Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Valmy]

What is fly-tipping? Some kind of weird British thing?

[HVC]

What is fly-tipping? Some kind of weird British thing?

Illegal dumping.

[HVC]

Going back to the innocent vehicles thing, this does kind of remind me of the ancient greek trials for inanimate objects that killed people

[Valmy]

What is fly-tipping? Some kind of weird British thing?

Illegal dumping.

Oh ok. Yeah fuck that. I agree with Labour here.

[Sheilbh]

Oh I'm very throw the book at them on fly-tipping.

My is because there's no way this should be any form of national issue with the PM announcing it. And drones to stop fly-tipping feels like a high tech performance of what the state should be doing, because hollowed out local government can't actually do it - I worry there's many such case.

[Josquius]

It is odd we don't see police drones more often. Police helicopters are pretty out of date.

[Bauer]

I am confused by the threat... if someone dumps garbage illegally they will find their car and crush it?   

[Jacob]

What's the story with the recent Reform win? Is Farage becoming a contender?

[Josquius]

By 6 votes (that must hurt) after the previous Labour MP assaulted a guy shouting about being an MP - from what I have heard the guy was shouting fascy abuse at the MP so I expect they'll have really milked it locally.
Then you've labour being unpopular at the moment. Not having done any visible good things yet whilst doing quite a few unpopular things.
Less Reform are good and more tories and Labour are both bad.

I'm somewhat encouraged. Most of the locals were in very tory areas anyway and things thus far haven't been as awful as they could have been.
Still counting in Durham though. I'm worried there. Already the area has been suffering under false flag far right independents. But that won't stop village idiots voting for the full fat version. They've been pushing hard.

I am confused by the threat... if someone dumps garbage illegally they will find their car and crush it?   

Basically.
Though the main people being targeted won't be just random people in cars but scrap men with a sideline in fly tipping.
I guess waste disposal is making up a big chunk of the business for many of them these days. Certainly their trucks often advertise this.
When I had some rubbish in front of my house I even had people coming to the door offering their services.

A bit of a dodgy populist factor at work too since many of these people are Travellers.

[Josquius]

Durham results in and... Yep. That's the north east screwed.

BBC News - Durham County Council election results: Reform UK takes control - BBC News
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cg419g63qelo

These rats are going to be a constant spoiler in any attempts to get joined up regional thinking done. They'll trash any attempts to get the work we need done.

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

Basically.
Though the main people being targeted won't be just random people in cars but scrap men with a sideline in fly tipping.
I guess waste disposal is making up a big chunk of the business for many of them these days. Certainly their trucks often advertise this.
When I had some rubbish in front of my house I even had people coming to the door offering their services.

A bit of a dodgy populist factor at work too since many of these people are Travellers.

Sure, but crushing them is a waste.  Does the UK not have a mechanism to impound vehicles and sell them?

[Josquius]

No idea.
Ukraine could do with them for sure.
But I guess it doesn't fit the "Govenrment stronk!" narrative

[Sheilbh]

What's the story with the recent Reform win? Is Farage becoming a contender?

Yes.

He is building a party. A problem for Farage has always been that he doesn't play well with others (and one of their original MPs has already resigned criticising Farage's leadership - and wanting to move further to the right in a more Musk-approved way). He doesn't like tall poppies and outside of elections where he can basically run the show (like European Parliament elections) he's always struggled.

But I think I mentioned it at the time - last year he was doing a tour o the country with rallies all over the country with the explicit goal of recruiting party members, activists and candidates. They've legally become a proper political party in how they're organised. And now they've won a lot of council seats and councillors are the rank and file political activists of every party in the country - they're the people who go door knocking and canvassing every election. It doesn't necessarily outweigh everything else but it's really important. I also get the impression that Zia Yusuf, who has been recruited as party chair, is impressive and they genuinely are building a proper, sustainable political party at the grass-roots level and professionalising at the top.

Plus - as has been a theme for the last decade plus - people want (and keep voting for) change. Labour have so far, I think, underwhelmed. My own view is that Starmer basically wasted his first year because he didn't really have a clear idea what he wanted to do. I think his instincts are good and he's now forming that idea - but you only get to introduce yourself once and he is still loyal to his Chancellor Rachel Reeves who I think is a disaster both politically and in terms of policy. On the politics I'd just note that from a focus group guy I follow and everything I've heard about Labour campaigners - the number one thing people raise is the cut to winter fuel allowance and then cuts to disabled benefits. I think those two decisions have really hurt Labour.

Starmer's approval rating:


It's worth noting these local elections are broadly in quite Tory areas and the last time there was an election was Spring 2021 which was a nadir for Starmer as LOTO - and a very good time for Johnson and the Tories riding a wave of vaccine popularity. So the Tories were at a high watermark for a governing party in local elections in 2021 - but things are, arguably, even worse for the Tories than for Labour. The Tories have lost 635 councillors, Labour have lost 198 - the Lib Dems have won 146 and Reform have won 56. Basically I think Brexit broke the Tory coalition. This is one example (Devon County Council in the South-West), but I think they're facing a really lethal pincer movement:


I'm not sure what the answer is - lots of people say they need to tilt right, lots tack to the centre. Looking at that I'm really not sure there's an easy or obvious solution. One thing is the Lib Dems (who have won three councils) have a reputation for being good at local government - they're really focused and they use it as a base. Reform have won 10 local councils - I'm not sure they've held one before and it'll be very interesting to see how they handle it.

Two other thoughts are that we're really in an age of multiparty politics. In the mayoral elections this is particularly clear. The West of England is most extreme: Labour won with 25% of the vote, Reform came second with 22%, Greens came third on 20%, Tories were on 16% and Lib Dems on 14%. But three of the others are three or four-way races. Our electoral system encourages and forces consolidation, it produces disproportionate results in a way that creates two party/big tent coalition politics - I'm not sure how it'll handle that level of fragmentation and volatility (I suspect, unpredictably).

The other is that there are brewing challenges for Labour who may face a similar pincer movement. This might come to a head next year when local elections will be in more Labour voting areas - there's a possibility that Reform will win the Senedd elections in Wales (which has a PR element too) and may win in other areas that are demographically like the North-East. But cities may swing Green - and my understanding is that a lot of the Gaza independents have been organising and there are more slightly communitarian independent campaigns forming. Obviously the war in Gaza has not ended and the India-Pakistan situation could cause further problems. So Labour may have a nightmare of Reform, Green and Muslim-focused independents doing well in different bits of Labour's heartlands.

Edit: I think the byelection matters less - mid-term and Starmer's unpopular. But the local background where the MP had to stand down after being convicted of punching a constituent was also pretty unhelpful

[Josquius]

Something interesting I read this morning - the greens have 200 more councillors than reform.
Though the way the media talks you'd think farage was now president.

As said they are going to be painful in some areas. Lincolnshire is going to suffer and the north east is really going to be sabotaged too.
But... There's hope. Lots of people do reject labours failures a bit more sensibly too.

[Gups]

Something interesting I read this morning - the greens have 200 more councillors than reform.
Though the way the media talks you'd think farage was now president.

As said they are going to be painful in some areas. Lincolnshire is going to suffer and the north east is really going to be sabotaged too.
But... There's hope. Lots of people do reject labours failures a bit more sensibly too.

Only 10% of seats were in play this time.