Power Shift: Elections in UK Undermine Traditional Parties in Push for Change

Fresh from making big gains in local elections earlier this month, the United Kingdom’s populist, far-right Reform Party recently pledged to lift the government’s ban on new oil drilling projects in the North Sea if they win control of parliament in the next general election in 2029. 

The pledge was an example of the party’s plan to advance fossil fuels, promote job creation and energy independence, and block “net stupid zero” infrastructure, including renewable energy projects that require subsidies to be financially viable, the Guardian reported. 

“We will attack, we will hinder, we will delay, we will obstruct, we will put every hurdle in your way,” said Richard Tice, Reform’s deputy leader, addressing green energy advocates. “It’s going to cost you a fortune, and you’re not going to win. So give up and go away.” 

Tice’s comments are reflective of how a large portion of British voters feel today, analysts said. 

Vowing to improve public services, decrease rising living costs, and sharply cut immigration – party leader Nigel Farage led the campaign to withdraw the UK from the European Union in 2016 – the Reform Party won 677 of 1,600 local council seats up for grabs in the May 2 vote, according to the BBC.  

It was a historic victory for the far-right, said commentators, adding that it showed a shift in the political power in the UK: For most of the past century, power in the country has been held either by the Labour Party, currently in power under Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, or the Conservatives. 

But now, with nearly one in three voters choosing Reform UK, that two-party system is looking shaky.  

The party’s candidates mostly defeated Conservatives but also took seats from the Labour Party. Reform also won a fifth parliamentary seat in a special election and won two mayoral elections. 

The results were a devastating rebuke to Starmer and his Labour allies, who have hiked taxes, cut benefits for seniors, and proposed deeper cuts to the social-welfare safety net, Al Jazeera noted. 

Observers at the Economist posited that the elections demonstrated how the British electorate was fragmented. The question, they asked, was whether Reform can win a majority in 2029. If they join forces with the Conservatives, the British magazine estimated that they would have an 83 percent chance of assuming power. 

But Hannah Bunting, an elections expert at the University of Exeter, pushed back against that analysis in the Conversation. Like the US, Britain has a first-past-the-post electoral system where winners must only secure a majority of votes. Reform winners often won their local elections by receiving less than half the total number of voters who cast ballots. They might not garner sufficient votes in a national election when more people flock to the polls. 

That said, Reform leaders now have a chance to show what they can do, say observers. 

In Kent, newly elected Reform politicians said removing a Ukrainian flag and a rainbow Pride flag from the local government building would be among their first actions, the Daily Express wrote. 

Linden Kemkaran, Kent’s Reform leader, said her new administration had little time for “special interest groups” or the flags that represent them. 

Analysts said that Reform UK is recruiting voters hungry for change, and that was reflected in the local election.  

“These results are part of a global shift away from the center-left toward the populist right, who are increasingly seen as the ‘go-to’ parties of change,” wrote the London-based Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR). As a result, “center-Left parties such as Labour are in danger of extinction and must ‘reinvent or die.’”