Last week, that holiday ended. ‘Big Ange’ emerged from that hole in Hove she had been hiding in. To Mainstream — the Burnham-associated grouping of the Labour ‘soft left’ — Rayner declared that Starmer’s government is ‘running out of time’, that the public’s view is that Labour now ‘represents the establishment’, and that the ‘very survival of the Labour Party is at stake’. She also spoke about her desire to see major constitutional revisions, and, weirdly, created a hypothetical that immigration reforms that sound a bit like those proposed by Shabhana Mahmood, rather than Mahmood’s own, ‘would be un-British’. Leaving aside the possibility of Rayner having a rather low verbal IQ, this suggests a reluctance — for now — to attack the Government directly, and indicates that the announcement of an immediate leadership challenge is unlikely. But at the same time, there is one outstanding phrase: ‘Are we ready for this fight?’ Who is ‘we’?

There is, of course, a lot of doubt about Rayner’s suitability to lead at all, with a pervasive sense her leadership would be ‘a one stop trip to the IMF’. Rayner has increasingly been treated with scepticism even by those sympathetic to her wider faction. Dissenting voices in the party are contingency planning to bring things to a head on the question of the leadership after the local elections in May, and to refashion the party structure after the NEC elections later in the year. In advance of this, Rayner has clearly been trying to gain sensible credits — even giving a speech to City investors and BNP Paribas (being paid a handsome five-figure fee, going some way to pay down her £40,000 of unpaid stamp duty) — and is now signalling that she is ‘adamant’ about sticking to the pledges in the 2024 Manifesto. The Manifesto is now apparently something of a Rorschach test, with investors seeing ‘fiscal rules’ and the ‘radical-wing-of-the-soft-left’ (to steal from the New Statesman) seeing ‘good vibes only’. Whether these efforts will leave Rayner as the most credible alternative to Starmer is yet to be seen, but for now the point is that she is trying to make the case.

There is, however, a distinct possibility that none of this contingency planning will ever have to be put into motion. Developments in No. 10, which we will detail below, could produce a curious dynamic in which the Labour ‘soft left’ — and backbenchers more generally — can strongarm the government into giving them almost whatever they want, whilst (crucially) retaining the City-whisperer Rachel Reeves and thus averting an immediate strike of the so-called Bond Vigilantes. This would, in fact, be entirely desirable if one leaves aside hurt feelings and the bad blood that has built up over the past eighteen months or so, though this is a factor that should never be underrated in politics.

An ongoing backbench rebellion that has only slowly gained momentum amongst Labour MPs, led by Tony Vaughan (flagged as one of the worst newly-elected Labour MPs by Pimlico Journal immediately after the election, he also introduced Rayner at the Mainstream event), has been the demand that MPs have a vote on the Home Office’s plans for ILR. If such a vote takes place and Mahmood’s proposals are scrapped or substantially watered down, she would, of course, face no choice but to resign, and has said as much publicly. While Mahmood has argued that this is strictly a question for the Home Secretary and the Home Office alone, this rebellion and Rayner’s intervention have come during a longer process in which Starmer’s government has already softened the language on the reforms substantially and has been seeking to reset its relationship with its MPs and ‘the left’ more generally.

As George Spencer and I discussed in a piece following Morgan McSweeney’s departure, any chance of left-reformism was confirmed dead with the demise of ‘McSweeneyism’, for which immigration reform (it is worth noting that the retroactive ILR reforms were first proposed under Yvette Cooper as Home Secretary, and not Blue Labourite Mahmood) has been the cornerstone, the central issue on which traditional Labour voters in the old ‘Red Wall’ have become most sceptical of the left in general.

After McSweeney’s departure, the government has made little effort to announce a big public ‘relaunch’ detailing a strategy and changed priorities — perhaps because there have already been three attempts which all fell flat in 2024 and 2025 — and has instead taken a ‘business as usual’ tone with the public. To an outside observer, this public posture might look weak, with the decision not to reshuffle or remove the Cabinet Minister closest to being openly disloyal during the Mandelson saga: Wes Streeting.

The reaction does make some sense internally, and the fourth go at Starmerism represents something more significant than all of the other resets, including the ‘Phase Two’ stage, which brought Mahmood into the Home Office last September. In response to the PIP rebellion last year and long-standing charges that Labour MPs felt ‘unheard’, it was with Phase Two itself that the government began to make substantial overtures to placate backbench opinion. With the addendum that the government still had its priorities, the last quarter of 2025 saw major reworks of the No. 10 Policy Unit, apparently indicative of the ‘hippy-bashing’, anti-progressive culture of the McSweeney era.

