The Labour Party today has a Commons majority of 165 seats, slightly down from the 174 majority on election night. This was almost identical to Tony Blair’s 1997 majority of 178. But extraordinarily, the 178 majority was won on 43.2% of the vote, while Starmer’s 2024 174 majority was won on just 33.7% of the vote — the smallest vote share for any single-party majority government in British history, and yet producing one of the largest majorities.
The system is throwing up perverse results as never before. The reason is that 2024 saw the lowest combined Conservative and Labour vote share since 1910, at 57.4%. This is fundamentally different from the threat to the two-party dominance by the Liberals and Social Democrats in the 1970s and 1980s, when the combined Labour-Tory vote share never fell below 70.0% (1983). So if you are thinking you have seen this before, you are very wrong. This is a far greater shift in voter behaviour.
In the 2010 general election, the combined Labour/Tory vote fell to 65.1%, but 2024 was a further step-change down. Every single opinion poll since has shown that this is a systemic decline, not a blip.
Then we get to the local elections held in England last Thursday, where the combined Labour and Tory vote was 37%, with Labour at just 14%. While these were predominantly (but by no means all) non-metropolitan English elections, Labour suffered near wipeout, losing 65% of the seats they had held under Starmer’s leadership in 2021 in an already devastatingly low performance.
It is important to note that these results for both Labour and the Tories were much, much worse than their local election performance in 2013 at the height of UKIP success, the previous low point for Labour and Tory performance in local elections. Again, you may think, “Oh, I have seen this before. It will pass.”
You have not seen this before, and it will not pass.
The BBC and Sky both made psephological projections for how the local elections would reflect in a general election. These are complicated calculations based on voter movement and with calculated compensation for the kind of seats being fought. It is not a simple projection from irrelevant types of Tory areas to the whole nation. The BBC projection to general election vote share was Reform 30%, Labour 20%, Liberal Democrats 17%, Conservatives 15%, Greens 11%, and Others 7%. The Sky projection was Reform 32%, Labour 19%, Conservatives 18%, Lib Dems 16%, Greens 7%.
Neither the BBC nor Sky projected this to general election seats, but it is undoubtedly the case that both Labour and the Conservatives are steering into the abyss, the tipping point where first-past-the-post massively punishes those who have substantive support but are not winning constituencies (the Liberal Democrat and, to some extent, the Green position for decades). Which of Reform, Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat, and Green parties will emerge on top in England is a genuinely open question. Before going on to institutional and policy questions, I might say that my own thought is that the tendency of first-past-the-post everywhere to encourage two-party systems may well lead to Reform and the Liberal Democrats being those two parties; and that is certainly as probable as any other combination.
Institutionally, the Labour Party seems very strong, in that it is rooted in the trade union movement which created it and still funds it. Even under the lurch to the right under Starmer, the Labour Party retains some progressive policies which relate specifically to the rights of those in employment, and increases in the minimum and living wage and the Employment Rights Act reflect this. These are the inescapable tribute to the union paymasters, and a good thing too. Starmer’s right-wing economic policies rather focus attacks on those receiving benefits (some of whom are, of course, in work).
But institutional backing does not in itself ensure continued primacy. The Liberal Party had the active backing of a great many of Britain’s landed and industrial magnates. It did not founder for lack of institutional finance and muscle. Let us merely note that the Conservatives are in more jeopardy than Labour as their finances are reliant on contributions from wealthy individuals and companies which are ad hoc rather than institutional and susceptible to frictionless switching to Reform.
So what are the actual politics of this? Well, Reform voters are primarily motivated by dislike of immigration. While there are respectable economic arguments over the desirability of immigration, the simple truth is that most Reform voters are rather motivated by racist dislike of foreigners. I know that I have commenters here who like to deny this, but frankly, I do not live under a rock, I have fought elections, I used to live in the then-UKIP hotspot of Thanet, and I do not have a romanticised regard for the working class, and I have no doubt that Reform primarily channels racism.
