Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Sheilbh]

It is a bit risky isn't it?  If Burnham loses in the by election to Reform, won't that completely nuke all the talk of him as a savior of the Labour party?  And make their leadership squabbles even worse?

Yeah.

He's betting the house and I admire the boldness and elan of it. There is a sense of political drama here that I think is important. I kind of love it and I actually think it's better to run in this type of seat with genuine risk.

There has never been a by-election like this - and generally they don't matter. This one absolutely does. It's proof of concept of Burnham's pitch, it's someone running on an explicit expectation that they'd immediately challenge the sitting Prime Minister for the leadership (and if he wins his seat he would absolutely win).

If he loses - that's it for him as a leadership contender (he would still be mayor). But also there's no doubt in my mind that Streeting and a candidate of the soft left (probably Miliband) would immediately challenge Starmer and Starmer would fight on. I think the "orderly transition" route is only possible with Burnham.

[mongers]

It is a bit risky isn't it?  If Burnham loses in the by election to Reform, won't that completely nuke all the talk of him as a savior of the Labour party?  And make their leadership squabbles even worse?

Yeah.

He's betting the house and I admire the boldness and elan of it. There is a sense of political drama here that I think is important. I kind of love it and I actually think it's better to run in this type of seat with genuine risk.

There has never been a by-election like this - and generally they don't matter. This one absolutely does. It's proof of concept of Burnham's pitch, it's someone running on an explicit expectation that they'd immediately challenge the sitting Prime Minister for the leadership (and if he wins his seat he would absolutely win).

If he loses - that's it for him as a leadership contender (he would still be mayor). But also there's no doubt in my mind that Streeting and a candidate of the soft left (probably Miliband) would immediately challenge Starmer and Starmer would fight on. I think the "orderly transition" route is only possible with Burnham.

And neither of those two has any real chance of defeating Farage/Deformed in a general election.

[Sheilbh]

I have a question about Burnham. Where has this consensus come from that he is the savior of the nation? I do generally only see positive things about him but I also saw he is a two-time leadership contest failure.

Yeah - so I am a Burnham fan. I supported both of his previous leadership bids. But he did fail and they weren't great at ideas or communication - I think both times he basically came across as just an identikit New Labour candidate but Northern (including the legendary moment when he got a softball "getting to know you question" in an interview asking what was his favourite biscuit and he said "chips and gravy" ).

That criticism is fair. And there's a lot of people in the Labour Party who don't really like him. I think the gag about a Blairite, Brownite, Milibandite and Corbynite walking into a bar and a barman asking "what would you like, Andy?" - that is also kind of true. There is a view within Labour (which I think is justified) that he's basically an opportunist and shallow. Hsving said that I think everyone would agree he is a strong communicator (especially compared to Starmer) and a very effective mayor, as well as tribune for the wider region.

I think that perhaps shallow opportunism is kind of what makes Burnham interesting to me. I think he has genuinely "gone on a journey". This is where I slightly think the bond market stuff is a little overblown. He is still Tessa Jowell's SpAd, David Blunkett's protege and Chief Secretary of the Treasury under Alistair Darling. I think all of that is still there, but I think he has understood the ways in which politics and the world have changed since 2010 and 2015 when he was in many ways just continuity New Labour. I also think his experience as Mayor is really important and interesting - he was in a multi-year judicial review battle with bus companies to try and impose/build the Bee Network which took a lot of time, but he won and has worked/been very effective. He is fully aware of the challenges/ways the centre etc get in the way/are obstacles to change. I think he has experience and a theory of issues in actually doing things that goes way beyond the Westminster standard.

