Britain’s Elections This Week Pose Crucial Tests for Farage, Starmer

Tory party leadership could also rest on contest’s outcome

British Reform party leader Nigel Farage. Photo: Gage Skidmore

British local-government elections aren’t typically of great interest to American readers. But this week’s vote, scheduled for Thursday, May 1 — the first big electoral test of Keir Starmer’s Labour government since they came to office last July — is worth paying attention to. It will be the first concrete test of whether Nigel Farage’s Reform party has become a serious player, and if UK politics is realigning.

A brilliant communicator, Farage was a central player in Britain’s Brexit debates. He was the dominant figure in the UK Independence party; without its threat to the Tories the referendum on exiting the European Union might have never been called.

Farage has huge appeal in white, working class seats in the UK — the so-called Red Wall areas that have traditionally always voted Labour. But this base has also meant that his message has changed over time. When Farage first entered the political fray in the late 1990s he was a free market, low-tax Thatcherite who wanted to restore British sovereignty.

Now he is much more ready to embrace economic nationalism and state intervention in the economy. He has called for the nationalization of both the steel and the water industry and has signaled that he now supports further extending workers’ employment protections. Farage was perhaps the UK’s loudest Trump cheerleader — vying for that title with the prime minister for 49 days Liz Truss — although he has been rather more quiet in that regard in recent months as the president’s policies on Ukraine and on trade policy have become more unpopular on the European side of the Atlantic.