We don’t know everything yet. But it’s clear that Scotland and Wales have both elected pro-independence governments, led by the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru, respectively, while in England, Reform looks to be the biggest winner of the local elections. Across the UK, the Greens have won astonishing results, including at least two borough mayoralities in London, their first Welsh Senedd seats and their first constituencies in Scotland.
The Conservatives and Labour, the two main parties of the British state for the past 100 years, now face existential questions. Both have lost hundreds of councillors – and, with them, roots and activists in communities – across England, as well as parliamentarians in Scotland and Wales; losing, for the most part, to politicians from parties outside the traditional duopoly.
The Tories, once a party with deep roots across the UK, have been replaced as the main force on the right by Reform. Labour not only failed to win a major Welsh election for the first time in a century, but was reduced to its knees, with first minister Eluned Morgan one of 35 party colleagues to lose her seat as Plaid Cymru and Reform surged, leaving Labour with just nine Senedd members. In English cities, where Labour could once expect to win almost every seat, the party has faced serious challenges from the Greens; in the formerly industrial towns, it has more often been challenged by Reform.
These parties are the longstanding managers of the British state, and their evisceration implies a constitutional omnicrisis for the UK.
Firstly, because First Past the Post is impossibly broken. England now very clearly has a five-party system. There is just no way that a majoritarian system can sensibly express voters’ views, and frustration with its failure to do so will only embed.
Secondly, because there is a clear mandate for another independence referendum in Scotland. Westminster will flat-out deny that mandate, leaving the roughly half of Scottish voters who support independence frustrated with a Union in which they increasingly feel trapped.
As Scottish first minister John Swinney demands that vote, he will have more powerful allies outside Scotland than ever: both, probably, his new Plaid Cymru counterpart in Wales and Northern Ireland’s Sinn Féin first minister, as well as an emboldened Zack Polanski, who has been vocal about the Green Party’s – and his personal – support for both Scottish and Welsh independence.
Perhaps most profoundly, though, the simplest way to interpret these results is that people have lost faith in not just our political establishment, but also our whole political system, specifically, the whole Westminster system. The SNP, Reform, Plaid Cymru, the Greens, and even to some extent the Liberal Democrats have won big because they aren’t seen as Westminster parties.
There are two potential responses to that. We can either turn up our noses at those people, moan about their lack of trust in the system and talk smugly about how to rebuild it, or we can accept they are correct.
The reason voters don’t trust the Westminster system is that it stinks. We have one of the most centralised political systems in the democratic world. The vast power at the core is barely held accountable by a parliament that it’s hard to take seriously as a democratic chamber. The place is teaming with corporate lobbyists, drowning in dark money and whipped into line by millionaire-funded party machines.
For the week before the election, MPs spent more time moaning that their new Green colleague Hannah Spencer had suggested they shouldn’t be drinking on the job than they did setting out their plans to navigate the horrors we’re all living through.
It’s no wonder people want a whole new system.
The role for progressives now is to listen to that anger and translate it into movements for progressive change.
To start that conversation, sign up to my newsletter: abolishwestminster.substack.com.
Adam Ramsay is a former editor, UK editor, and special correspondent of openDemocracy. He now writes the Abolish Westminster newsletter, and his book of the same name will be published by Faber on 5 November. You can pre-order it here.
