Elections 2029: the United Kingdom the Italian way

United Kingdom, Italian-style instability

Since the Brexit tear in 2020, nothing is going well at 10 Downing Street. We are witnessing a waltz of Prime Ministers condemned to ephemeral maneuvers: Boris Johnson, carried away by scandals, Liz Truss, pushed towards the exit after only a few weeks, Rishi Sunak, disowned at the polls. Today, it is Labor’s Keir Starmer who is threatened after his recent defeat in the local elections. The United Kingdom is gradually discovering a form of governmental instability long associated with Italy… until the advent of Giorgia Meloni, a skilled populist who holds the reins firm.

Such instability in London is unprecedented. The United Kingdom has been governed for a century by two wise men old partiesTories (conservative) and Labor (labour). System which seemed immutable, favored by the single-member ballot in one round which avoided the fragmentation of votes. It was called into question in the last local elections by the push of the populists and the Greens, not to mention those of the Scottish and Welsh separatists.

What will happen in the 2029 national elections? Keir Starmer, with timid reforms, has not been able to stem the impoverishment of modest residents. There is the powerful anti-migrant wave but also an environmental deficit, the dysfunctions of public services, the feeling of abandonment and inequality between regions.

“We don’t change pilots in mid-flight,” Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy pleaded in defense of Starmer. This is not the time in the midst of an international crisis, from Ukraine to the Middle East, and while the United Kingdom, more isolated since Brexit, is moving closer to the European Union, in particular France, on vital security issues.

Reform UK, the populist party of Nigel Farage, perfidious demagogue and admirer of Trump, recorded an impressive surge. Credited today with a quarter of the votes ahead of Labor, the Tories and the Greens, will he be appointed in 2029 at the head of a coalition government, with the Conservatives in support? A once-imperial nation now finds itself adrift after a Brexit that failed to deliver on its promises.