Looking ahead to the UK's local elections with British politics expert Colm Murphy • FRANCE 24

Added: 2026-05-06

[00:00:00]It's time for perspective on the program now. British Prime Minister K Star Dama is facing his biggest test yet as the UK heads to the polls on Thursday for local elections. Voters will be charged with picking their local counselors. While in Scotland and Wales, representatives of devolved uh parliaments will be elected.

[00:00:19]Polls are already predicting the ruling Labor Party will suffer its worst results in decades with Reform UK and the Green Party expected to make gains.

[00:00:28]Well, let's break down Thursday's vote now with Colum Murphy who is a senior lecturer in British politics at Queen Mary University. He joins us now from London. Colum, great to have you on the program. Thanks so much for joining us.

[00:00:40]So, these elections are very much being framed as a referendum on K Starmmer.

[00:00:44]How serious could the political consequences be if Labour suffers the scale of losses that are currently being predicted now?

[00:00:54]>> Well, very serious. Um, it's certainly a moment of acute danger for Karma personally. His leadership has been under a huge amount of pressure recently and any electoral catastrophe for a governing party um is potentially a moment of danger for the leader. Um, I think it's also a big moment for the Labour Party more generally. As you rightly say, if the current polls are correct, Labor projected to lose approaching 2,000 council seats um uh depending on which projections you use, which would be a catastrophic loss. And they also look projected to lose power in Wales for the first time in the entire history of the Welsh Parliament, the Senate. So, um both for Kam personally and for the governing party, if the polls are right, this could be very a very significant set of elections indeed. Well, Colum, as you alluded to there, the knives have definitely been out for Stammer for a while now. Could this poor result, if it does happen on Thursday, could that really trigger serious moves to unseat him? Do you think there's a long line of replacements? It seems.

[00:01:59]>> Yeah. I mean, the reason I'm I would hesitate on whether it's going to happen the next day is um a couple of reasons.

[00:02:06]Firstly, there's no science to this, but the pattern tends to be less the known problems and more the unexpected crises that fell prime ministers, certainly in the UK context. And it is true that sort of priced in uh in Westminster circles among political elites. This set of elections is going to be very bad for Labor. And the other reason I would hesitate is the global context, the um uh the the conflict in the Middle East, which you just referred to in your news bulletin, gives Star an argument to say this is not the right time to change leader. Uh but saying that there there are a list of potential candidates. Um if they can if they can agree amongst themselves or if the wider Labour party can coalesce behind one or two perhaps um Andy Burnham who is currently not in parliament but could be or um uh Angela Raina the former deputy prime minister or potentially another candidate like Wesing or Biliband. If they can do that then um Kstarma might be in trouble. I suspect that um Karma will be fatally wounded, but it's unlikely he'll uh simply resign the next day. I think that's unlikely.

[00:03:13]>> Well, another reason why Stala has been put in such a vulnerable position is because he's come under fire over his lack of judgment um when it comes to Peter Mandlesson, his appointment of Peter Mandlesson as the UK's ambassador to the US. Of course, Mandlesson is in hot water over his links to Jeffrey Epstein. How much has that damaged trust in the government?

[00:03:36]quite a lot. So when you have to rewind a bit to understand why this is so significant politically. When this government was elected, it explicitly contrasted itself with a then scandalridden conservative government which had gone through a succession of prime ministers and had been rocked by things like party gates during the pandemic. and K star and uh senior leaders in the Labour Party projected uh an image of responsibility and said that they would uh be uh a a government that um set themselves high standards in public life.

[00:04:10]That makes scandals like the Mandlesson appointment even worse because it uh undermines the very narrative that they tried to construct to differentiate themselves from their main competition.

[00:04:21]It's also raised questions about Kistan's personal judgment and how much control he actually exerts as prime minister which has lost him a lot of allies and friends within the governing party which is why um his his situation as prime minister is very precarious.

[00:04:39]Um, it also hasn't helped that other people have resigned but not him because it gives the impression that he will let other people fall on their own swords rather than take responsibility which is never a particularly appealing trait in leaders and is never a trait that makes you a lot of friends in politics.

[00:04:55]>> Okalom, another key party that everyone's watching here is Reform UK.

[00:04:58]It's seen a surge of support. Do you think that this reflects a broader rise in uh the far right in the UK or is this just a protest against the political establishment against Labor?

