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British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has pledged to revive his struggling government but faced growing calls to resign after a disastrous set of local and regional elections for his Labour Party.
As the final results came in on Saturday, Labour had lost 1000 local council seats across England and was booted from power in Wales after 27 years. Anti-immigration party Reform UK won almost 1300 seats across England, came second in Wales and made significant gains in Scotland.
It was a blunt verdict from voters in elections widely seen as an unofficial referendum on Starmer, whose popularity has plummeted since he led the centre-left party to power less than two years ago.
Blunt?
Starmer insisted he would not walk away and “plunge the country into chaos,” and the dire election results did not produce an immediate challenge to his leadership.
The right thing to do is rebuild and show the path forward,” Starmer said Saturday (local time). “That’s what I’m going to do in the coming days.”
And you think Luxon is bad.
[…] But a growing number of Labour lawmakers urged the prime minister to set a timetable for his departure this year. British politics allows parties to change leader midterm without the need for a new election.
[…] Starmer tried to demonstrate change on Saturday by bringing back two figures from past Labour governments. He made former Prime Minister Gordon Brown a special envoy on global finance, and appointed the party’s ex-deputy leader Harriet Harman an adviser on women and girls.
Harriet Harman, by the way, apparently thinks women can have penises.
[…] The elections were a breakthrough for Reform UK, the latest hard-right party led by the veteran nationalist politician Nigel Farage.
Running on an anti-establishment and anti-immigration message, the party won hundreds of local council seats in working-class areas in England’s north, such as Sunderland, that were solid Labour turf for decades. It also made gains from the Conservatives in areas like the county of Essex, east of London.
The economy lies at the heart of Labour’s troubles, as it does for many incumbent governments.
Since ending 14 years of Conservative rule roiled by austerity and the Covid-19 pandemic, Labour has struggled to ease the cost of living and jump-start a sluggish economy against the tough economic backdrop of war in Ukraine and, more recently, Iran. Starmer has also angered supporters with attempts to cut welfare spending, some of which were reversed after Labour revolts.”
Actually no. What lies at the heart of Labour’s troubles is uncontrolled immigration, a capital overrun by crime and a PM who thinks the biggest problem is “Islamophobia”, to the point where he’d rather try and cover up gang rapes by Pakistanis than upset the local Muzzies.
[…] The elections offered voters a rainbow of choices, including the centrist Liberal Democrats and the nationalist parties in Scotland and Wales.
But the big winners were populist insurgents, Reform UK and the Green Party, whose focus has expanded from the environment to social justice and the Palestinian cause under self-described “eco populist” leader Zack Polanski. The Greens won hundreds of council seats from Labour in urban centres and university towns and took control of several local authorities.”
The Greens in Britain are even nuttier than the Greens here, if that’s possible. But it does show that voters are running away from the Labour Party in both directions.
Starmer has said that he wants to stay prime minister for at least ten years in order to “finish the job”. It wouldn’t surprise me if, after the election when Labour get trounced, he will do everything he legally can to stay in power.
Source: https://www.stuff.co.nz/world-news/360976653/what-know-about-british-elections-hammered-starmers
