See here for
essential background: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2026/05/meeting-reform-candidate.html.
The results of last Thursday's election are in. The votes in all 136 councils, mayorals and the Welsh and Scottish legislatures have been counted and it has been, as predicted, a massive grand slam for Reform UK. Their victory dwarfs even last years coup, see: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2025/05/why-i-did-not-vote-reform.html. Reform gained 1,453 seats, mostly at the gross expense of Labour and the Tories. Labour barely cleared a thousand, reducing them virtually to a second tier party. The Green Party and independents did well. Many leftwing and Muslim voters have abandoned Labour for the Greens. "Great Yarmouth First" which is a local front for Rupert Lowe's Restore Britain, has scooped up all the area's seats, I'm pleased to say. West of the border, Reform have wiped out Labour in the Senedd. They couldn't quite beat Plaid Cymru to the leadership, but they are a close opposition, making it hard for Plaid to win future votes. Eluned Morgan has had the negative honour of being the first head of government in British history to be ousted in an election. She only got about 6000 votes while Plaid beat her with 31,000. As soon as a successor is chosen she will step down as First Minister of Wales and leader of the Welsh Labour Party. Unlike Boris Johnson, there were no contingency plans to parachute her into another seat via a by-election; I don't think you can do that in the Welsh government. The immovable mountain that it the Scottish National Party has held onto power, but it has lost a few seats. The Conservatives lost nine seats (I didn't know there was such a thing as a Scottish Tory anymore!) and only Reform and the Greens have gained. Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/cr45k7vqw1pt.
The results of last Thursday's election are in. The votes in all 136 councils, mayorals and the Welsh and Scottish legislatures have been counted and it has been, as predicted, a massive grand slam for Reform UK. Their victory dwarfs even last years coup, see: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2025/05/why-i-did-not-vote-reform.html. Reform gained 1,453 seats, mostly at the gross expense of Labour and the Tories. Labour barely cleared a thousand, reducing them virtually to a second tier party. The Green Party and independents did well. Many leftwing and Muslim voters have abandoned Labour for the Greens. "Great Yarmouth First" which is a local front for Rupert Lowe's Restore Britain, has scooped up all the area's seats, I'm pleased to say. West of the border, Reform have wiped out Labour in the Senedd. They couldn't quite beat Plaid Cymru to the leadership, but they are a close opposition, making it hard for Plaid to win future votes. Eluned Morgan has had the negative honour of being the first head of government in British history to be ousted in an election. She only got about 6000 votes while Plaid beat her with 31,000. As soon as a successor is chosen she will step down as First Minister of Wales and leader of the Welsh Labour Party. Unlike Boris Johnson, there were no contingency plans to parachute her into another seat via a by-election; I don't think you can do that in the Welsh government. The immovable mountain that it the Scottish National Party has held onto power, but it has lost a few seats. The Conservatives lost nine seats (I didn't know there was such a thing as a Scottish Tory anymore!) and only Reform and the Greens have gained. Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/cr45k7vqw1pt.
I voted for Reform UK. Yes, I know I promised I never would,
and I am still not sure if I did the right thing. The problem is when I got to
the polling station I was dismayed to find there was no IOA candidate at all. I
was shocked; I had not researched beforehand because I assumed there would be one
just like last year. The Alliance
See here for more background: https://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2019/10/brexit-portal.html.
See here for more background: https://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2019/10/brexit-portal.html.
I don't think you did anything wrong. I think it is just important to be mindful of the money in politics making it difficult to bring about change through the electoral process. Reform have broken the back of the FPTP system in Northern England and the Midlands, enough to secure a sizeable voting bloc in parliament if the same voting patterns were repeated in a general election. But I still think it is premature to talk about them forming a government. Analysts seem to think that Thursday night's results point to a LibLab coalition as a likelihood next time. We can see from what has happened in France, The Netherlands and Germany that established parties will form absolutely any kind of coalition with the slimmest mathematical margins to keep a civic nationalist party out of power.
ReplyDeleteI think you're right, MT. Look how the Dutch uniparty joined forces against Geert Wilders to stop him being prime minister. He's quite mild compared to Rupert Lowe. It's a daunting task, but today's politics is no longer boring!
DeleteEspecially if that civic nationalist party is bought and paid for by a foreign power... Seriously join the dots folks. Numerous large sums of money going through Farage's bank accounts. 5 million for security and then you decide to return to politics, that's a coincidence! jesus wept. Remember the Coutes scandal? They were correct but didn't want an expensive legal battle financed by the same source of the cash. They washed their hands of it and ran. Ben Habib has confirmed other donations, the timings and the impact it has had on our politics. From the reason Farage ordered Reform candidates to not stand against Boris (not to 'get Brexit done' or a good deal for the UK by standing aside but purely as he was paid to do so), the toppling of May and the murky Epstein e-mail claiming Steve Bannon was financing it. For conspiracy theorists surely the alarm bells are ringing as generally the slightest sniff of the political elite pulling the strings gets some sort of reaction, both sides being the same coin is off the chart here... Or is it just you believe some other conspiracy without the receipts? Hopefully the police investigate Farage and Reform after Parliament and the whole house of cards comes crashing down and the actual man behind the curtain is finally revealed. Worth saying the Trump administration is the carbon copy of what 'they' want in the UK. Controllable and incapable Autocracy and Oligarchs not some halcyon democracy with political reform, rather a rigged system gerrymandered to death to cement control of the masses. Bought and paid for by backing both horses in the race to ensure the result they want. Sadly many of the population think they are making a difference by standing or voting for these type of grifters in good faith which for me is the most enraging aspect.
ReplyDeleteWell, despite agreeing with your points here, the act of voting Reform is not as black-and-white as you portray it. I explain why in the article.
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