Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[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.

[Sheilbh]

Incidentally on the Plaid minority government (and one of the linguistic differences with Scotland) every cabinet minister in their government speaks Welsh so cabinet meetings will be held in Cymraeg. Which will be a first since Owain Glyndwr's parliament six hundred years ago

It reflects the extraordinary survival of Welsh compared to Irish or Gaelic. Although not quite the same there was something slightly similar at the UK level. Lloyd George and his key civil servant aide (genuinely called Tom Jones ) were both native Welsh speakers and they'd speak Welsh when they wanted to have a private conversation during, say, the Paris Peace Conference or the Irish independence negotiations.

Edit: I'd add on the linguistic gulf it is really incredible. At university I knew someone whose first language was Welsh and didn't start learning English until he was eight. That is still possible in Wales in a way that isn't true even of the Gaeltacht. When I was growing up in Scotland my parents were quite involved in the language movement there (this is why I went to Feisean as a kid) and there were basically no Gaelic speakers in the area and I still think a weird degree of opposition to any attempt to revive Gaelic (including from nationalists). I've friends who are fluent Irish speakers and from a specific niche community in Ireland who are kind of in awe of and slightly baffled at the strength of Welsh despite not only a longer period of English conquest but actual annexation rather than just being in a union.

[Sheilbh]

By the by totally separate but just back to the local elections - I think this visualisation by the Economist was fantastic and really shows the valley of death Labour finds itself in (or the pincer movement from the Greens). On the left you basically have results from 2021-24 local elections - one crucial aspect there is that Reform weren't really a thing in those years. But it overlays both age and class:


Separately one of the most interesting set of results in England is in Suffolk. Historically Suffolk is very much classic Tory territory with a few swing Tory-Labour towns (like Ipswich). In the last election the Greens won a rural constituency there, Labour won a few more seats than normal but it was still fundamentally Labour or Tories in first and second place with Reform or the Greens in third.

The council elections this May:


I'm not sure we'll see many areas that directly have Reform-Green in competition, but I think it will become more common. The other thing that's interesting is this will change the narrative for both in this area - the Greens will be able to run as the anti-Reform/"stop Reform" party and Reform will be able to run as the anti-Greens/"stop the Greens" party. If that becomes more normal in other places too I think it starts to change the picture for both parties if they're able to face off against each other directly. It suddenly shifts the FPTP/tactical voting picture and Labour, the Tories or the Lib Dems become the splitters/wasted vote.

It's a really interesting area to watch. I also mentioned Birmingham a lot in the run-up to the election and it delivered in terms of a very fragmented council. The background here is a Labour council that basically had to declare bankruptcy and is in a long-running industrial dispute with bin workers. Basically the council had a massively overbudget IT project with Oracle that went into the hundreds of millions and then they lost an equal pay case over the pay for women in certain jobs (teachng assistants, caering staff and care workers) v bin workers. So there was another £1 billion plus compensation bill for that. The council's response for the future, given the budgetary situation (including the cost of compensation), was to cut the bin workers wages to the equivalent roles that were mainly women - which has resulted in long-running strikes by those workers. There are also areas with a large Muslim community where Labour have become very unpopular over Gaza as well as some troubling quite sectarian stuff (e.g. campaigning against mandatory sex education that includes LGBT people). This is Europe's largest council (and youngest city, I think) with a lot of positives and potential but very, very badly run by Labour for the las 20 years or so (and real old-school machine party politics).

So going into the election it was difficult to predict because you had Reform, Labour, the Greens, the Tories and Gaza independents all polling at between 15-25% - ending up with this council:


Negotiations are ongoing but it's really difficult to find a majority there. It looks like it'll be a minority rainbow coalition of Greens, Lib Dems plus some of the Gaza independents who were not part of the formal Independent Candidate Alliance with confidence and supply support from others. Reform ruled out any coalition and want to be in opposition. Labour have also said they won't agree to a coalition (I think they probably just want some time in opposition given that there's still a lot of mess to clean up/difficult choices for whoever is in charge) - but they might provide support for a minority administration. As, interestingly, might the Tories - the Metro-Mayor for the West Midlands region was, until recently, Andy Street who is a moderate Tory and there's quite a strong moderate/one nation party there that regularly worked with the Greens and Lib Dems in opposition to Labour. But again just another interesting example/possibility of what might be coming for the country as a whole (and not a million miles from Wales where there's no stable coalition possible).

[Valmy]

Kind of amazing how the two major parties can completely melt down and somehow the Lib Dems barely make any gains.

Seems pretty clear from everything you are showing me that despite claims that Labour is leaking from both ends the Greens propose far more of an existantial crisis to Labour than Reform. Reform is mostly eating the Tories. If Labour was only losing votes to Reform but helds its left flank strongly it seems to me it would still be the strongest party.

