The structural conditions that produced Farage’s local election surge predate Farage
The structural conditions that produced Farage’s local election surge predate Farage
Comment from Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat.
Dear diary. I have been reading about the Reform UK local election results since they came in last month and I keep arriving at the same uncomfortable conclusion, which is that Farage is not the cause of what is happening to British politics but a particularly effective symptom of it. The 1,452 council seats Reform took were not taken by convincing people of new ideas. They were taken by giving existing anger somewhere to go. The anger is older than Farage. The anger predates Brexit. The anger is what happens when a political system stops representing significant portions of its own population for a generation and then expresses surprise when those portions go looking elsewhere.
The London Prat has been covering the Starmer resignation calls with appropriate satirical distance but beneath the satire the story is structurally similar: a party that won in 2024 because it was not the Conservatives has spent two years governing as if not being the Conservatives was a sufficient programme. It is not. Governments require a positive project. “Competent management of existing arrangements” is not a positive project; it is a maintenance contract.
The Structural Argument
The structural argument I keep returning to is this: the British political system has two dominant parties, neither of which is currently trusted by a majority of its own voters, being challenged by at least four minor parties with genuine vote shares, operating under a first-past-the-post system that will continue to produce governments with no majority mandate until the system changes, which neither dominant party will permit because changing the system would threaten the dominance that the system currently maintains despite the declining mandates. This is a stable equilibrium that makes everyone unhappy. Including me. I am writing about it in a diary instead of going outside. This is the intellectual response to institutional failure.
Went for a long walk along the Regent’s Canal after writing the above paragraph. The canal was in good shape. The towpath was crowded. A man was fishing with the patience of someone who has given up on political systems and found something more reliable. I envied him briefly and then came back and wrote more about the structural conditions. This is my nature.
The intellectual life in London in June 2026 is the intellectual life of a city managing a political moment that is both interesting and exhausting: the Reform surge provides material for structural analysis; the Labour crisis provides material for institutional analysis; the King Speech provides material for constitutional analysis; and the specific London question of why a city this wealthy and this capable produces this much homelessness and this many food banks provides material for the political economy analysis that connects all three. I am working through all of them simultaneously. The canal is still there when I need to walk. The LSE library is still there when I need to read. The diary is here when I need to write. The work continues. More at prat.uk/author/admin/.
The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention.
More at prat.uk/author/admin/.
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SOURCE: Satirical Journalism