But I think that combination of coming from the right of the party while appealing to the left of the party is part of what reminds me of Boris Johnson (in a complimentary way). And I think it's also mirrored in Manchester and "Manchesterism". As RH points out Burnham was building on twenty years of work by, I'd argue, the greatest municipal and civic leadership in this country since the war. The bit of Manchesterism Burnham likes to talk about is the public control piece - the bit he doesn't is that it's growth through development so they're very pro-building (within a plan) and in partnership with private sector developers to build up the city (as Sir Richard Leese put it in a diagnosis of the problem for Manchester and the North: "as an unabashed socialist, I am concerned with the distribution of wealth, but if you don't create any in the first place it is a bit of an empty discussion"). There's a Verso book last year (which in't great) about Manchester as Britain's "neoliberal metropolis"/"rentier city". He has a record in Manchester of working with everyone pretty effectively and getting things done (I've seen some Reform people and Tories from local government saying they've worked well with Burnham) - and you can do that at a city level. Which is why at the last Manchester election he didn't just win a majority in every borough - he won in every single ward in the region. Again I think this is why he's interesting because I think he is fully aware of that.

I think you slightly see jitters around this in the crown prince of the Labour right stepping down to give Burnham a chance with the slight doubts on the hard left (see Diane Abbott, Owen Jones, Jon Trickett etc) of quite what Burnham means/would do.

I also just want to mention that I think there's something interesting with him and Johnson of the way mayoralties are changing British politics. In part I think because they promote a slightly different type of politics/politician. But they also give a route for an established politician from an established party to be an outsider. I'm not sure this is the end of it and think that it may well have constitutional implications of how and where we pick our leaders from - and I think it's a good thing. I'm not sure how it'll play out and historically strong local government leadership was a base for national politics (the Chamberlains in Birmingham, Attlee in Poplar) - but I think this is something slightly new emerging. It reminds me more of Governors in the US (or maybe Lander leaders in Germany?) of sub-national politics being a place where you can do something "differently" and go from just being a shadow cabinet minister in opposition to actually an "executive" with a record.

Edit: I think on the mayoralty point it also gives you a space within the party/politics that is slightly removed from the Westminster fights. So Johnson was basically always able to operate as loyal opposition within the Tories during Cameron's leadership - his speech would be the one party activists looked forward to at conference but it was slightly orthogonal to actual fights within government/party leadership. Similarly Burnham goes to become mayor of Manchester in 2017 and is basically able to sit out much of the Corbyn wars. Second jobs used to play this role - I think I've mentioned before but part of the reason John Smith was such a popular, unifying figure within Labour is that he was QC with an active practice who worked on several high-profile murder cases during Labour's 1980s civil wars.

One other point on why I'm a Burnham fan is I actually think it's good for our politics to have people who have (1) been around for a long time in different jobs and (2) failed. I think both of those are pretty positive things and give useful experience. This was the norm until very recently when there's been a trend to choose less "tainted" leaders. I actually think seeing politics from government and opposition, trying something different, coming back from adversity etc are good experiences for a political leader. It's why I find the whole Al Carns thing absolutely preposterous.

And neither of those two has any real chance of defeating Farage/Deformed in a general election.

I'm not so sure on that. I think the most underpriced (and in my view most likely outcome) even with Starmer in charge would be a rainbow coalition/"progressive alliance" having the seats to govern (I think it's unlikely they could agree a formal coalition and I think they'd want Starmer's head). There is a very strong anti-Farage and Reform vote and voters are smart - there's already evidence of tactical voting. Plus Reform still seem to have plateaued - they're down in the polls from where they were a year ago (Reform-Green swing voters are a real thing) and even in the local elections winning 1,000+ new councillors is a huge step forward organisationally, but their vote share was down and they were at the lower end of expectations.

I think a rainbow coalition and the start of a Tory fightback are both seriously underpriced (in part because so much of our commentary is always very present-ist).

[Sheilbh]

Also, Streeting. Why?

Because it is his long standing dream?

See the clip of him in 2018 predicting he'd be Prime Minister in ten years

He is a good communicator and was doing well at Health. He's from the Labour right - I'm not sure there's much there beyond re-heated Blairism for an utterly different set of conditions that would make that a failure. But I think he's got more of a theory and vision than Starmer and he has a base in the party.