Fortnightly meetings are now held between the No. 10 Policy Unit and the PLP to address their tense relationship, and working groups of MPs have been established on specific issues. More ‘policy roundtables’ will be held between ministers, SpAds, and Labour select committee members, and a slew of changes that intend to change both the process and ‘culture’ of No. 10 have been promised. Now that McSweeney is gone and Mahmood is isolated (and likely to follow), given signs pointing to major concessions on the hundred-strong rebellion on ILR and refugee status, the true inauguration of the ‘Reign of the Backbenchers’ may be imminent.

Where will all of this restructuring lead? Well, way back in October of last year, still back in Phase Two, we learned how some of the wonks in the unit are thinking. Labour’s Top Minds got together and bashed out a note to distribute amongst themselves: ‘Project Home Turf’. What was the Wiley Webbite scheme?

The proverbial Red Pill of The Project was that the reason for the Labour government’s abysmal record in communication, and therefore its ratings, has thus far been that they have been playing on ‘away’ ground — immigration, law and order, defence and the economy. Instead, they should have played defence-attack on ‘home turf’ — the NHS, schools, bennies, and housing. The big idea here is that on ‘away’ issues, the best thing is to ‘neutralise’ them (that is to say, move on) and talk about their ‘home’ ones. Apparently, ‘managing the economy’ is now a right-wing issue, and Labour should simply give up even talking about growth. What was delivered as Reeves’ ‘Budget for Growth’ should instead have been sold as the ‘Budget for the NHS’.

Hippy-bashing stuff indeed. Needless to say, if this were somehow missed by Labour MPs, the idea that the economy framed on its own is always going to be a losing issue for Labour is — as friendly advice — perhaps a sure-fire way to lose what credibility remains with voters who are not on benefits, working for the public sector, or deluded recent graduates. Of course, I am being facetious, and this plan is equally a recognition that, for now, they should be holding on as tightly as possible to those groups and give up any serious claim to govern in the national interest. Perhaps Polanski and his ilk might think that this is Tough Stuff, but everyone knows that the wider British public does actually care if their standard of living continues to fall (or rises) independently of the level of NHS cheerleading that goes along with it. What can at least be said in its defence is that it is definitely the kind of thing that rebellious Labour MPs would probably lap up. There is plenty of common ground between the two camps after all!

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This week was focused on one big story as the highly anticipated Gorton & Denton by election resulted in a surprisingly large majority for the Green Party — until Saturday, that is, when President Trump unleashed all-out war on Iran.

This newsletter’s agenda: Greens win in Gorton and Denton (free); War in Iran (paid)

Greens win in Gorton and Denton

On Thursday, voters went to the polls in Gorton and Denton for the much-awaited by election which saw the incumbent Labour Party pitted against both Reform and the Greens, with each party polling roughly neck-and-neck in the immediate run-up to election day. Of course, the problem with polls is that, unlike Green Party campaigning literature, they are not conducted in Urdu - and as such, they failed to capture the extent to which the Muslim vote — approximately 30% of the population across the constituency — had shifted from Labour to the Greens, delivering them 41% of the vote and a victory with substantial margins over the other parties.

Reform’s Matt Goodwin came in second with 29% of the vote, just ahead of Labour on 25%. The Conservatives lost their deposit, having received their worst ever result at a parliamentary by-election with 1.9% of the vote. Advance UK received only 154 votes, proving fantasies of a missing nationalist vote begging for representation to the right of Reform to be just that. Turnout was 47.6% — which was surprisingly high for a generally low-turnout seat which only reached 47.8% turnout in 2024.

So, what are we to make of these numbers? First off, how did Reform perform, and what does it suggest about their standing nationally? Recent polls (both national vote share projections and MRP polls) suggested that Reform were on track for 28-30% in Gorton and Denton, but varied on whether that would be enough to win. Those same polls, evidently given credence by this result, give Reform a substantial majority nationally (regardless of the outcome they suggest for this particular constituency). That, at least, is reassuring.

