CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

Eat the Bond Traders!

James Gilray, Monstrous craws, at a new coalition feast. 1787. Photo: Library of Congress.

The recent U.K. election

The political gloom lifted here just a bit this week, when it became clear there will soon be a leadership contest in the British Labour Party. Last week’s municipal and “devolved” (Scottish and Welsh parliament) election results were like a 16-ton weight dropped on Britain’s hapless Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Labour received the worst drubbing in its history: 1400 municipal council seats lost, including 450 in London; loss of control of the Welsh Senedd (the quasi-independent, unicameral legislature); and an equally large defeat in Scotland. In London, Labour surrendered votes to the Greens – now, under Zack Polanski, a socialist alternative – and ceded control of half the borough councils.

The biggest winner in England, unfortunately, was Reform U.K., led by the racist, corrupt, and irrepressible Nigel Farage. It captured 1500 seats nationwide and gained control of 14 municipal councils. Extrapolated to parliamentary elections in 2029, Reform would become the largest party in the U.K. and its leader prime minister. Farage is currently under investigation by a parliamentary committee for not reporting a £5 million gift from Christopher Harborne, a British crypto billionaire living in Thailand. Farage said he didn’t have to register the gift because it was purely personal, intended to pay for a lifetime of security services. Apparently informed that protection services for a politician aren’t “personal,” he quickly changed his story and said the money was “a reward for campaigning for Brexit.” The only difference between Farage and his friend Trump’s corruption, is that the latter’s is on a bigger scale.

In Scotland and Wales, the nationalist parties dominated. The Scottish National Party, led by the charisma-challenged John Swinney, maintained control of Holyrood (that’s the name of the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh), and in Wales, Rhun ap Iorwerth, leader of Plaid Cymru, another independence party, was elected First Minister, the first time a non-Labour minister has held the position. Neither the SNP nor Plaid is likely to press for independence immediately, but if Farage seems likely to gain power, they will quickly pivot for autonomy.

The political upshot of all this is that the current leader of U.K. Labour, Prime Minister Starmer, is a zombie, a stiff, a dead man walking – choose your terminal metaphor. There would be reason to pity the poor man, if he weren’t so self-righteous. By historic standards, and certainly by comparison with the Tories, his first two years in office haven’t been terrible. He’s reduced child poverty, restricted the sale of council houses (an insidious practice that dates to Margaret Thatcher), increased the provision of free childcare, raised the minimum wage, provided renters more rights, and reduced (marginally) the length of waiting lists for treatments from the National Health Service.

But the biggest issues remain unaddressed. Prices have risen faster here than almost anywhere else in Europe, and salaries have lagged. There’s more poverty (including child poverty) and homelessness, worse health and lower life expectancy in the U.K. than most other European countries.  Public transportation is more costly and less extensive than the rest of Europe and higher education is more expensive and less available. Many hospitals are in a........

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