Do we see the end of the United Kingdom's political duopoly?

The British woke up last Friday to images of a Nigel Farage.

The head of the United Kingdom's reform, an anti-immigration and populist party on the right that has increased in the polls in recent months, celebrated the close victory of his candidate during a by-election in Runcorn and Helsby, a district in northwestern England.

Below his radiant smile, Farage showed how tightly the race was holding six fingers to represent the six decisive votes.

“It may be a small margin, but it is a huge victory,” he said, congratulating his colleague Sarah Pochin, who had become the fifth deputy for the reform and the first woman to represent the party in Westminster.

The reversal of the majority of nearly 15,000 work of work in Runcorn and Helsby was indeed a huge victory, but the performance of the reform in the local elections last Thursday sent an even more severe political message to its opponents.

The reform took control of 10 of the 23 councils to win and won 677 of the 1,600 seats of the disputed council. He also finished first in two mayor elections – one in the Grand Lincolnshire, the other in Hull & East Yorkshire.

Conversely, support for conservatives and work, the historically dominant forces in British politics collapsed: the parties lost 674 and 187 local seats respectively, and neither has gained control of a single council.

While the extent of its success was starting to emerge, Farage said that the country was now living an “entirely different policy”.

“We are now the opposition party in the United Kingdom at work, and the conservatives (the conservatives) are a waste of space,” he said.

Beyond bipartite policy

During last week, many political commentators suggested that the political duopoly of Great Britain could be finished.

“The results confirm that we are at a time of four or even from five parties to five parties,” said Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University in London. “The fragmentation of the parties system has been really taking place since the mid -1970s, but it has accelerated considerably in recent years.”

“And therefore, we have seen the domination of work and the conservatives may end for good.”

While the reform came first at a certain distance during the local elections, the Liberal Democrats have also done well, piercing in many former conservative bastions.

The rise of the reform is partly the result of the failure of traditional parties to tangibly improve the lives of people and public services, and their tendency to overcome and to underestimate, according to Bale – which also underlines an increasing impatience at the speed of political change.

A problem for work, a crisis for conservatives

Political analysts told Euronews that the frage victory posed a problem for work last Thursday, but a much greater threat to the conservatives.

As the next general elections should only take place until 2029, the work, the ruling party, still has up to four years to define the agenda and try to provoke the change they have promised, experts said.

The success of the government could work the popularity of the reform.

“They have to hope that the things that parties could provide – economic growth, improvements in living standards, relatively good quality public services – will ultimately be more attractive to voters than the emotional performance policy they obtain from managers like Nigel Farage,” said Bale.

However, the conservatives, who disastrous in the general elections in July after 14 years in power, do not have such a strong hand to play.

While warning that local elections are not always revealing of voting behavior during the general elections, Robert Ford, political scientist at the University of Manchester, said that conservatives could face an “existential crisis” at the national level.

“The most successful winning machine in British history – and one of the most successful in global democratic history – has been absolutely overturned on the web here,” he said, referring to this year's local elections, far from their performance four years earlier.

“They went from the party from all over 2021 to be the party of nowhere in 2025. They were completely destroyed, lost each council and 70% of their seats on the board.”

Ford noted that it will be difficult for the Tories to rebuild their brand in opposition, as unlike work, they have fewer opportunities at their disposal.

According to the latest YouGov survey, if a general election took place tomorrow, 9% of the work voters of 2024 would choose a reform, just like 26% of conservative voters.

However, it can be too early to declare the dead Tories, said the director of political analysis of Yougov, Patrick English.

“The two most established parties in British politics have survived everything that has launched in the past 120 years, so we should probably not inform both,” noted English.

“What the last months of survey, and the general elections have told us is that work and conservatives face structural challenges serious with their electoral coalition and their supporters that they currently do not seem correctly equipped to treat,” he added.

The Farageism Trap

The Labor Party and the Conservatives must focus on themselves, said Ford, rather than being tempted by Ape Farage's policy. He cited the example of immigration and the conservative commitment of the former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to stop the “boats” causing migrants from Europe.

“They tried to offer people a book and cover frage. But nobody wants that. Why would you accept the reversal when you can have the original? ” He said.

The work should also be wary, he warned. “They must have this fight on their land, not on the frage field. It must be an element of the house, not a distant. ”

The two traditional parties hope that the reform of difficulties under the meticulous examination comes with the control of local councils, or that it is beginning to suffer from the fragmentation to which the radical parties on the right are inclined.

When asked if Farage could become Prime Minister in the coming years, Ford said that it was “not yet the most likely result”, but that “it is a significantly more plausible result than a week ago”.

“These are the kind of results in terms of depth, extent and support force that Farage needs if it has to be a credible aspiring for power,” he said.

The Englishman, the political analyst Yougov, said that only time would say. “There is nothing in the data we can currently see to suggest that Farage and Reform UK will disappear anytime soon.”

“In fact, there is much to suggest the opposite – that their support will continue to grow and solidify. But we are years of the next general elections, and so many things can happen by then.”

The death of the “first past the post”?

One thing that the results of the local elections have made clear is the potential need to modify the first post of the first post of the United Kingdom (FPTP), which historically gave the larger parts, the work and the conservatives, an advantage.

For example, with only 33.7% of the votes in the general elections of last year, the Labor Party won 412 of the country's 650 seats.

But with the growing popularity of the reform, it is not only the two main parts that can now benefit in a disproportionate way from the current system. The Farage Party has proven to be so much in the local elections, where it won about 31% of the vote, but won a much higher percentage of advisers.

The political landscape changed from the United Kingdom could start to change mind among those who have always supported the FPTP.

“If you are a politician or an activist or a conservative or labor voter who considers a majority government of Nigel Farage as the worst possible results, there is only one electoral system that will never have obtained this result. And it is the FPTP,” said Ford.

“The electoral reform does not only concern what it allows is what it prevents.”

Source Link