Just over a week ago, the UK witnessed a truly historic set of elections.
Reform UK gained 1,451 council seats on Thursday 7th May, taking overall control of 14 local councils. Labour’s vote share collapsed, the governing party losing nearly 1,500 councillors and control of 38 councils, including major hubs like Birmingham, Southampton, and Cambridge.
The Conservatives did badly, but not as badly as expected, losing 563 seats. Kemi Badenoch’s position as Tory leader looks solid, which is a much better outcome for her and her party than many political pundits were predicting a few months ago.
The Greens achieved their best local election performance ever, gaining 441 seats, but did less well than recent hype would suggest.
In Scotland, the SNP secured a fifth consecutive term in government, with Reform breaking through into second place. And Plaid Cymru are now the biggest party in the Welsh Senedd, with Reform again coming second, pushing Labour into a devastating third place in one of their long-standing strongholds.
The big story of these local elections is that Nigel Farage and his party inflicted enormous losses on Keir Starmer and the Labour party in areas of the country that have been held by Labour for more than half a century, if not longer.
From Barnsley to Wigan, south Wales to Gateshead, Reform UK stormed into the Labour heartlands and emerged as the new working-class party in British politics.
At the same time, the combined share of the vote for Labour and the Tories, the two main parties in Britain for more than a century, fell significantly, with the leftist Greens also making significant gains.
Britain’s once stable, once predictable, two-party system is now fragmenting into something else entirely. The unwritten laws of British politics, in short, are being torn apart.
That’s why Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer is now fighting for his political life, launching a ‘reset’ of his premiership and attempting to fend off increasingly assertive leadership challengers - most of whom want to steer the government even further to the left.
Unsurprisingly, financial markets are also watching very closely, with the cost of servicing Britain’s debt spiralling in recent weeks and the spectre of a major debt and financial crisis now firmly on the horizon.
At this crucial moment in UK politics and economics, I am delighted to be joined on When The Facts Change for my latest paid subscriber-only discussion with political scientist Matt Goodwin.
In our exclusive one-hour debate, we cover: the election results, Labour infighting, Reform UK’s strategy (Matt has been a Parliamentary candidate for the party), the chances of Tory revival, the financial markets and what they’re watching – and why Starmer’s response to the current political and economic impasse is so deeply inqdequate.
Here’s a short clip of me talking through the looming debt crisis, which I unfortunately expect to intensify.
And here’s a clip of Matt talking through just some of the election results.
The full one-hour discussion between Matt and myself is available to paid subscribers only. If you would like to hear what we have to say, then please take out a paid subscription to When The Fact Change.
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