02-07-2025
The Left is ready to strike against Starmer's miserable leadership
Last week the Green Party gained three new London councillors. On Wednesday, Mark Blake and Liam Shrivastava joined after having previously been independents and, before that, Labour representatives. The following night, the Greens triumphed in Shooters Hill, a leafy ward in Greenwich, enjoying a 29 per cent swing from Keir Starmer's party.
For now such events are mere ripples amid the wider turmoil of national politics. But as next May starts to loom, with elections across England's large cities, Scotland and Wales, they offer a glimpse of Labour's future.
This year's local elections were a political earthquake, with Reform not only winning almost a third of the popular vote, but the Conservatives seeing their projected vote share fall to just 15 per cent. Most significant of all: for the first time in modern history neither Labour, nor the Tories, took first place in a national ballot for English councils. Both parties struggled, but things were particularly disastrous for the Conservatives as they lost 16 councils across the country. Labour, having won a sizable majority in the general election less than a year prior, still held on to hopes of a revival in fortunes.