But the interesting thing is that does not mean that Reform voters are “right-wing” in an economic sense. Opinion polls have found that most Reform voters favour renationalisation of public utilities, for example, and Farage has appealed to this by advocating for the nationalisation of the water industry and backing the nationalisation of the steel industry. Reform voters also favour rent controls, employment protections, and minimum wage legislation. On the left/right axis in economic policy, Reform voters are very substantially to the left of their party leadership, who almost certainly do not really believe in any of those things at all, though they may sometimes pretend.
George Galloway with the Workers’ Party has attempted to provide the mix of social conservatism in culture wars, including anti-immigration messaging, combined with left-wing economic policy, which might define a kind of left-wing populism, but failed miserably in Runcorn. It is only fair of me to make my own position clear, having stood for the Workers’ Party in the General Election on the issue of stopping the genocide. I do not support the culture wars agenda of the Workers’ Party and would not associate myself with the “Tough on Immigration, Tough on the Causes of Immigration” messaging the party used in Runcorn, even with the second half of that message emphasising an end to imperialist destabilisation of vulnerable countries. It is still too dog-whistle for my taste.
It remains my belief that Starmer has always been a deep-state operative and that he is deliberately driving the Labour Party to its own destruction. Among the strongest evidence for this, in my view, is the fact that all of the documentation on his involvement in the Assange case, the Savile case, the Janner case, and other high-level paedophile cases while he was Director of Public Prosecutions was allegedly destroyed by the state while the Conservatives were in office and Starmer in opposition. The Deep State was protecting him and preparing his way to power.
It is also interesting that the only time the mainstream media really turned on Boris Johnson during his premiership was in attacking Johnson for referencing Starmer’s involvement in the Savile case, which brought a torrent of media abuse of Johnson in defence of Starmer, even though it was one of the rare occasions where Johnson actually told the truth.
But even if you do not accept my theory that Starmer may be destroying the Labour Party on purpose, perhaps you might accept that Starmer would prefer to see the Labour Party destroyed than see it in power as a left-wing party. The Thatcherite agenda of austerity, benefit cuts and attacks on the non-working and disabled, monetarism, militarism and jingoism, with anti-immigrant policies allied to unquestioning Zionism, is perhaps a true reflection of Starmer’s core beliefs; as these align precisely with the Deep State agenda, the question of whether Starmer is a true believer or a blank cipher for the Deep State is moot.
With Labour emphasising “stop the boats” and deportations, there simply is no left-wing party among the complex five-party pattern emerging in English politics. It is also worth noting that under John Swinney, the SNP is firmly under control of its own neoliberal right wing in Scotland.
It is tempting to believe that a left-wing party must emerge to fill the gap in what is offered to the electorate, but that is not automatic. We may simply have a position where there is no left-wing choice of any stature. Jeremy Corbyn, for whom I have respect, has never indicated the dynamism and toughness required to drive a new party to success. Furthermore, he remains surrounded by the “soft Zionist” crew who convinced him as Labour leader that his best course was to continually apologise for non-existent anti-Semitism and speed up the expulsion of left-wingers from the party.
While a time of great political change is a time of great possibility, my own view is that what is going to emerge in England is going to be a dark period, with the extraordinary authoritarianism of the UK government, as already witnessed in the Public Order Act, Online Safety Act, and major police harassment of dissidents, becoming even more pronounced.
In Scotland, I am ever more confident of the prospects of Independence to escape from this. Scots do not want a right-wing government, and Reform will only split elements of the Unionist vote — it is no real threat to the Independence vote. As it becomes obvious that Westminster rule is going to be authoritarian right-wing rule for the foreseeable future, Scots will increasingly wish to quit the Union fast. Farage is an English archetype which is deeply unappealing to Scots, and, unlike Sturgeon, Swinney does not have the charisma to lead the Independence movement away from its goal.
My own focus in the coming year is very much going to be in moving forward on Scottish Independence. I hope to be adopted by the Alba Party as a candidate for the Scottish Parliamentary elections in 2026.
We are at the beginning of the biggest change in the UK political system for over a century. Get ready to play your part; inaction is not a sensible option in these dangerous times.
