David Vance SubstackRead More
The UK has been a two party state for a very long time. In fact, it’s worse than that – it is a Uniparty State with the Labour and Conservatives wings of it alternating as Government. That leads to cosy consensus and a smug continuity of policies that destroy the country. Until now.
The past 24 hours has seen major political change as Reform, led by Nigel Farage, has absolutely shaken up the two party system and beaten it at Westminster, Mayoral and local council level! It’s not hyperbole to call it a political earthquake.
Labour lost the Runcorn and Helsby Westminster seat to Reform who overturned a massive 14,000+ seat Labour majority. Yes, they squeaked the win by 6 votes but they still won it. That should send a chill down the backs of every Labour MP as Reform has shown it can win Labour seats considered “safe”!
There were six Mayoral contests, Labour held on to three, Reform on two, and the Conservatives managed on. Even in the seats they did not win. Reform came a very credible second.
When we get to the Local Councils, the picture for Reform is great, poor for Labour and disastrous for the Conservatives. At time of writing, this was how it looked.
The Conservatives have all but collapsed and Labour is seriously reduced in scale. The LibDems seem to have hoovered up a chunk of the Labour vote and performed credibly under the clown like Ed Davey.
So what lessons can we draw from this? Well, I suggest there are three;
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There is widespread political dissatisfaction with the establishment and Reform are picking up these votes. The fact that Reform can pick them up from Labour and Conservatives is the new reality.
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The Conservatives look to be in a death spiral and it doesn’t look recoverable.
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Traditional electoral dynamics have fundamentally changed and the Uniparty has never been more exposed
But there are some caveats.
Whilst the Reform performance is strong, the turn out figures are low. Most people DID NOT VOTE! That is not to say if they had things would be different, we simply don’t know! We do know a lot of voters sat this one out, although that is not unusual.
Now that Reform have power, what will they do with it? Up until this point, they had no record. That’s about to change. Reform has been very much a Nigel Farage dominated and controlled machine, can this continue now he has 600+ elected representatives?
As is always the case, elections results raise as many questions as it answers!
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