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| From L-R: Ed Davey, Kemi Badenoch and Keir Starmer (Image: AOL.com) |
Unless it's completely unavoidable and therefore must be sooner, the next UK general election is scheduled to take place in 2029. While it sounds like a long way away, I for one am relieved. Certainly, I anticipate significant bumps over the next 4-5 years, however, I don't expect anything to result in a snap vote like we saw in 2017. To achieve this relative state of equilibrium, it's vital Britain has a resilient government that take the country to the next level.
So far, we've seen some signs that this Labour administration has ambitions to be good for the country. Yes, at times, it feels as though Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is like a 1980s-style old-school headteacher and Chancellor Rachel Reeves as his deputy head, as they quietly and slowly walk past each governmental department, giving them death stares followed by a tut or two. That may come to little surprise, as we've often heard from both that they inherited absolute chaos led by the last Parliament and a wider culture of gaslighting and finger pointing. Their party's tactics hasn't changed since when in opposition, where you could justifiably argue it responded to the Conservative government policies rather passively and offered little alternative. You could tell that Starmer knew that he was going to be the next Prime Minister as very few had faith left in the Tories. And that sense of inevitability was reflected in the outcome of the election back in July 2024 - a massive and yet unenthusiastic majority.
The Conservatives sit as the 'official opposition' on the basis it holds the second highest number of seats and second highest number of votes in the last election. However, the party isn't sitting comfortably. There's a lot to play for in this battle between now and 2029. The appointment of Kemi Badenoch as its leader in early November 2024 has reminded people why so many turned their backs on the Tories. Because she had been on the frontbench under both Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, she has a task at hand to show why she's different to her predecessors. The same would have been said about the other candidates she defeated, including James Cleverly and Robert Jenrick. The Tory membership had very little choice. The good news for her is that she has time. The bad news is that she has inherited a party in a quite frail state. She cannot underestimate the long road to recovery ahead. Critics have been predicting for a while that we won't see another Conservative government until 2034 at the earliest, which doesn't sound like an unreasonable aim to hit.
That isn't to say that Labour is going to win the next general election. If you look at the polls as it stands, if there were to be an election tomorrow, three parties would have more than 20% of the vote share. Of course, polling today, with the next national vote being so far in the future, is irrelevant. Yet, what these polls tell us is that the two main parties can't simply rely on the status quo. We mustn't rule out a more level playing field in the British political landscape. This isn't an alien concept in this part of the world; European allies France and Germany have witnessed this for decades, where three or more parties often have a realistic chance of power.
That other party doing incredibly well in the polls is Reform UK. By his books, leader Nigel Farage has enjoyed a good past 12 months - he came third on hit ITV reality show I'm A Celebrity just before last Christmas, his party gained 4.1 million votes in July's election and his buddy Donald Trump will soon be inaugurated into his second term as US President after winning the country's election last month. His publicity machine has been on absolute overdrive and it is exciting enough Tories to contemplate a shift towards his vision, including most recently the husband of former Conservative Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, and property tycoon Nick Candy, who is now 'party treasurer', making Badenoch's job even that more difficult.
The problem with Badenoch's approach so far is that she feels the need to keep reacting to Reform UK by trying to come up with policies and ideals that Farage and his ilk may sign up to rather than offering a vision of her own. Being 'tough on immigration' and 'showing solidarity to farmers' won't work as her party had 14 years to do that and failed miserably because it, well, kept giving Farage an ounce of acknowledgement by pandering to his poison and hypocrisy. What we had as a result was more immigrants than ever before entering Britain and farmers being sold a lie, that Brexit would sort out all their past issues.
Strangely, how Trump fares as US President the second time around will seal Reform UK's fate. If he does well by building on a thriving economy, gets crime down and influence a brighter future for the Middle East, the Far East and Eastern Europe, Farage can take huge advantage and say that this can be replicated in the UK under his leadership. However, if Trump's first term's rhetoric and policies are to go by, Farage may as well wave his bid for Prime Minister goodbye. We can't solely blame outgoing President Joe Biden on what's been going on internationally in recent years, as I've explained before. A disastrous Trump term will be a significant setback for Farage. He is completely reliant on the divisive tycoon and the money of a part Greek-Cypriot property billionaire I mentioned earlier - oh, the irony.
So Reform UK's possibly short-lived buoyance means that the other parties need to step up. The Liberal Democrats need to offer more than publicity stunts to get noticed. Ed Davey needs to spend the next year strategising how to shout through the rooftops a clear vision and to showcase how his party can be taken seriously, by being a constructive opposition. He has 71 other MPs behind him to achieve this, he cannot afford to waste the great resources he has at his disposal. I, along with 3.5 million others, didn't vote for the Lib Dems last July for a giggle.
The same assessment applies to the Green Party, though it has, at least, offered a clear view on the European Union relationship and has attacked Labour on its green pledges. That doesn't, however, mean it's time to relax. The Scottish National Party (SNP) and Plaid Cymru need to play their parts too and show they have a role to play nationally, not just for their respected countries. Their voices particularly matter as Scotland and Wales face big elections in 2026, with Reform UK threatening to shake things up in both.
With these parties battling to being the 'true opposition', in the meantime, Labour's best opposition is the Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail. They're doing an incredible job in gaslighting the government's flagship policies. They've been terrific in making the majority of farmers very angry about an inheritance tax that the government says it's likely to impact only a small minority of them. They've been amazing at character assassinations of the likes of Angela Rayner and Louise Haigh, the latter of whom resigned from her role as Transport Secretary after admitting to a crime that we already knew she committed. But we don't want the papers influencing people in this way. We want them to tell us what's going on from all sides, rather than how we should feel about one angle. Thankfully we won't have their editors running for office anytime soon. That being said, their voices highlight the severe lack of effective opposition the UK currently has to offer. One hopes that in the coming years, parties can step up to the plate - and ideally without baggage and hypocrisy.
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