FRANK HAVILAND

Local government may not be the most exotic branch of politics, but following on from last year’s general election, Thursday’s local elections will provide the first litmus test for Keir Starmer’s administration, Kemi Badenoch’s tenure as Tory leader, and give us our first indication as to whether Nigel Farage’s resurgent Reform UK are genuinely going to translate poll leads into success at the ballot box. 

In play are 1,641 council seats across 24 local authorities, 6 mayoral elections, and of course the by-election in the Labour-held seat of Runcorn and Helsby, after Mike Amesbury MP decided to greet a constituent in a manner of which John Prescott would be proud. Incidentally, I’m all for Westminster’s finest getting more hands-on with the electorate – I just think it would be fair if the voters were allowed to fight back occasionally. 

Of the 24 local councils up for grabs, 16 are currently controlled by the Conservative Party. But that was way back in 2021, thanks to a long forgotten ‘Boris wave’, and a Covid vaccine bounce. Depending on which poll you consult, Reform are leading the charge – polling 25% to Labour’s 23%, with the Tories trailing on 21%. 

The polls are only headed one way, which is unsurprising. Reform UK are closing in on a quarter of a million members – that’s just shy of Labour’s 300,000 and almost double the number the Tories can boast. And indeed, the old idea that Farage couldn’t deliver on polling day is a distant memory. In the six-month period between October and March, Reform has contested 64 of 78 council by-elections, and either won or came second in half of them. It is telling therefore, that Labour believes it will lose Runcorn to Reform. 

All of which is just as well, because the choice for voters tomorrow is a non-choice. Keir Starmer’s Labour Party are unashamedly anti-White and anti-British. They consider the White, working-class second-class citizens, and inquiries into Muslim rape gangs an inconvenient threat to the cosy vote-rigging they’ve enjoyed for decades. In fact, if you’re British and considering voting Labour tomorrow, you might as well leave your front door open at night, hand in your notice (assuming you work), and put your daughter’s virginity up for 99p on eBay (at least that way, you’ll be ahead on the deal when multiculturalism comes calling). 

The Tories meanwhile are infinitely worse. Feigning conservatism for the best part of two decades in power, but equally as anti-White and anti-British as Labour. Christ I miss Jeremy Corbyn – yes I know he was the Catweasel of politics, but at least you’d have got free WiFi to enjoy the apocalypse! 

The Greens are a joke party with Net Zero for a punchline, while the Lib Dems under Ed Davey are a joke party in search of a punchline. 

So that leaves Nigel Farage and Reform UK. No one can argue that The New Conservative does not call out Farage when he makes a bad call. His Achilles heel of Islam in particular is of concern, as was his treatment of Rupert Lowe, his inability to share the spotlight, his disdain for patriots like Tommy Robinson, and the lingering questions about his Muslim backers and whether they are pulling strings behind the scenes. These are not trivial issues, and Reform’s supporters are right to demand clarity. 

However, tomorrow’s vote is little more than Hobson’s choice. Labour and the Tories deserve to get a thorough kicking, and they will. All caveats notwithstanding, Farage and Reform are the current best bet. Of all the political parties strewn across the political slag heap, at least they are sailing roughly in the right direction. 

Politics, they say, is the art of compromise, but I beg to differ. For my money, politics is the art of forcing the wrong people to do the right thing – and at present, that will only happen with a Reform landslide. Already, you can see the fear of electoral wipeout impacting the comfortable armchairs at Westminster. Yvette Cooper is promising that serious sex offenders will be automatically denied asylum, as though this were a concession to the electorate. Keir Starmer, the world’s worst illusionist, has seriously contested that ‘Taking back control is a Labour argument’. And Robert Jenrick can bluster all he wants that ‘The world and his wife cannot come to Britain’, but that’s not what he proved when he was Minister for Immigration. 

No one knows what may happen before 2029, or which political alternatives may arise. Reform UK may not be the final answer to Britain’s problems. Farage’s weaknesses need addressing, and the party must prove it is more than a one-man show. For now however, it should be sufficient to send a clear message to those arrogant, smug bastards at Westminster: Britain is for the British. That means secure borders, a culture that celebrates its heritage, and a government that puts its people first. Reform is the vehicle for that message today, flawed as it may be.

