Latest news with #generalElection
The Independent
9 hours ago
- Business
- The Independent
Farage ‘plans to put business leaders in cabinet' if Reform wins power
Nigel Farage is controversially attempting to woo business leaders by pledging to make some of them ministers if Reform UK wins the next general election. As it fights intense criticism of its economic plans, Mr Farage's party is trying to win over influential figures in the city, according to the Financial Times. After the news emerged, Keir Starmer took aim at Mr Farage, calling him a "wolf in Wall Street clothing" who has "no idea what he's talking about". Earlier this week a poll showed Reform UK would become Britain's largest party if a general election was held tomorrow, putting Mr Farage on course to become prime minister. The insurgent right-wing party would jump from having just five MPs to 271, with Mr Farage poised to form a minority government, it found. And Labour would collapse, from holding 403 seats now to just 178, after Sir Keir's party's popularity plummeted in recent months. Ministers are usually elected MPs, but PMs can draw from a wider group by appointing individuals to the House of Lords by giving them a peerage. However, this has proven controversial in the past, amid accusations it is undemocratic. Past peers who have served as government ministers, include the former CBI boss Lord Jones in Gordon Brown's 'government of all the talents'. More recently Rishi Sunak brought David Cameron back as his foreign secretary by making him Lord Cameron. And Sir Keir Starmer has made Lord Timpson, the former boss of his family's chain of cobblers, a prisons minister. Mr Farage has told executives he will be enlisting 'top business leaders' to some of the biggest jobs in his government, the FT reported. One senior Reform figure confirmed that Mr Farage would want business expertise in the Treasury and would also consider cabinet-level roles for external figures, telling the paper 'there are many high-quality people who want to help with turning our country around.'
Free Malaysia Today
20 hours ago
- Politics
- Free Malaysia Today
Analysts predict heartache for new party Hati
The president of Hati, Chan Tse Yuen, speaking in a press conference at the launch of the party on Friday. PETALING JAYA : Discontented voters are likely to back the opposition in the next general election instead of voting for a newly-formed outfit, a political analyst said in dismissing Parti Hati Rakyat Malaysia's aspirations. James Chin of the University of Tasmania told FMT that Malaysian voters are unlikely to rally behind a new party simply because they do not believe it can form a government. 'If people are unhappy with Pakatan Harapan, they will vote for Perikatan Nasional. So there's already a clear choice. People understand that the next election will be a battle between PH-Barisan Nasional and PN.' Hati, which was unveiled on Friday, has positioned itself as an alternative to voters frustrated with the current government. James Chin. Chin also does not think that many Malaysians would want another hung parliament, which had forced the royals to step in to help form a new government. The current unity government is a result of a hung parliament following the outcome of the last general election, after no party secured a clear majority. Chin also said that should the party decide to partake in the impending Sabah polls, 'they are guaranteed to lose their deposit.' As for Hati's prospects in the next general election, Chin said the party has two years to make a name for itself, but said it would be an uphill task as it does not have a prominent leader. And as it stands now, the top leadership 'is virtually unknown'. Hati is led by former MCA Youth deputy chairman Chan Tse Yuen. The other leaders are deputy president Abdul Razak Abdul Khalek and vice-presidents Dr Lim Hong Jun, Derrick Kok, and Chee Chee Meng. Chin said voters generally would not support parties that they believe won't be unable to bring about real change. 'In Malaysia, if you want to make real change, you've got to be in government or at least in one of the big coalitions.' Azmi Hassan of Akademi Nusantara said Hati would struggle to gain traction even if it were to form alliances with other minor parties, such as Muda and Parti Sosialis Malaysia. Azmi Hassan. He also likened Hati's potential strategy to Bersatu's early play for dissatisfied Umno supporters. 'The modus operandi here would be like Bersatu's strategy – if you're not happy with Umno, come vote for us,' he said. 'But I think it will be very difficult for Hati because there is no track record, even for their leaders. So how can you attract the dissatisfied PH voters?' He said it would be easier for PN to woo unhappy PH supporters. Azmi said Hati, like Muda, would learn that it cannot survive alone or rely solely on personalities. 'Hati needs a bigger party, not PSM or Muda. In this case, it's PN.'