And he's not going away. Even if Bunham wins he might still run to make sure there's some debate about ideas/policy. And he will cause problems - see his call for re-joining the EU at a speech at Progress today which I'd suggest is not helpful when Burnham's walked back his own support for that as he's trying to win a 65% Leave Labour/Reform swing constituency. There's no better way to both raise your profile/support among Labour members while (plausibly deniably) ratfucking Burnham than bigging up your pro-EU credentials right at thsi very moment (And that's a playbook the Labour Right have run before - see Starmer's history shadowing Brexit negotiations to build his profile/support while undermining his leader). I have slight vibes of Wes Streeting as a bit like the Tony Benn of the Labour right.

[Sheilbh]

The LRB podcast has a good analysis - and a devastating rebuke of Starmer, including in the introductory comments:

"He's delivered a speech that's very long on values and various cliches, warning that the country will go down a very dark path if the party doesn't get it together and declaring that incremental change won't cut it.
Then announcing a series of incremental changes"

I would just add the Monday speech is apparently what really kicked Labour determination to remove Starmer up a gear. The point here is true - I would add that many of those incremental changes were also things that had already been announced. This was one of Badenoch's points on the King's speech noting it provides for the end of NHS England (basically the quango running the NHS) which is a very good policy. But it was first announced 14 months ago.

But the line that really pissed off Labour MPs and was getting cited a lot was about nationalisation of British Steel (also previously announced), because Starmer immediately followed it with: "subject to a public interest test". And "subject to a public interest test" feels like it rather sums up his entire premiership/approach to politics. (FWIW I think the legal point is that requirement comes from European law so I think he was probably signalling this wouldn't break that position.)

[Josquius]

Greens are saying they'll fight Burnham for the seat.
Caroline Lucas, ex green leader, is calling this out saying its a mistake and they should put country above party.
I do hope something can be worked out there. Burnham puts his pro PR views a bit stronger in exchange for them sitting out.

[Tamas]

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/may/17/terminally-ill-people-rankin-london-demand-revival-assisted-dying-bill


Without trying to reignite the forced-to-suffer debate between me and Sheilbh, this is a good example of why, despite the occasional good thing they do, the House of Lords need to go or change.

There was a bill passed by the elected representatives, then effectively killed by unelected people.

This is absolutely not democratic.

[Sheilbh]

It wasn't in anyone's manifesto so the elected represesntatives did not take this to the people and don't have a democratic mandate for it. MPs don't have a general democratic mandate to do whatever they want just because they're elected - they have a mandate to do what they ran on and what they told the people they would.

Also I think this goes to the disingenuity of the assisted dying campaigners. Many of the supporters and actual sponsors of this bill in the House of Commons explicitly made the point that MPs who supported the idea in principle but had concerns about the bill should vote for it because the House of Lords would fix it. Many MPs in their speechse said they had concerns but would support it moving to the House of Lords so that they could fix it.

The Dignity in Dying campaign camp, particularly Lord Falconer then pushed back against any amendments or any time to try and fix the issues. So in the democratic house they told people not to worry and just vote for it because the undemocratic house would fix the issues, then in the undemocratic house they told people to stop trying to amend it because it had already passed the democratic house. You can't have it both ways (I'd also add that many, such as Lord Falconer, were very vocal in hoping the Lords would reject various pieces of Brexit legislation which at least reflected manifesto commitments).

I would add that basically a very similar bill has recently been rejected by the unicameral Scottish Parliament - and the same issue had where people raised concerns and were worried about the details of the law. The supporters wouldn't engage and the concerns grew up to MSPs voting it down.

[Tamas]

Surely though the anti-suffering campaigners when they referenced the Lords they didn't mean it would be pummelled into oblivion into the legislative version of a DoS attack.