A vote for Reform is more than a vote for Farage – it’s a chance to make the political class fear us again; a vote to remind them that we’re still here, we’re in command, and we aren’t going anywhere. So get out there and vote. Send Labour and the Tories packing. Back Reform, warts and all, and watch the establishment’s fake patriotism kick into overdrive. You never know your luck, you might get Emily Thornberry bedecked in the flag of St George (God help you!). 

Frank Haviland is the author of Banalysis: The Lie Destroying the West and The Frank Report, which you should probably subscribe to.

If you enjoy The New Conservative and would like to support our work, please consider buying us a coffee – it would really help to keep us going. Thank you!

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This article (TNC Local Election Special 2025 ) was created and published by The New Conservative and is republished here under “Fair Use” with attribution to the author Frank Haviland

The Fatal Dance

STEWART SLATER

The Parties did not, as someone once put it, send their best. Lower tier cabinet and shadow cabinet members turned up, along with the Lib Dem Deputy Leader. To the Greens and Reform, the event did not even merit an MP.

But if the audience at Channel 4’s Local Election Debate (more of a Q&A session, really) felt let down, they did not show it, the event passing off with surprising good humour for a country regularly described in focus groups as “effed up”. For an hour they asked their questions, and for an hour the panel answered them.

This was easier than it might seem, each audience member merely finding a different way of asking the same two questions – Can I get more stuff? And can I pay less for it? Everyone wanted something and everyone wanted their Council Tax to go down. Like Augustine asking for chastity – as long as that meant other people not having sex.

It was not entirely to their credit that the panellists played along, differing only in the branch of the magic money tree they proposed to lop off to fund the land of milk and honey the audience demanded – and they, and only they, could bring about. Labour touted the growth that would be along any minute now, presumably in Godot’s pocket. To the Conservatives, the answer was cost cuts. As it has been since about 1960. The Lib Dems were going to tax the millionaires and billionaires. The millionaires and billionaires currently leaving the country, leading to a collapse of Capital Gains Tax receipts.

No-one felt able to suggest, no matter how gently, that delivering the impossible might not, actually, be possible, so round and round we go, electorate and politicians locked in a dance to the death, choreographed with the precision of an Ancien Regime quadrille – we want it all, they say they can give it to us. They fail, we blame them, choose another partner and moan about declining trust in the system. It is never Us; it is always Them.

We are not alone. Every recent French President has seen a Starmeresque decline in popularity on taking office, the electorate coming to realise that the promises of the campaign trail come with a bill attached, a bill it is unwilling to pay. Americans voted for tariffs to rebuild industry and moan about higher prices.

For it is Us too, not just Them. Politicians merely respond to the incentives the voters give them, they say what they need to say to be elected. If polls say that the public wants better public services and are willing to see tax rises to pay for them, as long as those taxes are paid by others, that is what politicians will promise, reality be damned. Those who suggest that the fiscal Emperor may be a little underdressed are either talking Britain down or in the pocket of evil millionaires and billionaires who won’t pay their fair share (the ones who haven’t moved to Dubai, of course). Voter’s hand prefers not to open voter’s wallet, as Theresa May discovered with her Dementia Tax.

We have, thus, developed a system in which, to gain power, politicians must either not understand the situation (in which case, they are too stupid to be at the top), understand it but believe they uniquely can escape its constraints (in which case, they are too arrogant to be at the top) or understand the situation, realise that they cannot fix it, but pretend otherwise for the baubles of office (in which case, they are too compromised to be at the top). And we wonder why nothing works.

Politicians may not be blameless – had they the insight and integrity they proclaim, they would refuse to be politicians – but they do not deserve all the blame. The electorate must take its share, its ability to believe several impossible things before breakfast playing its part in getting us to where we are. And where we will go.

In Edgar Allen Poe’s Masque of the Red Death, the nobles shut themselves in an Abbey to escape the plague stalking the land, planning to wait it out in luxury and debauch (similarities to the Covid-era Downing Street purely coincidental). After six months, a figure in a blood-spattered robe appears at a ball to the horror of the revellers. Affronted by this reminder of mortality, the host pursues the figure through the rooms, finally cornering it, only to die when it turns to face him. As do his guests, irresistibly drawn to the commotion. That’s the problem with dances: the music always stops.

Stewart Slater works in Finance. He invites you to join him at his website.

If you enjoy The New Conservative and would like to support our work, please consider buying us a coffee or sharing this piece with your friends – it would really help to keep us going. Thank you!

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This article (The Fatal Dance) was created and published by The New Conservative and is republished here under “Fair Use” with attribution to the author Stewart Slater

Featured image: Alamy

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