The first appointment with the polls that have a part of the English this Thursday, from the general elections last July that led the Labor Party to power, can be the greatest demonstration to the date that the political situation of the United Kingdom is still very unstable. And that only tradition keeps a bipartisanism that is really quite weakened. The Prime Minister, the Labor Keir Starmer, with a very low popularity index, sees with fear how the populist right of Nigel Farage is today a more consistent threat than the conservative party itself. The Torsounder the leadership of Kemi Badenoch, they must still decide what type of right they aspire to be. And the Greens, together with the liberals-democrats, trust to increase their support from a warm left and conservatives who still do not know whether to throw themselves to the extreme or persevere in their liberalism.
This time only votes a fraction of England. Neither Wales, neither Scotland nor Northern Ireland celebrate elections. More than 1,600 local representatives, six mayors and the deputy seat of Runcorn & Helsby County are at stake. Of all these figures, almost 1,000 correspond to the conservative party. The current positions were chosen in 2021, when the Torsounder the leadership of Boris Johnson, they enjoyed a wave of popularity thanks to a successful vaccination campaign against the coronavirus. The Labor left has hardly defending the permanence of 300 councilors.
And yet, Prime Minister Starmer has much more to lose than the current opposition leader, Kemi Badenoch. The surveys predict a conservative debacle, with the loss of more than half of the stalls, but few are surprised by this almost safe defeat, because conservatives are still in a process of recomposition and in a long journey of the desert.
Downing Street wants to present the anticipated story of these elections as the demonstration that Torso They have not yet left the hole or learned the lessons of their defeat last July. “The first opportunity that the country will have to express its verdict about the opposition leader,” said Starmer.
Nerves in government
The general analysis, however, is very different. The Labor Party has just been in the power and climate of disappointment and lack of enthusiasm a year. The unions are at war with a government that has cut the aid for gas and electricity to retirees and that has cut social aid to disabled and people with indefinite casualties due to illness; Labor voters who one day were seduced by Brexit and Johnson, with the anti -immigration speech in the head, and who last year voted without conviction for Starmer, look at reform UK today, the Populist Farage party.
In the “survey survey” that the information website prepares daily Political Farage’s right occupies the first position, with an intention to vote of 26%, followed by the Labor Party, with 24%. Conservatives have 21%support. Liberals-democrats are in 13%, and the greens in 10%.
It is very possible that Farage’s euphoria disinfall again. That I take good results, but that does not lift a wave that crawls with the established order. But certain victories, such as the possibility of snatching the Labor the deputy in dispute in Runcorn, achieving several hundred councilors or even obtaining some mayor’s office, would give wings to a politician with an extraordinary ability to resurrect as the Phoenix.
A resurgence of reform UK would push even more to the Starmer government in matters such as immigration or its response to issues such as trans movement. And he would open the poisoned debate again, within the conservative party, around the idea of merging with Farage’s forces before being phagocyted by them.
“The United Kingdom seems to be aimed at a system with five very solid political parties, and these local elections will be the definitive proof that helps us to verify if we are heading for that new reality,” John Curtice said, one of the most prestigious British electoral sociologists and analysts. He also sees the principle of a change of era in the country’s policy, which until now had resisted the multi -party and populist flood experienced in other countries in Europe.
The Trump factor
Faced with the attempts of Starmer himself, but also of the conservatives, of being conciliatory with the US president, Donald Trump, in search of a differentiated treatment that has not finished taking place, the liberal-democrat Ed Davey has had the most severe speech against the US leader. And trust to get revenue with that attitude in these local elections. In general, both their party and the Greens are able to scratch many votes both to the left and to the right in this type of election, which voters generally use to express their irritation and punish each other. But surveys now point out that support for these formations could be more solid and permanent.
The first results of the elections will be known in the early hours of Friday, but it will not be until the early hours of the afternoon when a clear result of this electoral challenge can be glimpsed.