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Sadly, tragically even, I think your analysis is on the money Craig, but I think the (temporary?) rise of Reform UK is down to two things; firstly, the failure of the Labour Party, since its inception, over 120 years ago, to offer a real alternative to capitalism and second, the failure of the left to produce a viable socialist alternative and its inability to separate itself from British imperialism, in spite of all its pretensions to revolution.
The rise of the Right here, is a direct result of the above, Reform UK fills the vacuum created by exploiting, on the one hand, the abandonment by the Labour Party of its traditional base and on the other, the deliberate exploitation of the fears of the ‘other’ by the British state, something it’s been doing for decades. And all of it taking place within the structural crisis of capitalism, leading us to Fascism.
Yes, good comment.
“the failure of the left to produce a viable socialist alternative and its inability to separate itself from British imperialism, in spite of all its pretensions to revolution.”
Also its inability to separate itself from a stultifying bureaucracy, leading to the impression that Socialism = bureaucrats everywhere. Socialism should be about making sure the more fortunate in society help the less fortunate, not creating a large bureaucratic structure that largely fails to do this effectively, which has been what has tended to happen.
If the progressive needs to be founded in the social, in the holistic sense rather than just marketplace, surely it needs a firm foundation in what humans are. Which is from evolution. With some cultural/neuro diversity. Which can surely tie in with an environmental agenda. While needing to studiously avoid naturalistic fallacies, neoludditism (or overhyped technocracy), social status reification etc.
Why does Farage always seem to be gurning in some way, does he switch it on for cameras, or is it just jollyness due to whatever?
“I hope to be adopted by the Alba Party as a candidate for the Scottish Parliamentary elections in 2026.”
Mr. Murray, I certainly wish you good luck.
Meanwhile, it’s a little unclear what you exactly mean by “adopted”. Who do you think may become your foster parents?
I’m fully aware you often refer to the “Deep State”, which conveniently doesn’t need to be linked to individuals. Does this omerta also apply to Scottish political parties?
Perhaps the realisation that a 2 party system might not include the Labour party as one of the favoured two could lead Starmer to rethink his refusal to countenance PR? The rank and file of labour mostly support it as far as I can tell.
Excellent article as usual.
“austerity, benefit cuts and attacks on the non-working and disabled” – you mention these as being part of the Deep State agenda. Why does the deep state have a position on these things?
Yes loads to agree with there.
Reform as Craig indicates, shows how the deep state parties crowding the centre has lead to most voters who want to reject the elites going to Reform which media claim to be right wing, but really is much more decent than that.
And the Corbyn rush shows much the same – voters forced out to the extremes to avoid the interchangeable Blairs and Camerons who simply governed extremely badly.
On racism & immigration. The fundamental force for modern western politics is the impact of enormous wealth inequalities. That is what upsets people, that is the motivation to kick out the old parties. There are many inter-related issues here. Education, Tax rates, Housing, QE, inflation policies (redistribution to the poor generates inflation – they spend it, distribution to the rich doesn’t), and Immigration.
Of all of these potential policy reccommendations only one is made clearly and consistently and allows Reform to stand out from the crowd on inequality – Immigration. No wonder that is the one that gets picked up on, criticised by the outgoing elites and media, and perhaps gets over concentrated on by a minority of voters. Solution = Talk about 70% Top Rate of Tax and an end to asset holder subsidies (QE).
There was nothing extreme about Corbyn.
By contrast, Reform, the Conservatives and Starmer’s Labour all subscribe to an economic dogma that was considered extreme and dangerously right-wing within my lifetime.
Michael’s description of Corbyn as extreme showed how avaricious vulture capitalism has been normalised and accepted as mainstream. A similar trend is also happening with the normalisation of genocide
Politics in the UK, much like elsewhere in world, has reached a nadir, a low point, the likes of which I never thought I would see in my lifetime – and it is very depressing. We move from parties that at least had some point of view, a manifesto or creed that gave some meaning to their existence. However their descent into corruption and takeover by money motivated donors, the implosion of the tories and the self immolation of labour leaves us with rudderless parties, loose groupings of purely reactionary chancers and grifters, defenceless against abuse and eventual take over by authoritarian sociopaths.