[Sheilbh]

Kind of amazing how the two major parties can completely melt down and somehow the Lib Dems barely make any gains.

Yeah it is. I think part of it is that both the Greens and Reform use different language for this but they attack the idea that there is a "uniparty" and basically it doesn't really matter whether you vote Tory or Labour or Lib Dem. Historically the Lib Dems were the outsider/none of the above/anti-establishment protest party but I think they've lost that vote having gone into coalition. And I'm not sure they'll get it back.

But there is leadership whispers in the Lib Dems that Ed Davey should be doing better and that his schtick which is doing stunts for attention has run its course. I also think it just sits slightly weirdly with the political moment we're in. It's very strange for a party leader to be walking on to his speech dancing to "(Centrist) daddy cool" and then dancing the macarena at the end, when the content of the speech is about democracy in danger and proposing an independent nuclear deterrent.

Seems pretty clear from everything you are showing me that despite claims that Labour is leaking from both ends the Greens propose far more of an existantial crisis to Labour than Reform. Reform is mostly eating the Tories. If Labour was only losing votes to Reform but helds its left flank strongly it seems to me it would still be the strongest party.

I don't know how you can conlcude that looking at the bottom quarter of where votes have gone (basically older and working class which is a large proportion of the country). As I say it's a pincer movement. I'd add that if you look at the polling on this Labour are shedding about as many votes to Reform and the Tories as they are to the Greens and Lib Dems - the problem is there are about twice as many seats were Reform are second than where the Greens are:


It is also worth flagging - as uncomfortable as it is for someone like me - that Reform, the Leave vote, the Greens and Corbyn have all managed to attract people who have previously not voted. In part they are all getting a vote out that other parties have just written off. And in part this is reflected in canvassing - you knock on doors to find out where your vote is and to make sure they turn out on voting day, you don't really try to convince people (just leave them a leaflet). Interestingly Reform in particular have developed a specific strategy of targeting canvassers on the "not planning to vote" where they basically pitch it as the other parties aren't interested in them - because it's kind of true if someone says that you mark it on your list and go to the next door.

To me this is just a repeat of the Tories in 2017-24 of whether they should shore up the right to protect against Brexit Party/Reform or the left against the Lib Dems/Labour. My view then, and now, is that it's a false dichotomy and they need to do both. I think it's applying the logic of stable, traditional two party politics to an emerging, fractured multi-party system (for now). The mistake is seeing it as an either/or - they need to do both and many of those voters have similar problems/critiques. And the Tories faced a similar pincer movement/valley of death with the Greens and Lib Dems taking certain votes from them, while Reform took other votes.

I think in the same way as the Tories were on to nothing by just trying to focus on their right flank it's comfort blanket politics but also I don't think it works when you've got a full-fat version right there. If you've got Farage who is very good at doing right-wing populism then he is always going to be able to out-flank the Tories and the more you chase that vote the more you lose on the other side. The same applies to Zack Polanski who ran as leader on a promise of eco-populism and is very good at it. Similarly both Reform and the Greens, strategically, want to replace the established party - so there is nothing Labour or the Tories can do that will get them on board. It's like Labour and the Liberals in the 1920s.

But in fairness I have a massive bias on this because I am also always instinctively suspicious of any analysis of politics that boils down to people thinking that if the government just did more of what they already want things would be fine. I instinctively tend more to the "blood on the carpet" school (to use Michael Portillo's phrase) that generally the answer involves challenging your own party's orthodoxies and shibboleths and doing things that are more difficult for them and not just retreating into the comfort zone.

FWIW it's one of the reasons why I like Burnham is that I think (and the polling bears this out) he has significantly more appeal to Green and Reform curious voters than anyone else in the Labour party. Part of that is just because he's the most popular politician in the country but I also think part of it is structural (again a bit like Boris Johnson) because while he was in cabinet and shadow cabinet etc he's been a mayor for the last 10 years. He is litally outside the Westminster bubble so able to make a critique/pitch that other candidates just can't. I also saw the lines from his speech earlier today and agree with them all.

(As I say I can't be trusted on Burnham - I've voted for him twice for leader. I really like him and it will be very disappointing if/when he fails )

[Valmy]

I just don't see how you appeal to both.

Seems like you have to go one way or the other. Otherwise to isn't it a bit like that quote about Civil Servants from Yes Minister: "I would have been passionately committed to keeping out of the Common Market, and passionately committed to going into it. I would have been utterly convinced of the rightness of nationalising steel. And of denationalising it and renationalising it. On capital punishment, I'd have been a fervent retentionist and an ardent abolishionist. I would've been a Keynesian and a Friedmanite, a grammar school preserver and destroyer, a nationalisation freak and a privatisation maniac"?