[00:05:12]>> I think it's a few things. Um it's partly the rise of the far right across um the global north by which I mean Western Europe, North America as well as the UK. I think there's a wider trend here where the populist radical right or the far right have identified certain issues and certain types of voters particularly in say de-industrialized areas which they can appeal to. So the UK is not unique here. Um we think about national and France for example. Um it is also dissatisfaction with this government and with the conservative government previously. So if you're a right-leaning voter on cultural matters like immigration, hither too you might have thought about voting conservative but the memory of the most recent conservative government which by its end was very unpopular is still raw. So people are looking to alternatives like Faraj's reform party [snorts] and it's partly because of the uh UK's voting system. uh reform are actually relatively unpopular if you look at the uh polling for Naja Faraj personally um and remember that while they're on like circus 30% in the polls a lot of people hate them too but because the UK has a first pass to post voting system in its local elections not in Scotland and Wales uh as long as you have the plurality you will make gains so although both reform and the left-wing Green Party have surged we are expecting reform to make far more council will see gains because they're just slightly ahead in that front.

[00:06:42]>> Well, as you alluded to there, the first pass the post system, it's definitely reasonable when it comes to a twop party uh system, but as we're seeing in the UK, more parties are emerging. It seems like the UK is having is getting a European makeover in some ways because it kind of seems like the way we have it here in France with several um parties.

[00:07:01]Is it time for the UK to say goodbye to the first pass the post system with such a fragmented political landscape now?

[00:07:10]>> It's a good question. Um, voting systems change very rarely. They tend to change after wars and revolutions uh or or declarations of independence because they're kind of almost existential in a way. The very rules by which you operate democracy. There are exceptions. New Zealand in the 1990s changes voting system after referendums. Um, I'm saying this because I think it takes a lot for a voting system to change, particularly for the the main elections, which in the UK would be a general election to the House of Commons. Um, and you need a kind of perfect storm of factors. It's a good question though because if we see the current voter behavior that we currently see at a general election, then that will be chaos. Um, uh, The Economist magazine talks about, um, a random number generator. If you have five, six viable parties, then first pass the post will throw up all sorts of strange results and if that undermines the very legitimacy of the outcome, then that could cause a chain reaction that leads to some kind of reform. Uh but it takes a lot to change a voting system because you need MPs to vote for it themselves and MPs don't like uncertainty. So if you say to an MP, okay, we're going to radically change the system by which you are voted and we don't know how it's going to affect your re-election chances, that's a hard sell.

[00:08:28]>> So electoral reform not coming anytime soon then uh in the UK perhaps. We are seeing though a breakdown of the dominance of Labor and Conservative that the UK has sort of uh functioned by for so long. What does a more fragmented um political landscape with so many more parties emerging now? What does that mean for governing the UK in the future?

[00:08:52]>> I mean, it certainly makes it harder um in the Scottish and Welsh context because they have um proportional systems. Uh uh it's more likely that there will be coalitions in government and it will look more like Western Europe as as you rightly indicated earlier. But in in the national context by which I mean elections to Westminster and also in councils it will mean uh more hung parliaments more no overall control at the council level and uh that will make it harder to govern. The other issue is because we see a fragmentation of support um you also see greater polarization between the left block parties and the right block parties over contentious issues like uh economic policy but particularly over things like immigration and that makes it harder to govern because if you push in one way you will alienate another way. So if you're a party that is trying to situate yourself in the so-called center and trying to build a coalition across these divides, you get it in the neck from both sides.

[00:09:53]>> So Clum, would you say that it's the domestic policies that is triggering this um apparent decline with uh Labor or or is it about foreign policy here?

[00:10:03]>> Um primarily but not exclusively domestic policy. Um there was a very significant foreign policy um uh development that harmed labor support among the left which was its response to the Gaza catastrophe. Um and that's very clear. A lot of the Green Party support comes from people disillusioned by Labor and part of that is over um its relative uh slowness in responding to um the Gaza issue. Um it did eventually recognize the Palestinian state but it took a long time to get to that position and it lost support in the meantime. It's also true that going forward the Middle East crisis may harm the government support yet further because it will affect the cost of living. You know, you foreign and domestic policy are linked in some ways and if we still see a blockade in a straight of Hormuz that will lead to um an increase in in the cost of living in the UK as as like elsewhere and that might harm the government support. But saying all that, um the main reasons are issues like uh the government having to break its tax pledges in all but name, certainly in spirit if not by by letter uh to try and maintain uh funding for public services. The scandals you just referred to and uh divisive issues like immigration where the government has simultaneously alienated the left by being too authoritarian without winning over voters who are much more attracted to parties like reform. Kam, thank you so much for joining us on the program.

[00:11:29]Great to get your thoughts on this today and uh that breakdown was super helpful.

[00:11:33]Thank you so much for that.

[00:11:36]Okay.