Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Sheilbh]

It wasn't in 1981 1981 was the nadir.

By the time of the Falklands, Thatcher's polling is already strongly recovering and after launching in 1981 with a lot of defections the momentum for the SDP has already stuttered and gone into reverse. It's there with right to buy etc in helping but the tide had already turned.

Incidentally the SDP/Alliance story is part of why I think momentum matters for parties trying to breakthrough so think this byelction matters.

Edit: But also I think the relevance of 1981 isn't that it was a mid-term government that recovered from dreadful polling - but rather that it was a new party out to break the mould that failed (for those other reasons). And I think that is the big question: are Reform and the Greens on the Labour Party trajectory or the SDP?

[mongers]

It wasn't in 1981 1981 was the nadir.

By the time of the Falklands, Thatcher's polling is already strongly recovering and after launching in 1981 with a lot of defections the momentum for the SDP has already stuttered and gone into reverse. It's there with right to buy etc in helping but the tide had already turned.

Incidentally the SDP/Alliance story is part of why I think momentum matters for parties trying to breakthrough so think this byelction matters.

Edit: But also I think the relevance of 1981 isn't that it was a mid-term government that recovered from dreadful polling - but rather that it was a new party out to break the mould that failed (for those other reasons). And I think that is the big question: are Reform and the Greens on the Labour Party trajectory or the SDP?

I'm not buying that, the war bought her the election victory.

[Richard Hakluyt]

The Labour manifesto also helped the Conservatives. Gerald Kaufman famously called it the "longest suicide note in history" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_longest_suicide_note_in_history

Given that it incorporated leaving the EEC (European Economic Community if we have any young readers present) I felt obliged, like many, to vote for a different party despite despising the Conservatives. It had other failings, principally it was too socialist for the country's taste and too isolationist for many socialists.

I also think that Reform may have shot their bolt though. Rupert Lowe and his Restore Britain party is outflanking them on the right. As a response, or possibly to keep money flowing in from right-wing American donors, Reform has gone large on anti-immigration policies that show precisely who they are https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/feb/22/reform-uk-ice-style-agency-end-leave-to-remain-zia-yusuf

The possibility of filthy ICE-style thugs patrolling Britain's streets will delight the true believers but maybe give the "we need a change" folks pause for for thought.

All these Reform and Restore Britain parties. I wonder if Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen could be persuaded to form a new party, Redecorate Britain, that could somehow weaken Reform's vote even further.

[HVC]

Prince Andrew guards may have disliked him

 https://www.instagram.com/reel/DVF9q6rjI9i

[Syt]

if we have any young readers present

Unless we have kids from some of our regulars lurking here I find that increasingly unlikely