THE prolific and sensible Matt Goodwin – a real political scientist – reckons there is a political revolution underway in the United Kingdom.
He argues that the two-party system is ‘goneski’:
‘We are, in short, witnessing a full-blown political revolution against the establishment.’
Yes, he is a Reform UK protagonist, but he is also a realist. And he is good at reading the national mood in the mother country.
He isn’t just relying on YouGov polling, which shows Reform UK sitting at 29 per cent of the vote, Labour at 22 per cent and the Tories at 17 per cent. This, of course, follows the recent British local council elections and the Runcorn and Helsby by-election, which saw Reform knock off Labour in one of its safest seats and, in doing so, reverse massively the result at the 2024 General Election.
Those numbers are both impressive (depending on where you sit) and significant. Why? Britain has a First-Past-the-Post electoral system. No need to worry about preferences if you are in front. The YouGov numbers, if repeated at the next election, would deliver Reform the government in Britain and a healthy majority in the House of Commons.
Goodwin again:
‘Were these numbers replicated at a general election, they would give Nigel Farage and Reform close to 350 seats and a majority of 40, Labour would lose close to 270 seats and be reduced to just 143, while the Tories would crash and burn, reduced to a couple of dozen or so seats. It would be like nothing we have ever seen before.
‘It would represent the transformation of the two-party system that has governed this country for the last hundred years, with Reform emerging as the second major party in an increasingly volatile and fragmented two-party system.’
There are caveats, of course:
- One electoral swallow doesn’t make a summer. By-elections are notoriously outlier events.
- There is the fact that the next election is still four years off. If a week is a long time in politics (see under Canberra), four years is an eternity.
- The two major parties might well have new leaders by then. Given the Tories’ recent practice, they might have four or five. The hated Starmer must surely be gone by then.
- It is also possible (though unlikely) that the Government might actually come to its senses and address the concerns of voters, like the cost of living, the Net Zero-driven energy crisis, and the migrant catastrophe.
- Finally, Reform’s recent tendency towards internal bickering and Nigel Farage’s almighty ego might bring Reform back to earth.
So, it isn’t a done deal. Reform currently has five seats out of 650: not much of a resource base, and the fickle punters might not stay the distance, especially if some of the causes of their hatred of the established parties dissipate over the intervening time.
Anything is possible. But things are looking up, finally, in the mother of democracies. It seems that the huge minority, perhaps the majority, might finally be in sight of a government that governs for them and not for unelected global elites and assorted bad actors headquartered offshore, and with no regard for what they would, no doubt, describe as ‘little Britain’.
Flick the switch to down under.
Where to start? The Aussie voters have just given an awful Labour government a thumping victory and a second term. The once promising leader of the Liberal opposition lost his seat after an awful campaign, which may or may not have been sabotaged by internal forces who prefer Net Zero climate policy and Net Zero impact on politics to time in government.
In his place, his party has just elected… a woman! Of course. Her name is Sussan Ley, a moderate. In other words, a leftie. Meanwhile, the Nationals have given up the chance for real change and real impact, by returning the ineffectual, two-faced leader, David Littleproud, for another stint at irrelevancy. One of the most promising of the coalition stars (Jacinta Price) has completely ballsed up her career by switching parties. All this after a (predicted) pathetic showing from the insurgent parties, who struggled to get votes and remain a long way short of seats in the Parliament.
As I say, a week or two is a long time in politics.
Australia remains mired, worse than ever, trapped in a uniparty tyranny without any obvious hope. With nearly a third of the electorate effectively unrepresented, the $64,000 question is this: Why have the Brits figured a way out of the political maze, and we haven’t?
Both countries have experienced, at best, ineffectual, and at worst, tyrannical conservative-in-name-only rule over an extended period. Each has had multiple, increasingly awful prime ministerships. Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss, Sunak, versus Abbott, Turnbull, Morrison. Now, it is Badenoch and the newbie Australian, Sussan with three s’s.
Each nation has gone woke right across the board. Each has embraced ‘online safety legislation’ that is crushing free speech. Each imposed covid madness on their people, and the major parties in both countries have gotten away scot-free. Each has engaged in war-party boosterism over far-away conflicts. The economies of each are battered beyond recognition as a result of government action and inaction. Mark Latham’s assessment is spot on:
‘Australia is in the first stage of long-term economic decline. Post covid, there has been a sharp decline in the number of productive people and productive workplaces, and a sharp, seemingly permanent, increase in the welfare and black economy. I would estimate that the proportion of genuinely productive Australians in their workplaces has fallen from 40 per cent to less than one-quarter in the space of just five years… Mediocrity in Canberra means the best of our country is now behind us. Albanese has spent an extra $190billion in just 3 years, yet living standards have gone backwards by 10 per cent. Any random bloke at the local pub could have done better with all that money.’
You can read his outstanding analysis here.
Could any Brit say that their economy is any different in shape and direction from that described herein?
First, the Brits have focused, canny, charismatic Farage, and we don’t. We merely have bickering micro-parties without strategy or unity.
Two, the Brits have an existential crisis in the form of highly visible massive illegal (and legal) immigration. It affects people across the land in awful ways, every day of their lives, like systemic child rapes. We don’t.
Three, we didn’t have a Brexit event, which encouraged more focused, insurgent politics and forged new alliances.
Four, the Brits, pre-Brexit, had the European parliament to which they sent outsider politicians, who from that vantage point gained profile and prestige at home. Notably Farage, but also Rupert Lowe and Ben Habib. We have preferential voting, so a party with scarcely a third of the primary vote can still get a landslide. (Of course, so did Starmer last time). In Australia, the Greens, a more potent force than in the UK, sucked up many votes from centrists as well as their own ‘watermelon’ loonies and saboteurs.
The problem here is, who is in charge of the go-forward resistance? There is no one. The Liberal Party is shot, a busted flush. Its best minds (Alex Antic, Tony Abbott) are still committed to extending the mainstream party agony. They simply don’t accept that it is all over for Menzies’ child. The alt-media commentator, Damian Coory of The Other Side, put it succinctly: two parties into one just doesn’t go, like mixing chocolate milk with kombucha, as he did on screen.
Like the UK’s Conservative Party, Australia’s Liberal Party in its current form cannot survive. Who will deliver the last rites? The Nationals have made their own pact with Satan. This week’s leadership vote sealed the deal. They had one chance, with the insurgent Matt Canavan. They made their choice and blew their last hope.
Talk among some conservative pundits has turned to who will be Australia’s Nigel Farage. Who will spearhead ‘Reform Oz’? Here is Michael de Percy at The Spectator Australia:
‘Some see Gerard Rennick as the leader of such a movement, but with his pending defeat by One Nation’s Malcolm Roberts in the Senate, Rennick has been unable to do what Pauline Hanson did after she was disendorsed by the Liberal Party in 1996.
‘If there is any chance of a Reform Oz party, it would be via One Nation, but it couldn’t do so with the moniker “Pauline Hanson’s One Nation”.’
Perhaps there is, lurking somewhere, a broad-based ‘dream team’. The stellar Senators Babet and Roberts must be part of any emergent force.
Much deeper analysis and self-reflection is required. It isn’t just a matter of who to pick as ‘the leader’. Most compellingly, the micros haven’t been able to work toTitle
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gether so far, so why would they now? George Christensen, too, has looked in depth at this question of the nature of the way forward.
Viva la revolution! Perhaps in Britain, come 2029. Not in Australia, though.
