The transformation of British politics
A by-election explicitly intended to replace Keir Starmer threatens to up-end British politics and plunge the country into chaos.
British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has gained a new lease on life, but he is not long for the premiership anyway.
The incompetence and division of Britain’s ruling Labour Party prevented them from mounting an effective challenge after the party’s terrible performance at the May 7th local elections. As they were unable to rally around a replacement candidate, they opted instead to have one of their Members of Parliament resign, triggering a by-election, in order to create a vacancy for one Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Manchester, to allow him to contest the leadership of the party and become Prime Minister. Burnham had attempted a previous run at leading the party in 2015 against Jeremy Corbyn, but failed spectacularly. He is a Blairite through and through, and is as discredited and bereft of ideas as any other senior Labour politician. And yet, reflecting the party’s desperation and lack of confidence in senior politicians who are in parliament and cabinet, and the fear of deep internal rifts, Labour has decided that he is their great hope.
The issue is the constituency that was offered for Burnham is far from a “safe seat”, a seat which the party is relatively certain to win. Makerfield, in Wigan, near Manchester, is 96% white, and ignored by the mainstream politicians who have always taken it for granted. It voted overwhelmingly for Brexit in 2016. In the local elections, the area voted for Nigel Farage’s civic nationalist centre right party, Reform, which has become the locus of the country’s protest vote. There is therefore every possibility that Burnham would lose this by-election.
However, this is not the end of the story. Reform is being challenged from the right by the nascent Restore Britain party, which is also fielding a candidate in Makerfield. Restore is an ethnonationalist and civic-nationalist coalition that is pushing for remigration for those who do not contribute economically, commit crime, reject Britain’s way of life, or entered the country illegally. Its economic policies lean towards a blend of economic nationalism, liberalism and deregulation, but are as of yet poorly defined. Restore Britain is only two months old. However, it managed to win all the local council seats in its founder Rupert Lowe’s parliamentary constituency, which had previously voted for Reform. And it is presenting itself as an uncompromising alternative to the establishment and to Reform, which has been damaged as it took in a number of discredited former Conservative and Labour politicians. The betting odds of Restore winning the seat went from 50/1 when they announced they would run to 4/1 as at the time of this writing. The atmosphere in Britain is febrile, and those who vote Reform are doing so as a protest. A more hardline protest party may prove popular.
