The UK's Far Right Is on the March-Thanks to Keir Starmer

"The scale of Labour's victory in terms of seats won was undeniable. But shrewd analysts noted something that the size of the majority threatened to obscure: Labour's overall vote share had actually dropped relative to past elections. More than that, Labour's success in flipping Tory seats was not entirely its own doing. Rather, all across the country, Reform UK, a new far-right party led by Brexiteer Nigel Farage, had systematically chipped away at Conservative votes, allowing Labour to come through the middle."

"In the end, Reform received the third-largest share of the votes of any party in the election, even though, thanks to the distortions of the UK's first-past-the-post system, this breakthrough only netted the party five seats in the House of Commons. The fact that more Reform candidates hadn't won led some to declare that its forward march had been halted; one commentator concluded that "the British can also take comfort in the fact that their far right is nowhere [near] the levers of power.""

"Since then, Reform has surged in popularity and leaped over both Labour and the Conservatives in the opinion polls, which it has consistently led since the beginning of 2025. And this past week, the results from crucial elections across England, Scotland, and Wales proved that Reform is no longer a specter looming over the country's future-it is the party of Britain's present. Last week's elections-in which voters chose the members of local councils in England and the national parliaments in Wales and Scotland-were widely understood to be a referendum on the two years of Starmer's premiership, which have been an objective disaster."

Keir Starmer’s Labour Party returned to government after fourteen years of Conservative rule, winning a historic parliamentary majority. Labour’s seat gains were large, but its overall vote share fell compared with past elections. Labour’s success in flipping Conservative seats was aided by Reform UK drawing votes away from Conservatives across the country. Reform secured the third-largest vote share, yet won only five seats due to first-past-post distortions. Some observers claimed Reform’s advance had stalled because it did not win more seats. Reform later surged in popularity, overtook both Labour and the Conservatives in opinion polls, and demonstrated electoral strength in recent elections across England, Scotland, and Wales, which were treated as a verdict on Starmer’s premiership.

Read at The Nation