[Sheilbh]

Before I get into the grubby politics - just to note that a Jewish man is being treated in hospital for injuries after being attacked by a group of men in what the police are treating as an antisemitic hate crime. Again - two weeks after the stabbing attacks, within a month of multiple arson (or attempted arson) attacks on Jewish community buildings and infrastructure.

We have a very real problem.

I just don't see how you appeal to both.

Seems like you have to go one way or the other. Otherwise to isn't it a bit like that quote about Civil Servants from Yes Minister: "I would have been passionately committed to keeping out of the Common Market, and passionately committed to going into it. I would have been utterly convinced of the rightness of nationalising steel. And of denationalising it and renationalising it. On capital punishment, I'd have been a fervent retentionist and an ardent abolishionist. I would've been a Keynesian and a Friedmanite, a grammar school preserver and destroyer, a nationalisation freak and a privatisation maniac"?

The skill of a successful politician I would point out that in the polling this is already the case with Burnham. He is more popular with everyone but significantly more popular with Reform and Green voters than anyone else in Labour.

As I say there is evidence now of Reform-Green swing voters. I think part of this is that policy is the least important thing in politics, but people like us who follow it closely care and are interested in that stuff. Voters are vastly, vastly more heterodox. Reform voters really like nationalisation. Green voters are disgusted by Shabana Mahmood's immigration policy - except that if you list her policies rather than saying "Shabana Mahmood's immigration policy" then a majority of Green voters support every single policy she's implementing. So some of it, which I think good politicians can do, is working out how to tie that together.

I think some of it is about vibes - and that matters. As I say I think Burnham being a mayor outside of the Westminster bubble helps his vibe as a slightly outsider-y guy (which Polanski and Farage also have). I'd note that the Reform Mayor for Hull was asked about Burnham at the Great North Investment Summit (more on this in a minute) and agreed that he thought he would be a champion for the North as PM and said that while he's not had a deep chat with Burnham "he seems like a really nice guy to me" to which Burnham replied in kind. I think part of that is that mayors (like Governors perhaps) just have a different vibe to MPs.

I also read at the weekend about Starmer feeling it's important to not show when he's enjoying the job because he needs to look like he's taking it seriously. I have no evidence for this but I think that's nonsense - I think the pained, conscientious type doesn't work with the public (Gordon Brown, John Major, Sunak, May, Starmer). I think the public like and respond to people who look like they're enjoying themselves/happy warriors (Burnham, Farage, Polanski, Johnson, Blair and Cameron - I think Badenoch is increasingly in this camp too). I sort of think we have this in our own lives with bosses etc - but I think more technocratic leaders think the public will warm to the projection of seriousness. But I think it actually can read as weakness and, especially in serious times, you need a bit of energetic hopefulness and relish in what is a public facing job. Plus Burnham I think seems authentic and that matters a lot in this age.

But also I think Burnham made a speech today at the Great Northern Investment Summit. It was kind of technocratic and wonky but had a fundamental argument about the failures of repeated governments over the last 40 years and returning control and power to local democratic government. This stuff is boring but I think it is really important to anti-system voters if you can show the system changes, it can work and it can be responsive - but I think it needs exactly the sort of reform Burnham's talking about of rebalancing a "bloated central government and a malnourished local government".

I think for what it's worth there is a bit of a consensus emerging on a lot of economic/big picture issues within a post-Starmer Labour. On the one hand I think there is an acceptance of a need for a pro-business/supply-side element to it particularly around planning reform, that taxes are too focused on work (particularly payroll taxes) and that there is a need for fiscal rules/discipline. But on the other side I think there is a desire for far more investment (with more fiscal-monetary coordination), bringing utilities, transport, housing etc into public, democratic control (or, ideally, ownership) plus an industrial strategy and, perhaps, a bit of national preference. I think it's basically realising that the options available during QE and 0% interest rates no longer exist, but that the privatise and regulate economy plus weak investment isn't sustainable. There's many areas of question and doubt but I think there's a coherent set of ideas there (that Burnham's articulated for a while) and I think if you can show it working, that it would appeal to both Reform and Green.

I also think there is a lot of what the current government's done that could, if better communicated, help (particularly with the Greens) - eg the recogntion of Palestine and arms embargo on Israel, the significant increase in public spending (which is seeing an impact on the NHS), gradual renationalisation of railways, state investment in publicly owned renewables etc. Especially as I think a lot of that could be going an awful lot faster under a more focused leader. As I say I think Starmer's government in policy terms has basically been soft left - and you could easily imagine Corbyn supporters out there arguing for this agenda as in Harold Wilson's broad cabinets. But the people around Starmer were very, very factional - you're still seeing it too with the frankly unhinged attacks on Burnham by parts of the Labour right like Luke Akehurst or Neil Coyle (a disgrace that he's still an MP). But they were obsessed with trying to force Diane Abbott out the party.