Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.
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Notes -
On Wednesday, the UK held an election for local authorities (borough councils, district councils, county councils etc.).
Although the votes are still being counted, the results so far have been astonishing. From a starting position of 2, Nigel Farage's Reform party have gained an incredible 1,426 seats. Labour, who hold an outright majority in the House of Commons after their landslide victory in 2024, have lost a whopping 1,375 seats, and Labour MPs are already calling on incumbent Labour prime minister Keir Starmer to resign within the year. The picture is only marginally better for the Tories, with Kemi Badenoch's Conservative party losing 552 seats so far.
The districts which voted for Reform include working-class districts which reliably voted Labour during the war in Iraq, the fallout after Blair, the Great Recession and when outspoken socialist Jeremy Corbyn led the party. After the general election in 2019, common wisdom had it that the so-called "red wall" had collapsed, with numerous working-class districts making the historic decision to vote for the Tories rather than Labour. Now, it seems, working-class Brits have had it with both major parties, and have decided to take a third option. Brendan O'Neill at Spiked is already arguing this might be the most seismic realignment in UK political history since the founding of Labour itself. If Farage and co. can maintain this momentum until the next House of Commons election, it doesn't seem remotely out of the question that, for the first time since 1906, we might witness a political party other than Labour or the Tories achieving an outright majority in the House.
Thanks for the brit-posting. If I wasn't so lazy I'd make an effort to do more of it.
Another thing to add is that yesterday also saw the Scottish and Welsh parliament elections, where Reform also made huge gains. They went from 1 to 17 seats in Scotland, making them the joint-largest party with Scottish Labour behind the SNP, and from 2 to 34 seats in Wales, where they're now the second-largest party outright after Plaid Cymru.
I have a feeling the SNP is just an utterly spent force. I doubt there's any coming back from Sturgeon's lethal combination of woke posturing and fiscal improprieties.
The SNP lost a few seats but mainly to the Greens who are just the SNP but more left (and are also pro-independence). I don’t think it says much about the cause really.
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