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UK Politics & Midterms · Newsradio WGAN

• 0:00
  So over in the United Kingdom, they are on Thursday, and
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  they're a little ahead of us, obviously going to be voting.
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  And they're not voting for their general election stuff.
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  They're not voting for new Prime Minister or anything.
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  They're doing their version of midterms.
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  They're doing their version of midterms.
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  Millions of British voters are going to be casting their
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  ballots today in local and regional elections that are
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  expected to deal a huge blow perhaps, and some are predicting
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  this a historic blow to Prime Minister Keir Starmer's Labour
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  Party and renew questions about his ability to govern.
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  Elections for almost 5000 council seats in England and to
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  the parliaments of Scotland and Wales could signal the beginning
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  of the end of Britain's traditional two party system if
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  voters opt for populist and nationalist parties rather than
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  the once dominant Labour and Conservative parties.
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  That's part of this story, yes. But the I think bigger part of
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  this year ultimately is the the, the deconstruction and the
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  complete decline and implosion of the Labour Party writ large.
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  But I'll get to that in a minute.
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  Polls suggest that populist reform UK of Brexit campaigner
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  Nigel Farage is going to expand its control of councils in
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  England and could form the main opposition in Scotland and Wales
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  to the pro independence Scottish National Party.
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  And, and I never say right, I apologize, but plied Subaru, I
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  believe challenging from the left.
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  The Greens look to set looks at to threaten Labour strongholds
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  in London and other major centers as well.
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  The prospect of losing swaths of council seats in England, the
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  end of its dominance in the Welsh Assembly, and a possible
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  3rd place finish for Scotland's Parliament means that Starmer
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  looks to looks set to come under pressure again to quit or at
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  least at least set a timetable for his departure.
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  Now that's 1/2 of the story. The other half of the story is
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  to go back just a little bit of time.
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  I mean, you're talking about 2024, the same year that Donald
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  Trump got elected, just a few months before it.
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  Actually, just a few months before that July, it was
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  actually July 4th. Thank you for voting on
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  Independence Day. Appreciate that.
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  UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who is the last Conservative
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  Prime Minister in a, you know, 15 year ish kind of.
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  Well, he was 15, right? Hold on.
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  He was 2024. They came to power in 2010.
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  Yeah, 14 years. He was the last of a, you know,
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  series, right. David Cameron, you had Theresa
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  May, you had Boris Johnson, you had very briefly Liz Truss and
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  then you had Rishi Sunak. Anyway, they, they governed for
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  a long time and they lost a lot of faith of the British people.
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  So the Labour Party, which sucks.
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  I mean, it's, it's been ever since Tony Blair left the Labour
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  Party, which is their left, that's their Democratic Party
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  for, you know, if you want to, if you want me to interpret this
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  for you, if you don't really follow UK politics, they're,
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  they're far more left wing broadly than the Democratic
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  Party is even today, even today. But they were a major force in
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  British politics, obviously during the time of Tony Blair
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  won 3 elections in a row, 3 landslides in a row.
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  But after he left, they, they really had a hard time.
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  And you're not outside the the governing, you know, halls of
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  power for 14 years if you're doing good.
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  But because the conservatives had so blown it, it gave him an
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  opening, gave him an opportunity and people were very
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  dissatisfied and they were done with them.
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  And they're like, alright, let's move on, right.
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  So Keir Starmer won 411 seats in their Parliament and there's 650
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  total, just in case you don't know that 411, they gained 211
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  seats in parliament and, and obliterated the Conservatives.
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  The Conservatives went from 2:51 to 121.
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  They, you know, they, they beat him by about 3 million votes
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  nationwide. It was a, it was a 10 point
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  percentage. I mean, it was a, it was a
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  skunking perhaps I believed, you know, depending on how you count
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  it, the largest landslide in, in the modern era in that country.
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  So that's a remarkable victory for Keir Starmer and the Labour
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  Party. And here we are two years, not
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  not even not even two years later and they're talking about,
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  well, this guy should probably quit and, you know, or at least
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  set a timetable for his exit. That is a massive implosion.
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  Now, why am I bringing it up outside of just me being
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  interested in UK politics? I'll tell you and then we'll go
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  to break. All right.
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  And here's the here's the here's the answer.
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  Because that's a left wing government in charge of a major
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  democracy in the Western world and it is facing a midterm
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  election. And what's happening to them,
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  the same thing that may happen over here, which is the in power
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  party is going to get slapped around in their midterm
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  election. So when you sit in, sit around
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  and you start thinking about why there is a rejection of certain
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  people in power, why there is this midterm effect, there's the
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  anti wave that comes in. Why does that happen?
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  Does it have anything to do with ideas, ideology, politics,
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  anything, anything like that? It doesn't appear to because
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  left wing politics, frankly, is failing harder than quote UN
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  quote, right wing politics is here.
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  And I, you know, fail isn't even the right word, but you know
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  what I mean. It's, it's struggling.
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  It's going to be a bad place to be.
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  You don't want to be in that guy's chair right now.
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  And it's the exact opposite political party, exact opposite
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  political ideology. Everything about it is different
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  and the, by the way, Reform UK, you know, which is very close to
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  what I would say our our Republican Party is these days
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  is ascendant and going to be victorious, maybe in a historic
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  way. So just chew on that for a
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  minute. Think about that as you consider
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  all your votes in the future.