General British politics discussion thread

As befits the leader of a party whose Shadow Justice Secretary complained about a Muslim prayer service (she said he was 'defending British values').

With all the focus on Starmer, the media have forgotten to mention that the Tories are also in a fight for survival in Thursday's elections. 'More fash than the fash' seems to be their unofficial slogan.

Is it not more the case that anyone criticising Israeli genocide in Gaza is labelled as being anti-semitic. As almost all of Ireland has been labelled anti-semitic, in my opinion, it is a totally meaningless phrase.

I'm glad to see they covered it. I listen to LBC and I haven't heard it mentioned once on the news headlines, though they did prominently carry today the dread news that Zack Polanski once exaggerated his role in the Red Cross.

I was amused by the female commentator in the Newsnight piece who argued that the 'gift' made Farage look 'just like the others' and maybe less like 'someone you might want to have a pint with'. Constant minimising - the point is it makes him look complete unlike any of the others, not least because the media has largely (though I accept not entirely) ignored the story.

Zionists are desperately trying to shut down discussion of the Israeli genocide and war crimes. What better way to do it than accuse accuse anyone of engaging in such conversations as being anti-Semitic? It's a masterstroke - say that the real reason such people are criticising the Israeli state is because they hate Jewish people and were anti-Semitic all along.

To add some icing on the cake, accuse them of being Hamas supporters i.e. fellow travellers of terrorism.

Well, the big day's finally here - the nearest UK equivalent to the US midterms, which unlike the latter may actually result in an immediate top-level defenestration.

There are 3 main features to tomorrow's polls - the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Senedd (both one house only, all seats up) and the English local elections which are a mixed bag and do not involve the whole of England voting.

The outcome in Scotland and Wales is fairly predictable in terms of the govts that will follow the election - these will be led by the SNP and (for the first time ever) Plaid Cymru and the only issue is what sort of coalition they have to form, if at all in the case of the SNP.

The Scottish parliament is elected via a mixture of constituency which run on old-fashioned first past the post and a regional list which involves some element of PR. The latest projections for Scotland are SNP 32-41% in the constituencies and 26-29% for the list, Lab 12-19%, Cons 10-13%, Greens 15-17%, Reform 18-20% and the Lib Dems 10-12%. While the SNP is about down on last time, because the unionist vote is so fragmented they seem likely to hold onto all or nearly all of the 64 seats they held last time. Their allies the Greens may go up from 8 to 14-16. Reform are projected to get 19-22 in their first Scottish election, the Tories 7-12 (down from 31) and the LD's 8-12 (up from 4). So it will be either an SNP or SNP/Green govt and the SNP will mark 20 years in power next year.

Opinion polling for the 2026 Scottish Parliament election - Wikipedia

Wales is electing an Assembly with 96 seats in the basis of a pure PR party-list system. Lab have held power here since devolution in 1999 but they have collapsed here since Starmer took office and Reform and Plaid Cymru will be fighting it out to be the biggest party. Current projections are PC 30-35%, Reform 27-30%, Lab 10-15%, Cons 10-12%, Lib Dems 4-6% and Greens 8-10%. Projections vary from PC 35-45 seats Reform 29-37, Lab 12-24, Cons 3-7, Greens 5-10 and LD's 0-3. As is obvious Reform and the Tories will not have the numbers and it will be a PC-led govt probably with the Greens and maybe Lab if they're needed (REMINDER:- Lab took 30 seats out of 60 last time).

2026 Senedd election - Wikipedia

The English local elections are for about 5000 seats across England including all seats in London and most of the main cities except Liverpool, parts of various district councils and about six county councils. These seats were last up in 2022 when Lab were doing well and they hold about 2200 of them, the Tories about 1100, LD's about 660, the Greens about 170 and Reform hardly any as they weren't around in 2022. Because of the recent growth of both Reform and the Greens, the interest will be on how much of the carcass of Lab and the Tories both of them will feed off. Reform have done very well since early 2025 in county council elections and local byelections in the north-east, East Midlands and East Anglia, Essex, Kent and Greater Manchester (not the city), but have made little headway in London and the south-east (other than Kent) or in the south-west. The Greens have been doing well in opinion polls but it remains to be seen if they can convert that into council seats at Lab's expense. Projections have been attempted by the New Stateman and More in Common, showing Lab collapsing to 5-600 of the seats they're defending, the Tories to 500-750, LD's increasing to 750-900, Reform taking 1500-1700 and the Greens about 1000 (Others also falling from 773 to 200-400). This would be a complete remake of the old two-and-a-bit party system which has prevailed since the 1920's and unless it was somehow reversed before the next GE, would mean European-style fragmented politics in the UK.

There are no council elections this year in Scotland or Wales, or NI for that matter.

2026 United Kingdom local elections - Wikipedia

It's incredible that the British government and media keep on with this line. I will say one thing, just for the sake of nuance, which is that I can see how a dislike of Israeli policy could prime a certain amount of people to tumble into a generally antisemitic world view and be more amenable to propaganda to that end, but that's certainly not the same thing as opposition to Israeli policies being inherently antisemitic.

and antisemitic depictions of him are published by the media yet the silence from those who throw around antisemitism like confetti to protect zionism is deafening

Corbyn was never accused of being anti-Semitic until the right wing press and Labour Right decided this was this was going to be their line of attack after he became party leader in 2015. He had been an MP for 30 years before this.

Jesus are you ever going to stop obsessing about Corbyn.

It's like a poster who still spends every day talking about how bad a PM May was.