Latest editorial
THREE dramatic acts of hara-kiri shook up British politics over the weekend. There should have been four.
First, Ukip leader Nigel Farage stood down as party leader after failing to win Thanet South. But rather than disembowel himself with a sharp sword, he tickled his belly with a soft feather. Having sacked himself, he will now take time to consider whether to apply for the vacant position in September.
This charade typifies his party's cavalier approach to policies and political representation. In the election campaign just gone, Ukip candidates presented themselves as all things to all people in order to mask their fundamentally neoliberal agenda.
Once derided by Farage as a ‘fraud,’ Jenrick has defected to Reform, bringing experience and political ruthlessness to the populist right — and raising the unsettling prospect of a Farage-led movement with a seasoned operative pulling the strings, says ANDREW MURRAY
All the areas that cause working people to feel insecure have to be addressed, through a return to unashamedly pro-worker politics, if the horror of a Farage government is to be avoided, writes IAN LAVERY MP
Every Starmer boast about removing asylum-seekers probably wins Reform another seat while Labour loses more voters to Lib Dems, Greens and nationalists than to the far right — the disaster facing Labour is the leadership’s fault, writes DIANE ABBOTT MP