTP has finally revealed itself “In flagrante delicto”, as a corrupt electoral system designed for a two Party cartel that is now so corrupt, poisoned, rotten and failed, it is collapsing in front of our eyes, even in the midst of an election; but the fact remains – the results of that election disaster will now make everything in Britain even worse – for everyone, but the paymasters of the money that keep these corrupted Parties afloat.
I wish I could share share your confidence in regard to the S.N.P, and Scotland, John. The number who voted Labour last year really shook me, as, after 2015, I didn’t think such a comeback for that party was even remotely possible. And if the polls are correct, it seems quite a few are intending to vote for a private company, Reform, next year. By the way, our local S.N.P branch have been “pounding the pavements” since earlier this year, in the hope we can retain our excellent M.S.P.
Mr Beveridge,
I claim no confidence: my words were “the SNP has to assert its authority”, but I do not know whether it will do so. Part of the problem is the SNP, but they have this insecurity in part because the electorate itself is playing independence like a big fish, that it is not quite sure it really wants to land. For some reason the Scottish electorate doesn’t think politicians will notice the game it has been playing in elections; most of all – in Westminster. And Westminster has drawn the conclusion it can play Scotland the same way; like a fish, but one they are prepared to land.
I wonder what McTeam will say now? Their strategy has been tested, and found wanting.
I strongly expect that they will remain unmoved, and will be issuing meaningless variations on the usual “strong economy/fiscal responsibility/stimulate growth/difficult decisions/hard working families/listening to voters concerns”.
But McTeam are not the ones that matter.
There is one group of people with the constitutional power to effecct immediate change. They are Labour MPs. Starmer/Reeves/McTeam govern only with their consent.
Those MPs have the power to make an immediate statement AND lift a large number of children out of poverty, and redraw the “power map” in the PLP, by this month refusing to continue with the 2 child benefit cap. It will have zero effect on Reeves’s dodgy macro-economic arithmetic, but it will have a massive effect on the affected children. Oh yes, and tell McTeam to go and do their perverted form of psephology somewhere else.
Or they can decide to remain cowed, compliant, and utterly irrelevant, kill their consciences and count their cash. That’s something to share with their kids in later years.
Labour held onto my metro Mayoralty in WECA with 24% of a 30% turnout. Of 682,961 electors, the winning Labour candidate got the support of 51,197 which is just under 7.5% of the electorate.
70% didn’t vote.
7.5%!!!
Democracy continues to collapse.
MPs have the power.
Their failure to exercise it makes them 100% culpable. Shame on them. The UK house is burning down and they are just sitting there watching it and counting their money, instead of consulting their consciences.
Labour backbenchers must now know they have little chance of being re-elected next time around. So they have nothing to lose by sticking to their principles now. They should refuse to support the callous policies of the Tepid Tory Trio currently leading the Party. If the rebellion is big enough they may effect a change of direction. If they fail they will be in no worse a position come the next election, but at least their conscience will be clear. In the meantime they would have an opportunity to highlight left wing alternatives to the austerity policies of Harmer Starmer.
Agreed
Labour will not learn from this, or even be allowed to. Pivoting to the Left is just not in their current leadership, nor will it be all allowed by their sponsors. They will just be destroyed by the press like Corbyn. We are stuck with three clueless parties trying to outcompete each other with performative cruelty whilst enabling the financial ruin of the population in favour of the rich.
Agreed.
I did not vote yesterday, but I did protest.
My FPTP constituency is Tory and always has been. They always win the council seats as well. I don’t know the result yet, but Reform was the main challenger. I would not be surprised if they win.
On the stop Reform tactical voting website, I was told that my vote should go to Labour as the best chance to stop them. I would not do that. Not this time. Labour need to earn the vote by, as you say, being different. There is no future for them by just trying to be a slightly softer right wing alternative. They ultimately lose every time. Next time it might be to a Reform/Tory electoral pact, with the Tories desperately clinging on to whatever power they can get.
Truth is, Labour, Lib Dems and Greens were just making up the numbers where I live. I am sick and tired of casting a wasted vote.
I will not do it any more.
Instead, on my postal vote (which I need as I do not have up-to-date ID to prove who I am!), I spoiled the ballot paper.
I wrote across it in bold, black ink.
No more fake democracy. PR now. I know it won’t do anything, but hopefully a few people at the count got to see it.
The irony is, that Reform supposedly support PR. I happen to believe that if they got power via FPTP, they would soon renege on that. The populists can promise anything and everything, as lying is second nature to them. Trump has set the blueprint for that. Farage is the same.
Labour needs to sit back and think about the real alternative they need to offer to fight the populist right wing. They have been put on notice.