[Sheilbh]

Greens are saying they'll fight Burnham for the seat.
Caroline Lucas, ex green leader, is calling this out saying its a mistake and they should put country above party.
I do hope something can be worked out there. Burnham puts his pro PR views a bit stronger in exchange for them sitting out.

I think this depends on the goal of the Greens. In my view Polanski's goal is and (given where he's got them to) probably should be to replace Labour. That was the tag line on leaflets in my area "Stop Reform, Replace Labour". If that's the goal then they need to fight them everywhere as Labour did to the Liberals (much to the shocked disappointment of bien pensant liberals). I think there's maybe an argument that they stand but don't really contest. But I think not standing would basically be admitting that their goal is to be a junior partner to a Labour government - and I think they're more ambitious than that.

On the other hand I think if the Greens (or the Lib Dems) were seen to properly fight and Burnham loses by a whisker then I think that's the end of any progressive alliance strategy in the near run. Burnham is most sympathetic to that strategy and he'd be gone and the blame would fall on the Greens (or Lib Dems).

And you can see how that helps Streeting's goal too. He didn't cause issues for Burnham's run by launching a leadership campaign (but did by firing the opening shot on the post-Starmer leadership race launching yesterday as a rejoin candidate). If Burnham then loses Makerfield then the soft left are losers, it becomes seen as impossible to win back Reform voters and demoralised Labour members want something to believe. Wes and the Labour right swoop in on a rejoin platform - all of that is even easier with a "stab in the back" angle about the Greens.

[Sheilbh]

Surely though the anti-suffering campaigners when they referenced the Lords they didn't mean it would be pummelled into oblivion into the legislative version of a DoS attack.

But the exact same process has happened in the Scottish Parliament with a different legislative process. They've refused to engage in the House of Lords or the Scottish Parliament to work on amendments or deal with people's concerns.

To be honest I think it's been a disastrous campaign. Dignity in Dying went for a fairly maximalist bill. And honestly I think they are so convinced of their own moral case that they just can't understand and won't engage with any criticism or can only conceive of either bad faith or religious criticism which they won't countenance.

Every single disability charity in the country has come out against this bill, so have the anti-domestic violence charities - not to mention the Royal Colleges (basically trade bodies for medical professionals). In almost every case those groups have said they are broadly neutral and some are supportive of the principle of assisted dying. Supporters of the bill have not been willing to work with or engage with those groups either in England through the House of Lords doing amendments or in Scotland.

I'd add that this is reflected in the polls too. There is very broad support for the principle of assisted dying. That diminishes to a small minority when the actual provisions (or lack of them) in this bill are set out.

[mongers]

Turns out doing a 45 mile round trip bike ride to Salisbury station is the nearest we have to a native British rain-dance .

[Zanza]

Let's assume Reform wins Westminster in 2029 or so. What would you expect as effect on nationalist movements in Wales, Northern Ireland or Scotland? Strengthen or smother them?

[Maladict]

Mongers, is this a common coping mechanism for living in Wiltshire?

https://youtube.com/shorts/sGsbiIUEWyw

[Sheilbh]

Let's assume Reform wins Westminster in 2029 or so. What would you expect as effect on nationalist movements in Wales, Northern Ireland or Scotland? Strengthen or smother them?

I think it varies.

So in Northern Ireland I don't think it matters very much. It's wrong to say Northern Irish politics is confessional but it sort of is, including as in other post-conflict societies like Bosnia and Lebanon with formalised mandatory power-sharing. The politics aren't particularly responsive to wider British politics (none of the GB parties run in Northern Ireland) and are broadly more tied to whether you identify as Irish or British. There basically aren't any nationalist-unionist swing voters. You might see the growth of the Alliance Party which is neutral on that issue. But I don't think Reform winning in GB changes the extent to which people feel British or Irish.

Scotland I think it's likely to help the SNP - but it's less clear. The SNP have been the governing party of Scotland since 2007. So they'll have been in office for over 20 years and they don't have a great record. They were behind Labour until Starmer's unpopularity blew it all up and the expectation until the start of this year was that you'd probably end up with a Lab-Lib coalition. Worth noting here that while they're sister parties and allies, the Green Party of Scotland is separate from the Green Party of England and Wales (led by Polanksi) and the Scottish Greens are nationalist.

