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November 2, 2024 - 8:00am
It’s easy for Westminster politicians to ignore council by-elections. But Keir Starmer — and the next Tory leader, for that matter — should pay attention to Bilston North, a ward in the West Midlands.
Local residents have just elected their first Reform UK councillor. The Right-wing party came from nowhere to win 35% of the vote, snatching the seat from Labour — which crashed from 63% of the vote to just 25%.
Local MP — and Government minister — Pat McFadden ought to be worried that a ward right in the middle of his constituency has swung so decisively against his party. Until this week, Bilston North was solidly Labour. The same goes for the whole constituency: unlike the two other Wolverhampton seats, which were won by the Conservatives in 2019, Wolverhampton South East was immune to Boris Johnson’s charms. In fact, it’s returned a Labour MP at every general election since 1974. This is therefore not a typical Red Wall constituency, but instead a part of Labour’s heartland — or what one might call the Red Keep.
For Labour, an especially worrying feature of the Bilston North result is that the party was simultaneously squeezed by the Greens, which almost doubled their vote share from 12% to 23%. In this case the Left-Right pincer movement delivered the ward to Reform, but with only slightly different dynamics a Left-wing party might win instead.
Far from just being a local council result, Bilston North provides a microcosm of the bigger picture: multi-party politics under a first-past-the-post electoral system. When the main parties struggle to exceed 30% in the polls, let alone 40%, we should expect the unexpected — even in safe seats.
The general election provided several examples of what might go wrong for Labour in a rapidly changing electoral landscape. On 4 July, the Greens won Bristol Central. Muslim Independents — plus Jeremy Corbyn — elbowed out Labour in five further seats. George Galloway’s Workers Party of Britain came within a whisker of defeating a string of high-profile Labour candidates. The five Reform MPs won in previously Conservative-held seats, but the party came very close in Labour-held seats such as Llanelli. Indeed, Reform came second in 98 seats, of which 89 are Labour-held.
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SubscribeThe problem is a two-party system with no appreciable difference between them. Of course, voters will choose any other alternative. I suspect that we shall see many more similar results.
All depends on whether the new Tory leader – to be announced today, with Badenoch as favourite – can put real distance between the two main parties.
It would take a massive swing to break the system though because of FPTP.
I do think the budget has created a chasm between Labour & everyone else, so well did they disguise their true intentions, to the extent that we have already moved on from identikit politicians / Governments. The Tories have been gifted a way back, if they use Labours faux pas wisely and ensure trying to be Labour Lite is consigned to History. But for now, it is for Reform to run out of steam. And that Farage is a canny lad…..
When Kier Starmer hides from the British public the fact that biological weapons are being produced in a house in England, confidence in him fades fast.
Or Starmer’s new friends in the police and his old friends in the CPS could use new hate speech laws to tie up any and all challenger party candidates in investigations and attempted prosecutions. It won’t matter if anyone goes to jail, just the smear will be enough.
Can’t happen? Every single police force in the country dedicates dozens of officers to monitoring Facebook and X. We saw how comprehensive this monitoring now is when social media posts (now known to be factually correct) viewed by less than 100 friends was enough to be picked up by the police and brought to trial in less than 72 hours.
Meanwhile, Ofcom is fining broadcasters for news programmes that aren’t *sufficiently* balanced in their subjective opinion. But only when that balance is not supportive of Labour. A Labour MP being interviewed by their former Labour MP husband is totally balanced according to Ofcom. But a panel show where Labour are invited but refuse to show can now be judged illegal by Ofcom if they simply “feel” it’s not balanced.
Badenoch and Farage need to promise to repeal all hate speech statute
And the equality law should go or be radically amended so that it is truly about equality rather than division.
……. The right wing party. Good to see that the suffixes have been dropped. Any party that listens to the electorate will be seen as an alternative and Reform is far better that DEI Starmer…and his two tier love of minorities over the majority
Zia.Yousef is devoting time, brains and money to building a ground-up political.organisation.. I’m not sure political watchers have caught on to what is being quietly done if.measured.by local offices,recruitment, org structure and investment in political strategy – they are in serious start-up mode with plenty of VC funding. This is no longer a single issue flag of convenience group. If successful, these by election toppings will.give way to serious slices of electoral cake, perhaps breaking the FPTP system on the way.
Agree – think NF has said he expects ZY to lead Reform Party at some point, perhaps sooner than later.
