The political scene in the United Kingdom, perhaps alongside the United States the country that best symbolised bipartisanship, has exploded. The figures seem indisputable. From December 1922 until the last general elections in July 2024, the Conservative Party and Labour have collectively garnered between 65% and 85% of the votes. In the local elections in England and parliamentary elections in Wales and Scotland taking place this Thursday, they may not reach 35%.
Instead of these two major parties, the landscape resembles more of a puzzle typical of a continental parliamentary system - like the Spanish or French systems - rather than that of Great Britain. In fact, tomorrow the UK will debut a five-party system, which is the term used to define the five-party governments that ruled in the First Republic of Italy from 1981 to 1994. With less than a month and a half until the 10th anniversary of the Brexit vote, British political fragmentation sounds more European than ever.
According to polls, there are five parties with an intention to vote ranging from 12% to 25%: the ultranationalist and Eurosceptic Reform UK, led by the Brexit 'father', Nigel Farage (around 25%); the Labour Party, led by Prime Minister Keir Starmer, in power, and the main opposition force, the Conservative Party (both slightly below 20%); the Green Party, led by self-proclaimed ecopopulist Zack Polanski (around 15%), and the Liberal Democrats, centrist (just over 10%). It is a similar, albeit more convoluted, situation to that of last year's local elections, which resulted in an absolute victory for Reform and a disastrous defeat for Labour.
It is an entirely unprecedented scenario. The two parties that have dominated British politics since 1922 are at historic lows. For both, the danger of extinction in the medium term is more than just a theoretical possibility. In contrast, Reform, which has been in existence for six years, and the Greens, which, although older, did not gain parliamentary presence until 15 years ago, are at their highest levels ever recorded. Only the Liberal Democrats, who mainly receive votes from the middle and upper-middle classes with high levels of education, remain at their historical levels.
However, the five-party system is just a benevolent view of the situation. In reality, one could speak of a seven-party system. That is, seven parties. Because, for the first time since the establishment of the Welsh Parliament in 1999, the nationalist Plaid Cymru could be the most voted force... with the permission of Reform UK, which is eroding the so-called Labour red wall in the south of that territory. The situation in Scotland is more complicated, where polls put the Scottish National Party on the verge of an absolute majority. Its leader, John Swiney, insists that if this happens, he will call for a new independence referendum.
All these data indicate that British political life is in a state of turmoil. The rural conservative vote and the urban working-class vote have shifted, respectively, from the Tories and Labour to Reform, a party that in practice is a one-person project of Nigel Farage. The urban young vote - including minorities - has abandoned the Labour Party to embrace Polanski. But that's not all: Reform has been stagnant in the polls for nine months. In other words: Farage seems to have hit a ceiling, partly due to his absolute identification with Donald Trump.
Labour faces a catastrophe, especially in the city of London - one of its strongholds - after a brutal year, due to the chronic unpopularity of its leader, Prime Minister Keir Starmer, exacerbated by the scandal surrounding the link between the former British ambassador to the United States, Peter Mandelson, and the world elite pimp Jeffrey Epstein, and by his support for Israel in Gaza, which has been a blessing for the Greens, whose leader, Polanski, is, in fact, Jewish.
At least Labour can console itself by maintaining leadership on the left. More desperate is the situation for the Tories, who seem destined to be the minority force on the right, an unimaginable situation for those who have wielded power in the UK for 101 of the last 150 years, leading them to self-identify as "the natural party of power". Now, everything suggests that these laws of nature are leaving them in a dinosaur-like position.
Obviously, partial local elections - the UK renews its local bodies in a staggered manner, every May - do not have the significance or consequences of national elections. But they are a barometer of where public sentiment is heading. The 5,066 elected positions that will be chosen tomorrow, plus the Parliaments of Wales and Scotland, are a sign of change.
But change towards where? That is more difficult. The British electoral system is majoritarian. This means that if a party were to win all constituencies by just one vote, they would secure 100% of the seats at stake. This greatly reduces the possibilities of coalition governments. The British five-party system is electoral, not for governance. This, in turn, creates what is known as tactical voting, where voters cast their ballot not for their preferred candidate, but for the candidate with an acceptable ideology who has a better chance of winning. This could mean that some London Labour supporters may vote for the Greens in their districts to halt Farage. Or that the Tories may vote for the latter, as his party leads the polls.