I think that collapse in the Labour vote and disappointment in the SNP sort of played out in the Scottish election in May. From the last election the SNP won 6 fewer seats but Labour also won 5 fewer seats and the Tories really collapsed winning 19 fewer. The big winners were Reform who gained 17 seats and became the third party, followed by the Greens and Lib Dems who won 7 and 6 more seats respectively. In practical terms it meant the governing party lost some seats but the nationalist bloc had a net gain of one seat while the unionist opposition fractured. But also turnout fell by about 10% in Scotland (while it seems to have increased by 10%+ in Wales and English local elections) - which again to me indicates a disappointment/disengagement with the options available.

So if Reform were to win in 2029 I think the big question would be the extent to which Scottish politics still revolved around the question of independence v Reform. Basically would Reform be seen as a unionist party other unionists could support (there is a fair amount of evidence of tactical voting between unionist parties in the constituency vote in Scotland) or would other unionists swing SNP or (far less likely) Green in order to tactically oppose Reform. I'm not sure that necessarily changes the dial on support for independence which has basically been 50/50 since the IndyRef. My instinct is people would lend their votes to nationalists to oppose Reform - and I think there's some evidence of that in these elections because Reform did not win a single constituency. So all 17 of their seats were via the regional top-up lists.

I think that's also similarly the case with Wales and Wales is really interesting. The Welsh independence movement is far less developed than in Scotland and Plaid's current ambition is to "start the conversation" about independence. There's also regional and linguistic divides in Wales that don't really apply to Scotland, which may have an impact for Plaid. Wales changed its electoral system this election from basically the same as Scotland (which is like what Germany used to have) with constituencies plus regional lists to pure PR (cynics suggested this was a last ditch attempt by the Welsh Labour government to save themselves) - so comparisons are difficult particularly because the Senedd went from a 60 seat body to 96 seat. But Plaid came first with 43 seats in the Senedd, Reform came second with 34, Welsh Labour collapsed and won just 9 followed by the Tories who won 7 and the Greens and Lib Dems each picked up one or two seats.

So Welsh independence is a less developed movement, Reform are a stronger party in Wales (and, indeed, Wales also voted Leave) and in many ways the bigger story in Wales seems to be the absolute collapse of the established parties. So in a lot of ways I think Wales is suggestive of what is happening/might happen in England - in both the Senedd and English local elections, turnout was up suggesting a degree of enthusiasm in punishing the established parties. In the run up to the Senedd elections Reform actually hoped to come first -  worth noting that the leader of Plaid Cymru, Rhun ap Iorwerth, is also very charismatic (former journalist for BBC Cymru) and comes across very well. There's been some interesting polling that suggests the reason Plaid did so well wasn't necessarily because of any change in views on independence but because they were seen as the "stop Reform" party - but the flipside is that Reform are already the second party in Wales.

So assuming that Reform win in 2029 that probably means there's a fair few Welsh Reform seats (if you just put poll numbers into one of the electoral calculators I think Reform are the biggest party in Wales). For that reason I think Wales is particularly interesting because I think it might be a preview of the next general election. Voters are smart and sophisticated and able to use tactical voting to deliver the results they want and I think in the same way as Plaid became the "stop Reform" party I suspect that will be happening in very many constituencies across the country in the next election and I think there's a similar dynamic emerging in Scotland.

On the big picture I don't think there's any likely change in the near term in Northern Ireland just because of demographics. I think the very idea/conversation about independence will have started in Wales but I doubt it will have got much further than that. In Scotland, the Scottish government is already pushing for another referendum and they would push even more if Reform won - they may have a stronger democratic case for that after the 2030 Scottish elections if the SNP can win a majority, as they did in 2011.