General British politics discussion thread

I'm wouldn't quite agree. British people have long been using local elections, by-elections and the EU elections of old to show two fingers to the governing party.

It might be different this time because we have four parties polling at about a fifth of the vote each which really shows how antiquated and how unfit for purpose FPTP is.

Realistically, the next election is over 4 years off now. Farage has show time and time again how anything he runs inevitably becomes too toxic for the British public. 4 years is a lot of time for him to debase his party. It's also a lot of time for the Conservatives to bin Badenoch and replace her with someone vaguely functional and sensible.

Much hinges on Starmer's performance over the next four years. He only won off the back of an anti-Tory vote and a ruthlessly efficient campaign my Morgan McSweeney.

There's also the fact that Donald Trump is incredibly toxic to the far right outside of the USA and Farage has repeatedly abandoned his constituency to support Trump.

Finally, there's the fact that Reform UK won several councils and what they're going to with them. So far, they've banned all flags except for the Union flag and that of England meaning that local authorities can't show the local flag but I think this has been somewhat reversed since. Mainly, it shows that Reform are nothing more than David Cameron's "fruitcakes, loonies and racists".

Time will tell but we do have some limited precedent. Farage was originally UKIP before leaving and establishing The Brexit Party which is now of course Reform UK. Over the next few years, there'll be regular stories in the media about the various toxic individuals Reform UK will have had to recruit to sit on local councils. It's going to be the sole metric to assess them by in 2029 and they won't perform well.

Some details:

Trump’s trade deal with the U.K., which exists only in rough outline, makes Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s life somewhat easier. Starmer’s diplomatic strategy has been to flatter Trump at every turn—which can’t have been easy for him—and to get King Charles to invite Trump to visit him at Dumfries House or Balmoral Castle, both situated near Trump golf courses in Scotland. This charm offensive has now been rewarded with a reduction in tariffs, from 27.5 to 10 percent, on Jaguars, Land Rovers, and other British automobiles exported to America, and the complete elimination of tariffs on the U.K.’s struggling steel industry. In addition, the U.K. will be permitted to export, tariff-free, up to 13,000 metric tons of beef. All British exports, however, will still be subjected to the same across-the-board 10 percent tariff Trump is imposing on all countries.

In return, the U.S. receives … not much. Some reductions on agricultural tariffs, including tariffs on American beef, although apparently the U.K. will continue not to import any beef from cattle that have been fed growth hormones (the Trump White House refers to this as “non-science-based standards that adversely affect U.S. exports”). There is no deal on pharmaceuticals, on which Trump has threatened to impose a 25 percent tariff. There, the U.S. has a trade deficit of $1.4 billion with the U.K., but the paramount consideration must be to keep it easy to get foreign-made drugs to American patients and American-made drugs to British ones, because human health is more important than political one-upmanship on trade.

https://newrepublic.com/article/195028/trump-uk-trade-accord-tariffs

Looks like a win for Starmer more than anything else.

Doing a good job would mean fixing Britain's problems or at least making serious progress. How would that work? What's the fix for the NHS? Housing?

I agree with the sentiment of your post but when you look at the reaction to removing a tax exemption for wealthy landowners and pretend farmers along with the introduction of a means test for the winter fuel allowance, it's hard to see how anything meaningful could be done. Can you imagine the furore that would erupt if he decided to bin the dumping ground for wealthy friends of the Tory party that is the House of Lords?

Starmer might be able to reap some kind of political dividend if he can reduce the amount of small boat crossings. Beyond that, as you say he'd be wrecking the economy and therefore doing a bad job. Farage and his creatures have a lot of time to display their toxicity and inadequacy. Don't interrupt your enemy while he's stabbing himself.