To benchmark Reform’s prospects in the seat, we can look at the 2019 (notional) and 2024 results, where the Brexit Party / Reform received 4.9% and 14.1% respectively, with the Conservatives on 18.9% and 7.9%. Reform’s vote share at this election therefore substantially increased upon the combined performance of both parties at both previous elections, with the Tories still taking up nearly 2% of the vote. It looks as though they managed to squeeze out as much of the right-wing vote as possible, whilst consolidating more than 90% of it under their banner — a solid achievement. As for Matt Goodwin, these results suggest he was not the bad candidate that some suggested he might be. As much as localism is valued, especially at by-elections, name recognition should never be ignored — easy to do given it is so rarely a factor in British politics, where most new MPs are essentially unknown prior to their election.

Unfortunately, a good performance cannot always overcome unfavourable fundamentals, and Gorton and Denton was a perfect demonstration of that. The seat was, after all, somewhere between #420 and #440 on Reform’s target list — a victory there would have implied the largest majority since 1931 as a possibility. The western half of the constituency, which contains the majority of the population, is 43% ethnic minority and 42% graduate or current student, and as such it was never going to be a particularly friendly seat for Reform. Winning would only have been a possibility with a sufficiently split vote, and the collapse of the Labour vote was therefore the biggest worry — but it was the collapse of parties other than Labour and the Greens that gave the two a combined vote share more than twice that of Reform’s, and made a victory impossible regardless of the split between the two.

The Conservative Party, which has been entirely absent from the conversation throughout this election, lost their deposit for the first time ever at a parliamentary by-election. What is worse than the result itself are the facts that it surprised nobody and that nobody has even bothered commenting on it with any enthusiasm. The party was never going to be competitive in central Manchester — but the fact that this result feels barely worth commenting on is a sign of how far they have fallen. In particular, it is a vindication of the assessment of Dominic Cummings and others, who have said that the insurmountable problem for Kemi Badenoch is that the public is not even angry at them any more. As a marriage breaks down, there will be all manner of arguments — but it is when there’s no point even being upset that things go beyond the point of no return.

For Labour, this is the worst result possible. Had Reform won, even if the Greens had come second, they could have made the case that vote splitting by those on the left who make the perfect the enemy of the good allowed the victory of fascism in what should be a left-wing stronghold. Now, not only have they lost their uncontested claim to the tactical anti-Reform vote, but the very necessity of tactical voting has been called into question by the size of the Green margin of victory. This is now the second time that the left-wing vote has coalesced around an alternative to Labour at a by-election. Once could be brushed off as a fluke, especially with the specificities of the Caerphilly vote (being in Wales, and having a popular local Plaid Cymru candidate), but twice cannot be ignored.

Whilst a handful of Labour MPs have laid the blame at Keir Starmer’s feet, the response from within the Labour Party has been generally quiet. There’s a strange psychological game that occurs when a party is questioning its leadership, in which every time MPs respond to a failure or scandal a new baseline of criticism is established, building each time until the leader is brought down. With the failure to remove Starmer at the peak of the Mandelson affair, the Labour party entrenched the opposite psychological response — they taught themselves that even that level of crisis did not justify pulling the trigger on his Premiership. This has given Starmer a strange strength, at least as far as his position is concerned. His power, on the other hand, will be further reduced (if that is even possible) by this defeat, with the parliamentary plurality on the soft left seizing more and more influence.

In recognition of this, Number 10 is now reportedly setting up a number of ‘working groups’ containing MPs with expertise and opinions on particular subject areas, effectively allowing backbenchers to directly draft government policy in consultation with the cabinet. Ed Miliband has been speaking with various figures around the Labour movement, requesting their commentary to feed back to Starmer in what the Prime Minister presents as an act of support but what looks to us more like a tightening of Miliband’s grip over Downing Street. Rumours are now circulating of a reshuffle which might see Wes Streeting removed from cabinet entirely — a victory for the soft left, and likely a shrewd move from Starmer given that Streeting’s influence is likely at its nadir following his failure to shoot his shot last month.

For the Greens, this victory has given them credibility as a competitor to Labour nationally in a way they perhaps lacked until now. The party has long been expanding its influence in local government across England, and since the election of Zack Polanski as leader has gained on Labour in the polls — but their victory in Gorton and Denton confirms a ceiling of support above anything that had previously been anticipated. Hannah Spencer, the Greens’ newest MP, comes into Parliament with a higher profile that any of their four current members (can you name any of them?) — and having a secondary public face will be beneficial for the Greens just as growing beyond Farage has been beneficial for Reform.