Domestic policy reflects foreign policy – a casual disregard for morals and ethics, attacking minorities at home and conniving in genocide in Gaza and prolonging an unwinnable war in Ukraine, all contributing to the pollution of our society, just as failed policy contributes to the pollution of our waterways.
Interesting. The UK is in the same stream as the rest of the West. Globally, we are experiencing the beginning of a paradigm change. That takes time. The more so due to the fact that the majority of voters everywhere, with a few exceptions such as, say, Denmark, are not switched on politically. That means control is firmly with the old guard. Electorates are played like a piano. The Establishment has several thousand years of experience in its DNA and is always sharply focussed on updating epigenetically. Ruling is an art, apart from all else.
The small Right is beginning to make itself felt, but its base and potential voters are not au fait with the system. Like the rest of Joe Public, they have no clue how it works. As for the Left, they have always been used, controlled, for various purposes. During the true influence from the trade unions, the Left was largely supportive as it allowed it to work on its march through the institutions. The Left seem to be blind to its astounding success here. Mainly because the majority on the Left have been imbued with the weaponised political rhetorical and analytical tools and the propaganda with which it sought to undermine western democracy. Other than follow the Soviet or China model, the Left in the West had never a clue how to rule once it had acquired power. It can be seen that where there are truly socialist (read, communist) states in the West, they are still controlled by the international powerbrokers. Since the trade union movers and shakers were brought on board with the Establishment, the social democratic model was on the ropes, slowly being strangled, though few people noticed. Only lately more politically attuned people have come out and gone public with their concerns. Of course, almost always fine-tuning their message according to their own position in the scheme of things. This has created the interesting phenomenon where the truth is out there for those who want to see it, but however clear as day, and regularly on the news box and in the mainstream mediums as well, people, by and large, are comatose to the fix they are in.
Psychological, yes, but there are higher levels at work. To see what we believe to be reality, in this world, a sound moral compass is not enough. One needs to make the effort to suss out how it works. This takes will and application. Few are motivated thus. So nature takes its course. The majority will only wake up, with a start, of course, when the crisis hits them. The establishment is always busy steering events, looking way ahead, and putting off the day that the majority wakes up at once- which would result in utter chaos. So, unless people take a hand in it, nature will take its course, the global neo-feudal Establishment will keep tightening control judiciously, enough, but not so much as to spark a conflagration which it cannot control. No opposition which sees it coming will want to be in charge. Look at Dutton in Australia. He clearly campaigned for his Coalition to lose. No stomach to stand up to China. Well, what will they do, anyway. But for the US, Oz is beholden to Beijing. The US, at the moment, is a dark horse. Not that the Democrats were any better- Worse, one would think. So, let nature take its course.
The Left have done their march through the institutions. First on the back of the successful trade union movement, which was Centre-Right, by and large. Subsequently, the Left were the attack dogs for the globalists seeking to destroy the social-democratic nation-state. Well done! Democracy in the West is become a farce, a sham. The Left are now of no further use to the globalist neo-feudalists, that I can see. Except for true stalwarts, the Leftist political operatives are scratching for a (paying) role to play, soliciting for subsidies and support as the funds from the taxpayers are gradually turned off. Trying to keep a seat on the gravy train controlled by the Establishment is getting harder. Interesting times. However, it is what people have wrought; the majority have voted for it, time and again. The Left should move to the centre, but to be effective against the system, it has to become independent from the system, which it never was. Besides, the Left has no agenda worth voting for. It’s Utopia or the abyss. I think if the West were to be ruled by the Left, it would be the abyss.
Meanwhile, re George Galloway – I had started watching his podcasts, appreciating his astute observations and views on world events, and the guests he had on – but I gradually started to see, as you do Craig, that behind this lay a deeply troubling mindset – a petty use of personal insults, and the skewed populist position on immigration. However I have stopped following his internet activities since he made his position on the recent high court ruling on trans issues clear. He is completely wrong on this, denying science, biology and social history and contributing to the ugly spread of trans phobia and hatred. It reveals a part of his character that completely undermines trust in his other opinions, reducing his sharp rhetoric to empty blustering designed to appeal only to his established audience, to proclaim, and not to debate.
