DOC TAYROC'S [UNSOLICTED, BONUS] ECONOMICS HOT THOUGHT

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The Case for Cautious Optimism in Britain

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You might have noticed, and if you're British you've hopefully certainly noticed we just recently had a series of English Council elections, as well as Scottish and Welsh parliamentary elections here. As you've no doubt heard, it was an absolute embarrassment for Starmer's Labour Party, an alleged victory for Reform, and a good showing for Green, Plaid Cymru, and the Scottish National Party. The British media, being the ever predictable pushers of sensationalist misery, have seemingly given the government over to Reform, despite not a single change of seat in the Westminster Parliament. Whilst the British people should indeed be concerned over the recent gains by Reform, we should not let the British media shoe horn false consensus behind Reform the way their American counterparts have. After all, historically 'centrist' Liberals love fascists over socialists, since the fascists claim respect for private property, and I've previously discussed the fetish for private property the capitalist class and their apologists have.

As such, it is worth noting this is the most successful campaign the less capital-friendly Green Party has ever mounted. Granted, their showing outside London wasn't great, but considering the odds against them from the Commissioner of the London Metropolitan Police being against them to the intentional ignorance of the British media around them, and the usual smear campaigns of 'racism' and 'antisemitism' against them (as if the main parties and/or Reform are clean) Green still managed a considerable surge. Of course, Labour are blaming Green for the Reform surge instead of doing any reasonable amount of self-reflection, but a condemnation from Starmerites is as good an endorsement as any.

Let me be frank, Green aren't perfect, but the dream of a perfect Left wing party may leave Britain without entirely, and considering the absolute lack of meaningful Left wing politics this side of Thatcher, we can already see the dismal state that has left our country in. If you want the Greens to improve, there's still plenty of time to join the Greens and make your points clear.

I write this not to endorse Green, but to pre-empt the writing off of Britain's future prospects, as such a writing-off is exactly what Reform want, fascism thrives when the Left gives up or gives in to constant infighting. Declaring that Reform has already won is giving them simply too much credit. They performed well in an election with a historically low voter turn out, and in places where they were the main alternative to established parties like Labour, the Conservatives, and yes, even the Liberal Democrats who still haven't lived down that time they became part of the Conservative Party or that time their leader was a little too willing to use Britain's nukes.

It is also worth noting that Labour likes to insist that Starmer won the last general election, and so he clearly has something to give, instead of admitting the more obvious truth that Starmer didn't win, the Conservatives lost. Indeed, Corbyn had managed to get more votes in his failed 2019 bid than Starmer had in his successful 2024 one. Combine this pesky under-reported fact about both Corbyn's relative success and Green's considerable success and you see there is indeed room for a leftist movement in the UK, one that clearly the British press, owned by the capitalist class, don't want to acknowledge, and so will intentionally ignore or dismiss as 'populism', as if populism is inherently a bad thing in a democracy like the UK allegedly is.

In the words of Bob Marley, Stand Up! Rise Up! Leftism isn't dead in Britain, it's only getting started.