The good thing about the results is that the Tories are taking a hammering. They look finished. Badenoch is a disaster. Don’t be surprised if the last card they play is the return of Boris as the “saviour”. A Boris/Farage pact. Made in hell. Both would sell their soul to the devil!
Thanks
If you don’t support REFORM or Labour then why on earth did you not vote Green? Abstaining is of no use at all – you’ll just be ignored completely.
The seat in my area was won by the Tories. Reform second. Labour were a distant third.
The Tory won by almost 500 votes. Turn out, 32.47%. It was an exception, as the Tories lost heavily to Reform elsewhere in the county.
Reform now have the most seats in the council. They had none before. All the seats were gained from the Tories. They will have to work with the Tories to govern. I suppose that might be interesting.
Forgive the attitude here………………
……………….’Democracy’ eh?
As Darren seems to hint above, the real alert here is those who have not engaged – like me, well educated, informed, awake but not ready to be deceived or have just had enough.
One day that non-voting rump might be taken more seriously but whilst we remain in an ‘elective oligarchy’ supported by the real reason – that is that our politics is not just rotten, it is CORRUPTED (let us be precise here) I doubt it.
I am pleased to see that the Greens seem to have been debunked – I like them but their wish-washy lack of economic and fiscal awareness I tired of a long time ago; the Lib-Dems still have the orange book (when I mention this to friends who like them they have no idea that they are just another Neo-liberal party).
Yes, we are in serious trouble if this does not change. For me, there are no credible choices from which to choose, they are all liars in the service of greed.
A curse on all their houses.
Thank you, PSR.
With regard to the Liberals, it’s rarely, if ever, how the neo-liberals* led by the well connected and wealthy Nick Clegg, a Tory at Oxford like Ed Balls, had proxies unseat Charles Kennedy, using Kennedy’s alcoholism as .
It’s funny that this faction is called the Orange Book Liberals*. They have the same donors in the deep background as the Orange Order’s political proxies, something that emerged during Brexit.
Most Liberals and Liberal voters are not aware of that.
*One prominent member of that group is or was Mark Littlewood. I don’t know if he’s jumped ship. Richard may know.
He ahs jumed ship
But he still thinks he is a liberal in the economic sense
The FT is reporting that Morgan McSweeney, Starmer’s chief of staff, will pore over the results on Friday and is likely to conclude that he is right to pursue a “Blue Labour” strategy to address the populist threat — a policy which is already starting to be deployed.
So there it is. Labour moving to appease the populists, alienating its core supporters and thus pleasing no one.
Thank you, Robert.
Last December, to commemorate six months of Labour government, McSweeney and others were interviewed by an FT panel. There was some score settling, too. Some bits were not published as the FT wants to stay on side. I found out as I’m friends with one of the FT journalists.
Said journalist, whose spouse is of overseas origin, was alarmed to hear that Labour “will not be outflanked from the right and looks forward, even relishes, fighting Reform on its turf”. Turf is a clue as to who said it as McSweeney is from a country famous for racing. It was also said that “the latter part of this decade and next decade will be dominated by Vance, Weidel (before the German election), Le Pen (before her conviction) and Meloni, so it’s important for Starmer to ally with them”.
The FT felt that Starmer is a sock puppet.
I forgot to add that the Labour apparatchiks admitted, cheerfully even, that they would scapegoat minorities. This in particular alarmed my friend as the spouse’s parents are immigrant and the couple would like to start a family.
I believe you
As I thought Colonel – the politics of capriciousness – just what we don’t need at a time of immense change and challenge the requires leadership.
Capriciousness is the gangrene of politics, which like the biological version can only lead to terminal conclusion.
Triangulation = Strangulation – that is what McSweeney and his ilk do.
Reform is a “private company limited by guarantee” since Feb 2025. It is not a political party. A Reform govt would be the biggest privatisation ever, and result in the UK being governed by a company with Farage as a director. What would be the legal implications of this? Would there be any constraints on a private company, such as holding elections? Would they be constrained by any human rights or any previous legislation? It’s sucj a strange idea that I doubt if anyone has answers yet, but we need to think about the implications.
It’s Trump all over again
Politics for private gain
Thank you, both.
I’m drafting training slides on market abuse this morning and had to think twice about using a picture of Trump and his gang as per allegations.
Thank you, Richard.
Further to my comment in moderation: https://airmail.news/issues/2025-4-26/the-view-from-here.
Agreed
It is blatantly corrupt, IMO.
Reform is 2 organisations (possibly more). One IS registered as a political party and a company. The other is a private company.
https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/11694875
(the party)
and
https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/16260766/persons-with-significant-control
being Reform 2025 Ltd (the company that isn’t a party, but which controls the party as the person with significant control-PSC), and has Fa***e & Yusuf as directors and “no one” with significant control.
