THE full results of the council and parliamentary elections in Britain won’t be known until this evening, and the final outcomes in Edinburgh and Cardiff may take even longer to resolve.

Nevertheless, these elections are profoundly consequential for Britain and, with any luck, for the tottering UK as a whole.

As polling has predicted for months, the political configuration which has obtained for a century has been overturned.

The old two-and-a-half party arrangement of Conservative, Labour and Liberal/Liberal Democrat has been tossed in the air.

Newton Emerson: So who really cut funding for the NI Place-Name Project?

Lynette Fay: The day that changed everything for me

The question now is whether a new system or configuration will emerge, or will the fragments remain a kaleidoscope when they fall to earth again?

In other words, are we looking at a permanent change like the one which appeared after World War I, when the once enormously successful Liberal party all but vanished in 1924, to be replaced by Labour?

Or, are we looking at a dominant Reform party, with Labour, Conservatives, Lib Dems and Greens all competing for the position of official opposition, but each unable to deliver a knockout blow to any of the others?

The antiquated and undemocratic British first-past-the-post voting system of course........

© The Irish News