It could be seen as a display of British eccentricity: a rowing and canoe club in a building shaped like a mini medieval castle towering over a converted industrial canal turned urban promenade. And with a name that is unforgettable: The Pirate Castle. It is a symbol of the United Kingdom, the country that turned pirate ships into a profitable Armada.
Yesterday, The Pirate Castle club also represented another British invention: individual political rights. There was one of the polling stations where the citizens of England elected 5,066 elected officials in local administrations, and those of Wales and Scotland, the entirety of their regional parliaments. The Pirate Castle is in one of the most symbolic constituencies in these elections: Camden, in central London. And within it, in one of the most touristy areas of the British capital: Camden Town.
Just 100 meters away, in all directions, from record and clothing stores and street stalls selling rock paraphernalia -another British creation-, the Castle was also the image of a besieged fortress, in the process of assault and conquest: that of the Labour Party. The Camden municipal council -a kind of mini town hall- in that area of London was established in 1964. For these 62 years, it has only been governed by one party: Labour. In the last elections, in 2022, that force, which also has an overwhelming majority in the British Parliament, achieved 55.6% of the vote, giving it 47 out of 55 seats on the council. In these elections, according to a survey by the Evening Standard, they have 33%; the Greens, 32%.
Residents arrive at a mobile polling station in a caravan near Duxford, in eastern England.AFP
As if that humiliation were not enough, here comes the icing on the cake: the constituency of the Prime Minister, Labour's Keir Starmer, is in Camden. Or, as many -including some residents- call it, "the Camden bubble." That's the term used yesterday by musician and rock singer Simeon Hammond Dallas, 32, born and raised in the area, who, after voting for the Green Party at the Pirate Castle, explained to EL MUNDO that "maybe I do it because I am too optimistic."
Hammond Dallas is an example of a Camden voter. She left Labour in 2024 when, instead of Starmer, she supported independent candidate Andrew Feinstein, born and raised in South Africa, and a former anti-apartheid activist, who launched a quixotic left-wing independent campaign against the current Prime Minister.
Laura, a 49-year-old psychotherapist, switching allegiance to the Greens was more circumstantial. "I vote for them because Your Party doesn't run in Camden," she stated. But what she was clear about was that she would not vote for Labour or Starmer. "The Labour Party believes in nothing," she explained as she walked firmly home, listing actions that led her to that position: "Gaza, Netanyahu, not standing up to Trump," and the most nihilistic, although also the most cited by the average voter worldwide when withdrawing support from a party: "They do absolutely nothing...".
Laura's support for Your Party was significant because that party was co-founded by former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, a representative of pure, unapologetic leftism, who led his party to two consecutive electoral defeats and, due to his opposition to EU capitalism, made Nigel Farage's most ultramontane Brexit dreams almost come true, with a near-total break from the EU.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage poses with his ballot in Walton on the Naze, southeast England.AP
Despite the economic and political disaster of Brexit, which now between 55% and 65% of Britons consider a mistake, Farage's party, Reform UK, is now the most popular in the UK, with a program based on rejecting immigration. An immigration that, precisely, surged when Britons realized that after expelling Europeans, they did not have enough native production to serve as waiters, truck drivers, builders, laborers, doctors, or nurses.
Thus, Reform UK is eating up Labour workers affiliated with unions, while the Green Party of Zack Polanski -another populist like Farage, but from the left- is attracting professionals, young people, and minorities. These were exactly the voters in Camden who were going to the Pirate Castle yesterday. Among them were Labour supporters who maintained their vote and, faced with the impending debacle, seemed determined to stick to their guns, as Guillén de Castro's saying popularized by Unamuno goes.
This stance was perfectly represented by Charles, a 23-year-old lawyer, impeccably dressed, with a trimmed beard, who stood out a bit among Camden's bohemian progressives. His vote for Starmer's party was accompanied by criticism not of the government, but of the voters, summed up in a resounding: "People do not demand seriousness or responsibility from politicians. They vote for the most handsome, or the funniest. Then, they get disappointed. But they do the same thing again." His view was exactly the opposite of a future colleague, Robo, 21, who is finishing Law this year and works part-time as a waitress in a Brazilian bar: "I support Polanski because he is not Starmer." However, her support will have no practical effects because Robo forgot to register to vote.
The comparison with the 2016 US presidential elections is inevitable. A center-left politician without charisma, whose competition is completely overshadowed by a warmth and ability to connect with voters similar to that of a Greenland glacier, loses voters on the left to a representative of the left with an unrealizable program and to the right with a populist who will solve everything by expelling immigrants (but only the poor). If Hillary Clinton is replaced by Starmer, Bernie Sanders by Polanski, and Donald Trump, the parallel is complete. Adding to this comparison the collapse against Trump of the Republican establishment of the Bushes and Romneys with that of the British Tories -conservatives- of Kemi Badenoch against Farage, one can only lament that the quote attributed to the American writer Mark Twain, "History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes," is apocryphal, as it would be the perfect ending to an article about these elections.