The Guardian
2 days ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Here is the single thing Labour can do to see off Reform and make British politics work
Look at the coverage of any general election opinion polling recently and what you are likely to see is a map of Britain divided into its constituencies and covered in Reform's light blue. They are utterly dominant when it comes to the projected seats. Take the latest YouGov MRP poll, published with great fanfare this week. MRP (multilevel regression and poststratification) is a particularly detailed kind of poll that creates projections for each constituency – and this one predicted that Nigel Farage's party would win a whopping 42% of the seats inside the House of Commons if a general election were held now. Even this was fairly low compared with some other recent data that actually projected a majority of 30 seats. But while Farage and some parts of the media really want you to focus on the number of seats Reform might win, what you should be looking at is what the data is actually telling us. Stay with me on this. Because, while the latest YouGov poll may show Reform achieving 42% of UK seats, the proportion of people in the UK who actually support them, according to that same poll, is only 26%. What we really should be taking from the latest data is the headline 'three-quarters of UK voters don't want Nigel Farage and Reform'. Only one in four people want them in government. When you think about it like this, the ridiculousness of the current system is laid bare. This party is unpopular with most of the voters, yet the question on Westminster watchers' lips is: 'Can they win a majority?' This warps the discourse around our entire political system and creates the impression that most of the public want something that they self-evidently don't. If you need more convincing as to how the UK's first-past-the-post system is spinning politics to the extremes, take a look at the part of the UK where Reform are polling even better – Wales. Recent polls in Wales have shown Reform and Plaid Cymru vying for first place ahead of the Senedd (Welsh parliament) elections next year. The latest poll puts Reform in first place with 29%. But in Wales there is no genuine conversation (outside the Reform party itself) about Reform really being able to form a government next year. And why is this? It is because in Cymru we have a system that is far more proportional. There is simply no way that any party can come close to a majority with less than a third of the vote. Call me crazy, but in a democracy, doesn't that make sense? Let me give you an example. In a poll at the start of May looking at voting intentions in Wales, Plaid Cymru got 30% and Reform UK 25%. When it came to seat projections inside the Senedd (which has 96 seats), Plaid was projected about 35 and Reform 30. This is broadly reflective of the numbers of people who would have voted for them. So Reform could easily be the largest party in Wales next year. I think it will be. But there is still very little chance of it forming a government for the plain and simple reason that its politics are miles away from the views of most people in Wales. Inside the Senedd there are six parties who can realistically win seats: Plaid, Labour, the Liberal Democrats, the Greens, the Conservatives and Reform. All those first four parties have categorically ruled out working with Farage. The only party that would do so is the Tories, but all the evidence suggests that most of Reform's gains are coming at their expense. So the better Reform does, the smaller is its only prospective coalition partner likely to be. This is the benefit of proportional democracy in action: it stops extremes guiding the agenda. Imagine you and 12 mates are going out. Three of you want to go have a cappuccino, three want lattes and three want flat whites. You all want coffee but can't quite agree on which specific one, but broadly you are in agreement on what you want to do. But imagine that the remaining four want to go out to get out and get battered on Special Brew and smash up a bar. Under first-past-the-post, because there are more people wanting Special Brew than cappuccino, lattes or flat whites respectively, you are all condemned to go out on the piss. Under the Welsh setup, and frankly those of most healthy democratic systems (like those in New Zealand, Finland and Norway), the direction of the nation is as close as possible to the view of most of its people, not simply the largest minority. Whereas the UK as a whole is going to be forced to go out on the lash by Reform even though they really want a nice cup of coffee. If Keir Starmer really wants to counter Reform, he needs to change an electoral process that punishes parties for having broad appeal. It's the single biggest change he can make as prime minister that will stop the hard right seizing power. Will he have the courage to do away with a system that gave his own party 63% of the seats on just 34% of the vote? I doubt it. But if he is serious about putting country over party, he must. Will Hayward is a Guardian columnist. He publishes a regular newsletter on Welsh politics and is the author of Independent Nation: Should Wales Leave the UK?
Bloomberg
2 days ago
- Politics
- Bloomberg
Farage's Reform Would Come Top in UK Election, YouGov Finds
By Updated on Save Nigel Farage's populist Reform UK would be the biggest party in parliament if the country held a general election today, according to a nationwide projection, underlining the political danger to Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Reform would win 271 of the 650 seats in the House of Commons, with Starmer's governing Labour party second on 178, polling firm YouGov said on Thursday. That would leave a hung parliament in which no party could govern alone.
Telegraph
2 days ago
- Politics
- Telegraph
The Daily T: Can Nigel Farage be PM?
A major new YouGov poll has revealed that Reform UK would win the most seats of any party if a general election were held today, making Nigel Farage the leading contender to become the next prime minister. Camilla and Tim are joined by journalist and broadcaster Fraser Nelson, who is fronting a new Dispatches documentary – 'Will Nigel Farage Be Prime Minister?' – at 8pm tonight on Channel 4. Fraser explains why Farage has been so effective at mopping up disillusioned voters; his masterful use of social media; and how Labour and the Tories have paved the way for a Reform political earthquake.