Beyond its impact on the parties, this by-election has been perhaps the most impactful to date on public perceptions of the effect that mass immigration has already had on our politics. This is a somewhat unexpected result — after all, it is not the first or even the most egregious example of a by-election being won on an explicit appeal to Muslim voters (George Galloway first won an election in this way in 2005, and has done so twice more since then). Perhaps it is because this is the first time that this phenomenon has suggested a serious threat to the mainstream left, but whatever the reason, there has been far more widespread concern over the nature of the Greens’ victory than previous similar results.

On the night of the election, international observers raised concerns over the unusual prevalence of ‘family voting’, in which (mostly female) voters are escorted into polling booths by family members, assumedly to be told how to vote. Explaining the phenomenon on Sky News, Sam Coates — by no means a right wing figure — noted that in his own attempts to interview voters in the lead up to the election he had found many Muslim women suggesting that ‘my husband deals with that’, clearly implying that this disturbed him as it did other journalists. Whilst this particular framing attempts to hold within universalist lines, it is notable to hear explicit concerns about the ways in which certain minority communities engage with the democratic process raised so openly.

Reform have referred these reports to the police, but it is unlikely that any specific action will be taken — after all, it does not seem that whatever fraud took place changed the result of the election. More importantly, Farage has taken the opportunity to broaden the conversation beyond these specific lines and to discuss the fundamental problem of increasing appeals directly to minority ethnic interest groups in our politics. Writing in the Telegraph, Farage called for a range of restrictions on postal voting and stricter enforcement of election integrity. Most crucially, he called for an end to Commonwealth voting rights — under which all Commonwealth citizens can vote in British elections — and confirmed that a Reform government would end the practice.

This announcement — which, had it been made only a few weeks earlier, would have been hugely controversial — went down with little comment from a media which had in the past few days been forced to confront undeniable issues directly for the first time. We have covered ongoing debates about Farage’s true beliefs in this newsletter and in articles over the past few weeks, but the speed with which Farage capitalised on this opportunity sheds light on these questions better than any argument can. Over the next three years, there will be countless opportunities such as this to push the conversation further in the right direction, and Reform will take them just as they have taken this one. Pushing further than the public is ready to go, given this reality, is therefore a needless risk. This video was included in last week’s excellent piece by Jack Hadfield, but it is worth including it here too for those who haven’t seen it. The game should, at this point, be entirely clear — what remains is to sit back and watch it play out.

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This week saw Reform’s new shadow cabinet announced, and subsequently the first comprehensive look at the party’s economic platform delivered by Robert Jenrick.

Plus, we take a look at new Cabinet Secretary Antonia Romeo, and break our usual no-royals rule to examine the possibilities brought about by the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.

This newsletter’s agenda: Robert Jenrick lays out Reform’s economic strategy (free); Antonia Romeo appointed Cabinet Secretary (paid); Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor arrested for misconduct in public office (paid)

Robert Jenrick lays out Reform’s economic strategy

On Tuesday, the long-awaited announcement of Reform’s new Shadow Cabinet (or part of it at least) finally came, with Robert Jenrick appointed shadow Chancellor, Zia Yusuf appointed shadow Home Secretary, Richard Tice appointed shadow Secretary of State for Business and Energy, and Suella Braverman appointed shadow Secretary of State for Education (as well as being given the equalities brief with a mandate to abolish the position). We covered these appointments as rumoured last week, so we won’t go over our thoughts again, other than to say they are strong choices which make sense given Reform’s spread of talents. Notably absent from the stage was Nadhim Zahawi, previously rumoured as a potential shadow Foreign Secretary — a pleasing development, and perhaps a result of pushback from supporters over those rumours.

On Wednesday Robert Jenrick gave his first speech in his new role, laying out the broad strokes of the party’s economic approach comprehensively for the first time. Whilst Jenrick is a somewhat capable speaker, his past speeches have had a strange staccato style in which every line is emphasised as though recorded for one of his much-remarked YouTube shorts. This, however, was a more confident performance with far more fluent delivery — perhaps he has found his comfort zone within his newly defined brief.

Tonally, Jenrick’s speech was designed primarily to reassure markets of Reform’s commitment to fiscal discipline — shown not least in the reappearance of his glasses, eschewed in favour of contacts throughout his long contest for the Conservative leadership — whilst still attempting to maintain some suggestion of radicalism to keep voters on side. We discussed this week the unique social positioning of Reform, and Jenrick’s speech reflected the classless dynamic which Farage has long sought to bring to economic policy, uniting employers and employees against welfare and taxes and referencing a unified commitment to the interests of the ‘productive’ classes (or, as Reform like to say, to ‘alarm clock Britain’).