This is weapons-grade drivel. Zia.Yousef (a Muslim millionaire) bought his way onto the party board. Fast-forward to Farage’s interview with GB News’ Steven Edginton, when he answered ‘No’ to two critically important questions from Edginton. These were:
And:
For a politician and party leader who has made his career tapping into justified anger over mass immigration to turn around and give negative answers to such critical questions about a subject which is the main issue for Reform’s supporters, is nothing short of disastrous.
The interview also gave us such clangers as:
His answer?
He then followed this up with:
So, which is it? If his comments were taken out of context, as some have implied, he still has not clarified them. Which leads me and many others to suspect that this is his genuine viewpoint. If so, he has dangerously misread the room. Whether Reform like it or no, they are effectively the party of British identity, not British ‘values’, whatever they are. Tolerance isn’t a value. It isn’t even a virtue, except for those without convictions. Chesterton was right when he wrote that in 1908, and he’s even more right today.
I agree entirely. But what are you suggesting? That we should vote Tory, the Party responsible for the immigration catastrophe of the past 14 years?
I am certainly not suggesting that anyone should vote Tory, for exactly the reason you outline (and more besides). I’m currently considering UKIP and the SDP. Their leaders, Nick Tenconi and William Clouston, seem to have the strength of their convictions and espouse a more traditional British identity rooted in Christianity and socially conservative values. A good starting point, seeing as the bar is so low it might as well be at the bottom of the North Sea.
A conservative counterrevolution is a difficult task to attempt. It is even less likely to succeed. Yet two historical examples did succeed in Portugal and Rhodesia. Salazar and Smith stood opposed to any and all attempts to dilute their countries’ respective identities (Rhodesia in particular was known for being ‘more British than the British’). Following their examples, we need to unite all culturally conservative people in a vehicle which is explicitly not a political party, but which can drive forwards the project of cultivating a new elite. Various thinkers around Trump have recognised the urgency of this with Project 2025. Hungary under Oban is also developing a new elite for the future.
We are, however, running out of time on all fronts, not least the demographic front. State-sanctioned multiculturalism denies the existence of the English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish (and Northern Irish) peoples as distinct cultural entities with a right to their own unified homelands in the UK and the Republic of Ireland. It is increasingly likely that we are not going to be able to vote our way out of this. The aftermath of the protests in the wake of the horror that unfolded in Southport, and the absolute contempt which the uniparty/establishment has for the concerns of ordinary people whom it disregards as ‘far right’, tells us that much. I take no pleasure in saying this, but that is the reality of the situation we are in. The stakes are now existential.
I am certainly not suggesting that anyone should vote Tory, for exactly the reason you outline (and more besides). I’m currently considering UKIP and the SDP. Their leaders, Nick Tenconi and William Clouston, seem to have the strength of their convictions and espouse a more traditional British identity rooted in Christianity and socially conservative values. A good starting point, seeing as the bar is so low it might as well be at the bottom of the North Sea.
A conservative counterrevolution is a difficult task to attempt. It is even less likely to succeed. Yet two historical examples did succeed in Portugal and Rhodesia. Salazar and Smith stood opposed to any and all attempts to dilute their countries’ respective identities (Rhodesia in particular was known for being ‘more British than the British’). Following their examples, we need to unite all culturally conservative people in a vehicle which is explicitly not a political party, but which can drive forwards the project of cultivating a new elite. Various thinkers around Trump have recognised the urgency of this with Project 2025. Hungary under Oban is also developing a new elite for the future.
We are, however, running out of time on all fronts, not least the demographic front. State-sanctioned multiculturalism denies the existence of the English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish (and Northern Irish) peoples as distinct cultural entities with a right to their own unified homelands in the UK and the Republic of Ireland. It is increasingly likely that we are not going to be able to vote our way out of this. The aftermath of the protests in the wake of the horror that unfolded in Southport, and the absolute contempt which the uniparty/establishment has for the concerns of ordinary people whom it disregards as ‘far right’, tells us that much. I take no pleasure in saying this, but that is the reality of the situation we are in. The stakes are now existential.
Thanks for that. For many years I voted Ukip (they’ve now almost disappeared) unless there was something stronger on offer. At present “something stronger” means the British Democrats or the Homeland Party. But as it’s extremely unlikely that they’ll ever stand in my constituency (Beaconsfield), I’ll just have to hold my nose and put my X next to Reform.
