The first results of the 'election super Thursday' in the United Kingdom consolidate Nigel Farage's far-right

LondonThe United Kingdom has a problem; so does the British Labour Party, and Prime Minister Keir Starmer even more so. The first provisional results In an initial assessment to the press, Keir Starmer has assumed "responsibility" for the Labour Party's electoral results in England. "They are very tough, and there's no way to sugarcoat them," he said. "We have lost brilliant Labour representatives across the country... This hurts, and it should hurt, and I take responsibility. Days like this do not weaken my resolve to deliver the change I promised," he added.

With these words, the prime minister tries to halt any attempt at a coup against his leadership. However, it is still too early to know the full extent of the defeat and, above all, what the party's reaction will be. What is certain, however, is that the first voices questioning Keir Starmer's leadership have appeared days and weeks ago. The Labour leader in Hull (north-east England), Daren Hale, has openly called for a change of direction in the early hours of this morning, after a night that several leaders describe as "devastating." In the hours and days to come, as the full picture of this electoral "super Thursday" emerges, the party will have to ask itself what to do with its prime minister and, above all, what reform program it should propose to the citizens to consolidate the electoral victory of two years ago.

to a break from the traditional two-party system of the islands

Another of the initial conclusions shown by the results is the break of the traditional bipartisanship of the islandsvoted overwhelmingly in favor of Brexit

The symptoms of the Labour debacle, which are already glimpsed by both initial results and analysts, have very concrete symbolic indicators in territories linked to prominent figures of Keir Starmer's government. In Tameside, a metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, in northwestern England, a traditional Labour stronghold and within the area associated with former Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, Labour has lost 16 of the 17 municipal seats it was defending. The party that has benefited is Farage's. In Wigan, also in Greater Manchester, and the Westminster constituency of Culture Minister Lisa Nandy, Labour has ceded the 22 seats at stake, also to the populists and xenophobes of the Reform Party. In Southampton, Labour has lost control of the municipal council and even the local Labour leader, Alex Winning, has been ousted.

The Conservatives are also not escaping electoral punishment, although in some places they have resisted better than expected. They have regained control of Westminster City Council (London), with 32 out of 54 seats, after snatching nine from Labour. But in other areas, especially in areas that ten years ago voted overwhelmingly in favor of Brexit, reformism has profoundly eroded the Tory vote. In Dudley (West Midlands, west of Birmingham), Farage's party has won 23 seats and become the second force, and in Basildon – 40 kilometers northeast of London – it has burst onto the scene with 11 councillors.

The first analyses of these results indicate that support for the Reform Party is concentrated in areas that voted massively in favor of Brexit in 2016. Political scientist John Curtice, the great guru of UK demoscopy, has highlighted on the BBC that the party achieves an average of 40% of the vote in districts where more than 60% of electors voted to break with the EU. Conversely, the Greens achieve their best results in clearly pro-European areas.

When there is a complete picture of the results, not only in England but also in Scotland and Wales, and if the turn towards populist far-right is confirmed, the country as a whole will have to ask itself why a figure like Nigel Farage has become an increasingly strong candidate to reach Downing Street in 2029. At the moment, Farage faces an investigation by the Parliamentary Ethics Committee for having accepted a donation of five million pounds in cryptocurrency without declaring it, and having promised total deregulation if he comes to power. The country must also ask itself why it continues to bet on the Brexit man, especially after seeing the economic damage that the divorce from the European Union has caused to the United Kingdom.