Keir Starmer Has Paved Nigel Farage’s Path to Power
The right-wing party Reform UK outperformed Labour in elections this month across Britain. Labour has mainly been shedding support on its left flank, but the party’s current leaders have no desire to win those voters back with left-wing policies.
Nigel Farage’s Reform UK topped the poll in England’s local elections and made big gains in Scotland and Wales. Keir Starmer should have taken responsibility for the fiasco, but he’s still trying to cling on to his job as Labour leader. (Chris Ratcliffe / Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Britain held local and regional elections earlier this month that proved to be catastrophic for the Labour government of Keir Starmer. Labour fell behind the right-wing party Reform UK that is led by Nigel Farage.
Ten years after the Brexit referendum of 2016, could Farage be on track to become Britain’s next prime minister? Phil Burton-Cartledge spoke to Jacobin about the state of British politics. Phil is a lecturer in sociology at the University of Derby and the author of The Party’s Over: The Rise and Fall of the Conservatives from Thatcher to Sunak.
This is an edited transcript from Jacobin’s Long Reads podcast. You can listen to the interview here.
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