This is unprecedented. If the polls are to be believed, never before in modern history has a single party won such a large majority. Never will a prime minister have enjoyed such unlimited power.
What is the secret of the Labor Party? A super talented shadow cabinet? Policies that make voters drool? A charismatic leader? Hardly. Sir Keir Starmer looks set to get fewer votes than Boris Johnson in 2019, possibly less than Jeremy Corbyn in 2017.
What we are seeing is not enthusiasm for the Labor Party, but irritation at a four-term Conservative government, coupled with the way our voting system punishes divisions on one side of the spectrum.
The logic of the first to pass the position is brutal. A small party can only win seats if its support is regionally concentrated.
In 2015, for example, Ukip won 12.6 per cent of the vote and only one MP: Douglas Carswell. The SNP, on the other hand, won 4.7 per cent of the vote, but 56 MPs.
Reform Party leader Nigel Farage speaks to an audience in Clacton-on-Sea earlier this week. He is currently the precinct favorite for the July 4 general election.
Although the reform cannot win many seats, it can weaken the conservatives, to the point of not recovering.
The same logic militates against the reform today. According to his most optimistic forecast, he will recover seven deputies. Most pollsters consider it three or less. Although the reform cannot win many seats, it can weaken the conservatives to the point of not winning them back.
Otherwise, not all supporters of reform would vote for the conservatives. But the evidence suggests that having two competing right-wing parties will cost the Conservatives 100 or more seats, leaving Britain, in effect, a one-party state.
If Labor candidates have their fingers crossed for reform, so have the Liberal Democrats. In fact, they may be even bigger beneficiaries of Nigel Farage’s campaign, as they are more likely to be rivals in seats where he withdrew Brexit Party candidates in 2019.
Although polls show the Liberal Democrats won roughly the same percentage of the vote as last time, they are expected to triple their parliamentary representation.
There is even a scenario in which, despite being a distant fourth in percentage of the popular vote, the Liberal Democrats end up being the second party in the House of Commons, making the unserious Ed Davey leader of the Opposition of Your Majesty.
Let’s think for a moment about what a Parliament with almost 500 Labor MPs would be like.
Starmer has outlined some of his policies. He will extend the vote to 16-year-olds, even though, in any other context, he considers them children. It will weaken measures against electoral fraud, give more power to unions and create a new quango of racial equality.
He will scrap the Rwanda plan and sign a return agreement with the EU. It will unilaterally opt for a series of EU policies. By seeking to decarbonise the grid by 2030, it will make Britain poorer, colder and darker. These are policies he has been candid about. But each government also ends up doing things that it has not publicized.
Sir Keir Starmer looks set to get fewer votes than Boris Johnson in 2019, possibly fewer than Jeremy Corbyn in 2017, writes Daniel Hannan.
Workers will need to increase income. Britain is spending more than it can afford and Starmer has no plan to reduce spending to pre-lockdown levels. That can only mean more taxes.
The Labor Party says it will not impose new taxes “on workers”. Then we can deduce that there will be more taxes on savings, inheritance, property and business.
We will all end up shelling out more, either directly or indirectly; especially those who have savings, pensions or homes.
For some reform voters, economic issues are secondary to the culture wars. They feel, rightly, that the country has become too woke, that government departments are more interested in promoting diversity than doing their jobs, and that we should assimilate the immigrants we have already welcomed before admitting more.
We don’t know where the next culture war will be fought. But we know that Starmer’s instincts are as sharp as they come.
When Marxist Black Lives Matter mobs attacked statues, he and his deputy, Angela Rayner, theatrically took a knee.
When Labor MP Rosie Duffield said only women had a cervix two years ago, Sir Keir said: “It shouldn’t be said, it’s not right.” Starmer may have changed his position on many things, but he has been consistent in considering Parliament subordinate to courts and international agreements.
Which brings us to the paradox of what seems almost certain to happen a week from now on Thursday.
In our annoyance with high taxes, unresponsive public services, weak border controls and political correctness, we will knowingly put in place a government that will make all of these problems worse.
God knows conservatives have made mistakes.
Not everything that bothers them can be attributed to the war in Ukraine or the confinement that many demanded at the time.
It was a terrible mistake to change leaders twice in three months without a general election. Voters felt it was taken for granted.
And, although several measures taken last year to reduce immigration are having an effect, we have experienced an increase that is only partly explained by special plans for Ukraine, Hong Kong and Afghanistan.
But I keep coming back to the same question. How can conservatives be punished without punishing the country?
For those voters who want a more activist, high-tax government, that’s fine: you can vote Labor with a clear conscience.
But I don’t see how, if we want lower taxes, secure borders, less hard work and a more ambitious approach to our post-EU opportunities, we can advance any of these goals by making Labor and the Lib Dems more likely to win. more seats, which is what backing reform almost certainly means.
When the world is closer to a total conflagration than at any time in 60 years, the danger is not so much that voting for reform will delight Vladimir Putin, whose justification in Ukraine is echoed by Farage.
No, the real danger is that in doing so we end up with David Lammy as Foreign Secretary, a man who, on Celebrity Mastermind, thought the Rose Revolution had happened in Yugoslavia.
If Lammy is the answer, maybe we’re asking the wrong question.
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