Now it gets interesting
There’s a deep, fatalistic belief among Brits that the leadership will inevitably ping-pong between the Tories and Labour whenever there’s a major shift in government. It’s been considered an iron certainty (and polling supports it) that Labour will take control at the general election July 4. Even though their leadership is awful.
The ‘Conservatives’ have been that bad.
Britain is no stranger to extra parties in recent times. The Lib Dems (founded 1988) are the largest of these and they have managed a few seats in government over the years. I honestly don’t know the difference between them and Labour. The Greens (founded 1985 replacing the Ecology Party) almost never win anything, but all their policies get adopted anyway because the ruling class is crazy.
UKIP (founded 1991) wasn’t going anywhere until Nigel Farage took over. Then it managed to win two seats in Parliament and a majority of the seats in the British delegation to the EU. It was almost certainly instrumental in making Brexit happen. This is an extraordinary outcome for a new party.
After the Brexit vote, Nigel threw his weight behind the Brexit Party (2018) which later became the Reform Party (2020), but without him at the helm. It wasn’t going anywhere.
Now Farage has taken the helm of Reform and it’s a kick up the ass. I mean, it almost certainly will split the conservative vote and Labour will get in even more handily, but Labour was going to get in anyway. The Tories have been such absolute shit that a significant number of natural Conservative voters feel they need to be not just voted out but punished. And Farage could pick off a significant chunk of the disaffected working class Left too.
His personality is nothing like Trump’s, but he’s Trumpian in that normies rally to him and the elite hate him with an irrational passion. This could get interesting.
June 4, 2024 — 7:51 pm
Comments: 4