Labour are now ahead of Reform in polls from More in Common (28% to 24%) and Survation (26% to 24%). Also YouGov has Labour and Reform on level terms, both at 22%. This is the first time in over a year that Reform has not had a lead over Labour.
Thoughts?
When Starmer was leading Labour, Farage was effectively the PM-in-waiting, the owners’ and right-wing media’s anointed viceroy. Now he suddenly doesn’t want to play this game any more and calls a byelection that only a joke candidate stands against him in (and looks to beat him). Given that Farage was UKIP and that all but disintegrated into a small group of angry cranks when he left, there probably isn’t much hope for a post-Farage Reform UK. The most viable candidates will jump back to the Conservative Party (which, for its fortunes, is a huge, old institution with the inherent buoyancy that that brings), and others may merge into another right-wing fringe party (the Tice mob, the one Morrissey was bigging up, some actual blood-and-soil Nazi death cult Elon Musk donates a few hundred million to, or whatever).
TIL Morrissey is a racist fascist fuck.
A good read for anyone else who didn’t know:
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/may/30/bigmouth-strikes-again-morrissey-songs-loneliness-shyness-misfits-far-right-party-tonight-show-jimmy-fallon
He also robbed his bandmates of fair royalties. They took him to court and won, with the judge characterising Morrissey as “truculent and devious”.
And these people want us to believe it’s dastardly Johnny Foreigner who will rob us and destroy fairness.
To go along with his shit music and grating voice, not to mention the worst novel ever written.