Okay, but this strangely reminds me of someone else?
Excellent overview of dark times.
Worth noting that now we have 3 very right-wing main parties there are no longer endless newspaper columns by grown-up centrists claiming to be Politically Homeless, as there were every day between 2015-19, when there was actually a meaningful difference between the parties.
Interesting too that now Starmer is destroying Labour there isn’t a peep from any of our sensible moderate Labour MPs. Remember all their votes of no confidence, mass resignations and hosti!e media briefings when Corbyn made Labour the largest political party in Europe, had the overwhelming backing of the members, a popular manifesto, highest vote share, etc?
“Worth noting that now we have 3 very right-wing main parties there are no longer endless newspaper columns by grown-up centrists claiming to be Politically Homeless, as there were every day between 2015-19, when there was actually a meaningful difference between the parties.”
An astute observation. For almost all of my lifetime, thanks to the example set by Triangulatin’ Tony, it has seemed that liberalism is increasingly just a flavour of conservatism, with any differences constrained to a wafer of policy issues, many of those largely cosmetic. We only have to look at how the vast majority of ‘liberal’ commentators have cheered on the wholesale dismantling of individual rights and liberties in this century to see how far through the looking glass we’ve gone.
As far as electoral reality goes, the last battleground of substantive difference now lies to the right of conservatism. The fash are coming in from the long cold of eighty years, as electorates across the world desperately cast about for any kind of alternative to the package deal of managed decline and total absence of imagination purveyed by the mainstream. Well, I don’t think they’ll like the change they’ll get.
Meanwhile, the actually politically homeless – those for whom the choice between facism and Thatcherism is no choice at all – are left to watch on with detached amusement – or horror…
A propos your theory about Starmer…
I wonder what his mentor, Lord Mandelson, was doing during 1997/98?
Apparently he was a Minister without Portfolio in the Cabinet Office.
Minister without Portfolio. Doesn’t that mean that he has no (official) job?
In the Cabinet Office. That’s the Executive Office of the Privy Council. So he was working directly for the monarch.
I think he was busy destroying the Labour Party by setting two important segments against each other.
And look at the state of the country today.
Job done!
Thank you for this very timely article. The Labour Party having ditched the left can only go further right and in doing so fall into a political black hole.
The trades union movement is too divided, too weak and too faint – hearted to exert any real pressure on Labour. Its money only helps to preserve a marginal influence against much more powerful external forces that are driving its policies.
Reform is filling a political vacuum in much the same way that Labour did on 1945 with its bold radical for the time platform of welfare state, nationalisation of public utilities and break up of private monopolies, full employment, housing for all and commitment to solving international problems through diplomacy and not war via a strong Unite Nations. The Liberal Party of the time was not far behind with the two parties having enough in common to suggest the possibility of local pacts to keep the Tories out. Economically this also made sense to people with more money in people’s pockets to drive growth. There is no doubt that the mood of the country was to the left.
The current Labour Party more than the Tory party must bear the blame for the rise of Reform.
Excellent, balanced, insightful article. Learned a lot. Thanks, Craig.
“(T)he simple truth is that most Reform voters are rather motivated by racist dislike of foreigners.”
This is absolutely true, and the article would have much more punch if this was stated in the headline and lede. Best to state it succinctly and offensively too.
Never mind the Liberals of 1902 or voting figures from 1910. Psephologists are completely up themselves and can do one. The key points are as follows:
1. Reform are SendEmBack-ist and StopEmComing-ist.
2. The reason why Reform seem to be taking most of the Tory vote is because the leader of the Tory party is black. Not only that, but Badenoch is the second non-white leader the Tory party have had in a row. Racist f*ckwits can’t hear what a person says if the person is black. What they notice first and foremost, and this dominates how they view the person, is that the person is black. They assume that blackness is the most important determiner of what the person says and does. Their ears glom up when someone says it isn’t. They won’t hear you. A white person who tells them this will just be seen as a white person who “likes the blacks” (or the “P***s”).
