Unlike the French legislative elections in which a surprise leftist surge foiled the far right at the last minute, Britain’s July 4 parliamentary polls went almost exactly as predicted. Frustrated with the rising cost of living, economic stagnation, increasing poverty, deepening inequality and myriad failures related to the delivery of Brexit, British voters announced their complete rejection of the Conservatives, who had been at the helm of the country for 14 years. As such, Keir Starmer’s centre-left Labour Party won nearly two-thirds of the seats in the House of Commons, seemingly marking the beginning of a new era in British politics.

Alongside Tories’ spectacular defeat and Labour’s return to power after over a decade in opposition, however, there was one other story in this election that received a lot of attention: the gains made by a minor new party led by a right-wing populist who had played a significant role in pushing the United Kingdom towards Brexit.

Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party, which campaigned on a eurosceptic, anti-immigration ticket and promised to “change politics forever”, won 14.3 percent of the vote and managed to send a handful of MPs to Westminster. Farage, who had tried and failed to make his way to the Commons many times before, also managed to enter the parliament for the first time in his political career as the MP for Clacton.

Brexit and its myriad adverse consequences played a significant part in neither the........

© Al Jazeera