Dig a bit deeper in Companies House, you will find more obscurity and obfuscation.
“ScamsRUs” would be a good name.
Neatly appears to sidestep electoral commission rules on foreign donations but is currently under legal challenge.
But then what would you expect from snake oil merchants?
The links/ownership/persons with significant control are suitably obscure in line with the total mess of unenforced UK company law.
Finally someone other than me has noticed that a BUSINESS is sending a wrecking ball into the heart of our governmental systems.
I too am very concerned by the above points you have made as to the jurisdiction and powers that a business in government would have. We should see how this plays out with them in councils.
Yes Richard ‘ We are in deep trouble, and it is time to admit it.’
Of course neither McSweeney , nor the back bench MP’s will ‘change course’ – their sponsors wouldn’t allow it, and their dumb ‘Blue Labour’ instincts will be to try to out Reform Reform.
Even though their own people report from the doorsteps that cutting PIP and Winter Fuel are regularly mentioned as is general disenchantment and disengagement with politics they will just stick to their dumb and dumber ‘ we are fixing the foundations, and taking difficult decisions’ .
A 6 month commission to clean up politics would be very popular – removing all the dark money , 2nd jobs, revolving door jobs , honours and other corruptions , crony appointments to public office – BBC, UKHSA etc
and consider voting system change.
But instead – they will double down on the drift to quasi fascism – ‘Blue Labour Reform’
I can’t help but think, that instead of learning that they cannot and should not try to pander to people who hate them (i.e. the right) Labour will use this as evidence that “they haven’t been extreme enough”.
As expected, the ‘Professor of Political Economy’ still hasn’t worked out that labelling people that you don’t agree with as ‘far right’ despite their genuine grievances and policies (none of which are credibly categorised as ‘far right’), is a recipe for disaster.
Never mind.
Reform is neo-fascist.
If that is not far-right in your book you are a threat to us all.
@ Gail Jones: I would say that you take offence at Reform being called Far Right because you yourself are not. Reform is though. Consider who and what you are supporting. Many voters in the US are regretting their vote.
@Gail Jones
The notable thing about your post is its vagueness. You don’t say “who” you think is being labelled “far right”.
Presumably you think that will protect you from challenge, as it is notoriously hard to nail jelly to the wall.
But it does identify your post as mere jelly.
If you come back with some actual identifiable argument or fact, you will enable dialogue.
Well?
Reform are far right.
Reform behave like fascists.
I believe they ARE fascists, liars, deceivers, and elitists they favour the powerful. Fa***e makes common cause with USA & European neo-fascist parties and politicians (like AfD in Germany, Trump and Bannon in USA). His party misappropriated public money while an MEP (and got fined), he held seats on EU committes he never actually attended, and spends more time in the USA than he does in his Clacton constituency (perhaps he’s after a tariff-free whelk export deal?). He can hold a pint of beer while the cameras are running but he can’t hold his own tiny parliamentary group together. He is not a man of the people, he’s an ex public school boy, who allegedly taunted Jewish fellow pupils, and whose former career was trading metals in the City.
The well known left wing paper, The Daily Mail, put it thus –
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10458071/Hitler-Youth-claims-hang-Nigel-Farages-school-days.html
Reform is a carbuncle on the face of British politics, a septic boil that needs lancing. But when they’ve run something bigger than a whelk stall for a while (like Lincolnshire County Council which Reform now control) we can discuss his “achievements”. See you then, say in the next year or two?
Thanks
‘Genuine grievances’?
If it is OK to have a genuine grievances Gail – can I share one of mine with you?
My grievance is how my government from 2010 has cut back on funding all the services it created and asked or made local councils provide.
So, as money has been cut, services have got worse. That is a fact.
So, what would YOU prefer Gail?
That your government continues to cut budgets (having bailed out private banks in 2008 by billions because of their incompetence and gives them a line of credit larger than perhaps many welfare state budgets called the Central Bank Reserve Account)?
Or should I start moaning about immigrants?
Or even better, why not just ask the fucking government to meets it obligations and cough up and pay and fund these services properly. Put all the money it has denied us, back?
Oops sorry – that’s a little bit difficult for you to get your heard around wasn’t it Dear?
Next idiot please……………………….
In my local Staffordshire council seat, Reform beat a local living champion and town leader who has been upgrading the area for a decade. The Reform candidate lives many miles away and didn’t even know anything about the area. When asked about his policy over Chasewater (a local lake famous for its railway and wildlife) he asked “What’s Chasewater. The only two actual locals didn’t get elected.
Democracy being destroyed before your eyes.
That is what money does to politics.
For sure.