One of the more strangely successful attack lines deployed by the Conservative party against Reform over the past year has been the claim that the party had taken a ‘socialist’ turn — an absurd perception of Farage’s economic views, but one that nonetheless had seemed to stick in the minds of many of those still intending to vote Conservative at the next election. With that in mind, Jenrick made clear that cutting taxes is a priority for Reform, but that specific commitments would not be made until the government had created the necessary fiscal headroom through cuts to spending. In the firing line were many of the classic targets for the right: council housing for migrants, welfare for foreign citizens, foreign aid, and the Motability scheme, as well as pay-outs to failing utilities execs and the bloated civil service.

Jenrick claimed that a Reform government would save $25bn by ending access to Universal Credit for foreign nationals, raising the immigration health surcharge, and capping foreign aid at $1bn. Whilst a complete abolition of the latter might sound attractive to many readers, it is sensible to retain some kind of budget to grease the wheels on diplomatic negotiations (especially as the necessity of returns agreements with historically intransigent countries grows), and this commitment would represent a reduction of more than 90% on current spending. No specific commitments on foreign occupancy of social housing — a cause Pimlico Journal has pushed perhaps more than anywhere else — was offered.

A further $5bn would be saved in wages and pensions as a result of civil service cuts — a fine bonus, but, as we have said previously, civil service reform should not be seen as an exercise in cost-cutting. Beyond these measures, a radical reduction in welfare spending will be achieved by reinstating the two-child benefit cap and by tightening eligibility, especially for mental health claims. Specifically, clinical diagnoses will be required, and in-person assessments will be enforced. These measures are, of course, positive, but a genuine solution to the inadequacy of Britain’s welfare state which goes beyond addressing immediate fiscal challenges will require far more radicalism.

Most readers will be happy to hear Reform commit to a reinstatement of the two-child benefit cap, but the change in policy has not come entirely without criticism, especially in the context of continued fall in birth rates. There is, however, little evidence that financial subsidy — especially one as small as the Universal Credit child element — has any substantial effect on birth rates. Hungary, which spends more than 5% of its GDP on subsidies and tax breaks for mothers, has seen only a marginal increase in their still abysmal birth rates. Of course, the two child cap imposes no disincentive to those who are not on benefits, and who therefore cannot access UC child element in the first place, so its impact on birth rates will be even less significant. It is also grossly unfair for young, productive couples — the very people who should be encouraged to have children most — have their ability to do so constrained by over-taxation to fund the families of those on welfare.

Jenrick’s attempt to reassure markets continued with two further shifts in stance: on the OBR and Bank of England independence, both of which will now be maintained. This is likely to upset some readers, who correctly identify these institutions in the tradition of Blairite depoliticisation as barriers to political control over government. However, whilst a cavalier attitude towards such things is appropriate elsewhere, it must be tempered when confronted with the financial markets. The unfortunate truth, as Liz Truss learned, is that it doesn’t even matter whether the market’s views on economic policy are correct — the price of defying them will be paid regardless. As such, steps which can be taken to give the new government more credit with the markets should be welcomed, and Jenrick’s proposed approach strikes a sensible balance between reform and stability.

He has suggested a radical restructuring of the OBR, bringing in new teams of people under upscaled pay structures (including a deeply Cummings-esque commitment to running ‘competitions’ to admit ‘superforecasters’ to the organisation), which would enable it to run multiple teams providing analysis under different models and approaches. The BoE will have all mandates other than inflation targeting stripped, including duties to support transition to net-zero. It’s easy to suggest that reversing BoE independence — only granted 30 years ago — would be a return to a system which worked perfectly fine, but whilst retaining political control of monetary may have been possible despite the global embrace of independent central banks, returning to it would command a far higher price in the judgement of creditors.

Jenrick restated Reform’s commitment to deregulation on financial services, labour rights, data protection, and environmental regulation to increase competitiveness. He indicated that Reform would reopen North Sea oil permitting, and would implement the Fingleton Review on nuclear deregulation in full. He also committed to substantial liberalisation of planning law, especially in city centres and new ‘industrial zones’, although the specifics of this reform remain unclear. Immediate priorities for a Reform government would be the building out of Cambridge and the densifying of inner East London — both solid initiatives which make use of the party’s un-competitiveness in certain areas to override local concerns, something which both Labour and the Conservatives have seemed bizarrely unwilling to do. That said, planning reform is not an issue on which half measures will do the job. Whilstever local control is retained over planning decisions, NIMBYs will find a way to stop building wherever they can. Adjusting and patching the existing system will be insufficient — instead, it must be redesigned from scratch.