3. Reform appeal to white native voters who are either petty bourgeois, mortgaged up proletarians, or not-in-debt proletarians who are as thick as two short planks and unable to realise that the ruling class don’t have the slightest bit more respect for them than they do for non-whites or non-natives. The sheer level of stupidity can be hard to get one’s head around. I have met people who were in favour of Brexit because they said the EU parliament was unelected and kept telling them what to do. When I told them the EU parliament is elected and actually it doesn’t have much power, they went “Oh yeah”. I mean they accepted what I said. They hadn’t been articulating the real reasons why they supported Brexit. Because really they don’t give a sh*t about foreign trade, or about the relationship between branches of the state, and half of them probably couldn’t identify Poland on a map, let alone tell the difference between one branch of the state and another. What they don’t like is people who aren’t “from here” – or whose ancestors weren’t, as for example might be indicated by their skin colour, religion, clothes, surnames, first names, or what kind of food they eat. Talking of religion, a similar point can be made about Islamophobes, most of whom couldn’t tell you even three things that Muslims believe, except maybe they might tell you that Muslims believe in some weirdo god with an Arabic name. And this is no exaggeration. Most white British people really are this f***ing ignorant and stupid.
4. The Powellite vote, which used to go almost entirely to a party called UKIP, rose and rose in elections that weren’t considered to be about which bunch of c***s got jobs as ministers. I mean in local elections, in EU elections (the irony!), and then in the Brexit referendum. The f*ckers thought they were giving the politicians on the telly a chance. A chance to put their white hoods on and sort out the supposed foreigner problem.
5. Now the voters feel betrayed, because they haven’t got what they wanted. It’s been downhill since the Powellites won 52% in 2016 and it’s only going on one direction.
Mostly a good article, but.
“most Reform voters are rather motivated by racist dislike of foreigners”
Racist bollox IMO based on hearsay and opinion, smells very much like the brexit smearing campaign. Obviously anyone who might be some form of english nationist is a racist (!) but the hypocrits say it’s perfectly okay to be a scottish, irish or welsh nationist. Would be nice to hear some factual based discussions rather than this daily mail style ranting. Farage might be a grifter but I don’t see anything, anywhere else that is worth a citizens vote but if he disrupts the establishment that’s good because disruption is the only solution to such a f*cked country, but carry on doing the same thing and hope you’ll get a different result.
3Agreed, just because someone thinks net immigration of 750k+ a year is way too high and unsustainable doesn’t make you racist.
One thing that is reassuring is there seems to be an appetite for radical change among the public, what with the support Corbyn had and now Farage. The public seem well aware of how politicians have been acting in ways that are contrary to the benefit of most. We just need a decent, uncorruptable, principled candidate to stand behind.
“What they don’t like is people who aren’t “from here” ”
The problem is that in the UK, ” foreigner”, or “not from here” can mean ” from the next village”. It really is that granular. It seems it is in the British cultural DNA to be suspicious of anyone not in your immediate community. It’s not just people of another race.
Where would Reform be if Gordon Brown hadn’t been so busy with being a war criminal and instead had said
1. Britain is signing up to ever closer union.
2. Britain will join the eurozone on such and such a date.
3. Rupert Murdoch is under arrest for X Y Z and his assets are hereby seized – because there is no doubt that the rightwing press have been a major factor in keeping Powellism alive, what with the racist nudge-winking they always do with their stories about “knife crime”, the “inner city”, etc. etc. etc. – every f*cking day. If the goddamned USA could jail Conrad Black, the British state could conceivably have jailed Murdoch – I mean theoretically it would have been possible.
One nation under ZOG, wise up, the plan is working.
If Gordon Brown had done 1 & 2, we’d be no less f*cked than we are today, probably more so.
Re: ‘there simply is no left-wing party among the complex five-party pattern emerging in English politics’
*Ahem*
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Party_of_England_and_Wales
Also worth noting that, reportedly, over half of households in England & Wales now derive over half of their income from the state. Sounds fairly left-wing if you ask me.
If I get time, I’ll try to come up with an eclectic local elections round-up for you all tomorrow. In the meantime, I see that at least one of the new Reform councillors is literally pointing at aeroplanes:
https://x.com/reformexposed/status/1919309746214928492