Skip to main content
Britain’s political landscape is being redrawn by an insurgent right
In the first of two pieces, NICK WRIGHT examines the rise of Reform UK and its parallels with France’s National Rally, warning of the dangers that lie ahead for a left without convincing answers to rising anti-immigration sentiment

BRITAIN’S electoral map has changed with a significant shift in the voting behaviour of both the working class and the middle class.
 
The archaic disposition of seats in the Westminster Parliament — with His Majesty’s loyal ministers seated on one side of the chamber and His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition on the opposite benches draws on the liturgical traditions of the Christian church and formalises a now redundant disposition of political forces.
 
The greater diversity of political tendencies now present in Parliament — even though the deeply undemocratic FPTP system still distorts the real relations between the contending forces — would be better represented by the adoption of the republican model of a parliament, like the French and Scottish assemblies.

There the people’s representatives sit in an arc modelled on the epic theatre of classical antiquity which, in the modern era, reveals more clearly the distinctions between the new alignments of the reactionary right and hints at a new popular left constellation.
 
We should make the grotesque Palace of Westminster even more of a museum of oddities and build a new parliament of the people wherever HS2 eventually terminates.

* * *

Within politics, the tectonic plates are shifting and we need to devise a strategy that puts the working class at the centre of political progress on its own account while taking account of the newly salient fact that voting behaviour is far more complex than is accounted for by Westminster’s archaic geometry.
 
The Communist Party’s election co-ordinator Phil Katz reports that voters often agreed with the party’s economic policies but, on a variety of issues, thought a vote for Reform UK expressed their opinions.

Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
Features / 11 March 2025
11 March 2025
NICK WRIGHT examines how Farage’s party has attracted five distinct voter tribes with incompatible views on economics, immigration and state intervention — presenting both a challenge and opportunity for left organising
Features / 27 February 2025
27 February 2025
In the recent federal elections the far-right AfD was able to reach sections of the working class on issues over which the left is divided and unable to articulate a coherent position, a situation that is replicated in a number of other European countries, argues NICK WRIGHT
Features / 30 January 2025
30 January 2025
NICK WRIGHT examines the British ruling class's complex relationship with fascism before, during and after the second world war
Features / 3 January 2025
3 January 2025
With federal elections coming up in Germany in February, NICK WRIGHT takes a look at the class forces shaping the policies of the main parties, and sees little hope of a breakthrough for the left
Similar stories
Features / 11 March 2025
11 March 2025
NICK WRIGHT examines how Farage’s party has attracted five distinct voter tribes with incompatible views on economics, immigration and state intervention — presenting both a challenge and opportunity for left organising
Eyes Left / 10 December 2024
10 December 2024
From boozy banker renegade to man-of-the-people populist, Farage’s evolution continues — if he can win constituencies like the Welsh mining areas, the left will need new and better answers, writes ANDREW MURRAY
Features / 9 July 2024
9 July 2024
Communist Party leader ROBERT GRIFFITHS dissects the election results, looking at all of the political spectrum, from the hard right to the far left, and assesses the political landscape it reveals