I was thinking of standing as a candidate for Reform in my gaff come the next election (Cramlington and Killingworth), until Nigel had a brain fart on national TV about deportations. They may yet redeem themselves but I don’t see much in the way of intellectual or philosophical development. They seem to want to become the new Tory party. This makes sense I suppose, since Nigel has always been a dissident liberal Tory (socially and economically liberal) at heart.
They’ve made gestures towards nationalising key strategic industries, but that’s just taking out of private hands what little is left of them. Where’s the plan to rebuild eg the steel industry? For that you’d need tariffs, like Trump did with China, if we are to have any hope of surviving and prospering in the future. I don’t think Nigel would go that far.
Could Reform even survive without him, given they were flatlining before he came back? There are a load of capable young men from the Lotus Eaters and other think tanks who were on the fringes of the Reform conference. In a sane world they’d be tapped as potential successors. It’s a pity they’re unlikely to be, since one of their number (Beau Dade) was already blacklisted from standing as a candidate over an article he wrote for The Mallard magazine, despite the article espousing positions which the vast majority of Reform’s supporters would no doubt agree with. Once again, Reform had to choose between its members’ stated preferences and its own revealed preferences. It made its choice clear.
Even more worryingly, Nigel’s former chief of staff Gawain Towler also admitted that during their UKIP days:
There is no reason to believe that this policy has ended, given that Tice acquiesced to Hope Not Hate’s ‘advice’ on candidates before and during the general election. Hope Not Hate has always been a communist crank organisation which (let’s make no bones about this) has the imprimatur of the British Government and acts as a de facto enforcer of the current system of ‘diversity’ which is busily dispossessing the native peoples of these isles of the only homeland they have ever known. While I understand your position and mostly share it, I am watching these developments with no small amount of foreboding.
What does it even mean to be right wing?
The idea that the left promoted for a over 150 years, that the state is better at owning and allocating capital, collapsed with the end of that ghastly experiment that was the Soviet Union in 1991.
After 1991 being left wing lost all its meaning, its founding principal demolished.
So I repeat what does it mean to be right wing, perhaps you mean conservative.
However some sectors simply don’t lend themselves to being on the free market though. The utilities being privatised were supposed to lead to cheaper bills and higher levels or service, however instead investment in infrastructure has been minimal leading to it falling apart, bills are higher than ever and billions has been syphoned away by shareholders.
The free market is good for the bulk of the economy, but where natural monopolies occur it simply doesn’t work
And state run monopolies do? I give you the NHS…
I’ll see your NHS and raise you Thames Water (or the American healthcare system that’s much more expensive per capita).
I’ll grant you the NHS is in dire need of reform, but saying it’s failing simply because it’s state owned is overly simplistic. The state owned Norwegian and Saudi oil fields never did too badly either
Reform badly need more defections from other parties, and to sort out their regional management. I have spent, literally, years trying to get involved and offer my experience and services locally, in 3 different local council/ constituency areas. I was shocked to find that the Reform representatives seemed far more keen to hang on to their own posts by ignoring anyone with previous political, financial, media, etc. experience. So far I have got as far as being offered leaflet delivery opportunities.
In short, Reform need to attract skill and talent, able to communicate with Farage and the party leaders, as well as loyal foot soldiers.
Yes, unfortunately on the ground there will be many entrenched individuals who will be keener on hanging onto their own positions as “big” fish in a small pool than recruiting competition for when the pool gets a bit bigger.
The ward of Bilston North is 13.5 per cent Sikh. Make of that what you will. Perhaps they barely turned out because it was Diwali, which was kept in Sikhism? Or perhaps Sikhs will become to Reform as Hindus already were to the Conservatives, whose only gain this year was Leicester East, while at Harrow East, Bob Blackman received the highest vote share for any Conservative candidate in the country, he was the only Conservative elected with an absolute majority, and he was one of only three Conservative MPs to be re-elected with increased majorities?
This sort of tactical electioneering speculation is completely pointless this far out from a GE. Can commentators please stop doing this for at least 4 years and can Unherd stop printing it?
How do you know it will be 5 years before the next GE?
A good analysis. The Labour Party’s huge majority is an illusion. The Government should respect and consider the 80% of the electorate that did not vote for them.
It would be realistic for the new Conservative leader to recognise the opportunity that Reform offers. In 2019, if UKIP had not stood down there would have been a very different result. I would suggest that there would have been no Red Wall collapse with a split vote allowing Labour to retain their seats.
Reichsfuhrer Starmer was never popular. Now, he and his ilk are widely loathed.
But they are the party of The Blob. And The Blob will do anything to keep them there.