Whilst immigration will not be within Jenrick’s purview, he dedicated a good portion of the speech to that issue and the economic questions surrounding it. Declaring the era of mass immigration at an end, he issued a warning to businesses to begin preparing now for a radical reduction in labour availability under Reform. He suggested that this would be compensated for through welfare reform, which will return a large number of British people to the workforce. Such commitments are no surprise, but it is still good to hear them repeated. Reform must do what they can to maintain the salience of immigration as an issue, especially as numbers begin to fall.

Perhaps more interestingly, Jenrick quoted the recent speech delivered by Mark Carney, in which he said that ‘[we] cannot live within the lie of mutual benefit through integration when integration becomes the source of your subordination’, before stating clearly: ‘we agree’. Unfortunately, this seemingly robust embrace of the need for industrial policy ended up being directed more towards vague posturing against China than any of our more pressing concerns. He suggested that an understanding of the connection between economics and security was crucial, but in listing strategic sectors focused on defence, steelmaking, car making, and other ‘traditional’ industrial sectors. This is all well and good, but Jenrick would do well to take Carney more literally. It is not China that is the principle threat to our sovereignty — it is the United States. Defence of our strategic independence requires that we can process our own transactions just as much as it requires that we can manufacture our own steel.

Moreover, the purpose of an industrial strategy should not just be the maintenance of specific strategic industries. Britain’s labour market is already deeply out of step with labour supply in the country, leading to widespread underemployment and the withering of many people across the country as a result. The purpose of diversifying the economy must be to enable people across the country to develop themselves as much as possible, not just to ensure access to materiel in the event of a hypothetical war. Given that a Reform government in 2029 will have to contend with the most crucial period of all in the development of AI, a serious response to these questions must be developed before Robert Jenrick steps into Number 11.

Perhaps the most problematic commitment Jenrick made came not during his speech, but after, when asked about Reform’s policy on the pensions triple lock. He suggested that, whilst no decisions have yet been made, he has always been personally supportive of the measure — and reinforced that several times after follow-ups. Whilst it is increasingly obvious that the triple lock is unsustainable in the face of our rapidly aging population, it is unfortunately the case that Reform’s support base, unlike right wing parties on the continent, is even older than the Conservatives’ has traditionally been, making any positive development on this front extremely politically challenging.

Overall, the speech represented a welcome clarification of Reform’s economic stance which walked back some of the mistakes made last year, especially on welfare, and laid out a coherent and respectable plan for restoring fiscal stability and, ultimately, reducing the burden of the state. That said, whilst it represents a good basis upon which to build, reducing the burden of the state is unlikely to be sufficient to restore Britain’s economic health in the years to come. The challenges that Reform will face require a degree of radicalism which is not yet evident on the economy, rebuilding sectors which have long since been extinguished. As such, we will watch closely as the party continues to build out its policy team in-house, and thereby continues to flesh out its approach.

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Last week, we chose not to publish our usual newsletter, as events were dominated by the single story of Peter Mandelson, which ultimately led to the exit of Morgan McSweeney from Number 10. We felt this deserved treatment in a full article looking at the nature of McSweeney’s project and what his fall means for the Starmer government and for ‘Blue Labour’. You can find that article here:

This week, Keir Starmer survived the worst week of his premiership so far. This came after last week, in which Keir Starmer survived the worst week of his premiership so far. How much longer will the Labour party allow this streak to continue?

Plus, as rumours of shadow cabinet announcements continue, are Reform moving quickly enough to build the machine they will need to govern? What should we make of Rupert Lowe launching Restore Britain as a political party?

This newsletter’s agenda: Keir Starmer survives his worst week yet (free); Rupert Lowe launches Restore Britain (free); Reform to announce shadow cabinet, but HQ buildout remains slow (paid)

Keir Starmer survives his worst week yet

This week, the Labour Party finally admitted to itself that, whilst Keir Starmer might be the most unsuccessful Prime Minister in post-war British history (with the exception of the Fifty Days Queen), there is not a single person on their benches who could do a better job. On Sunday, a week of increasingly extreme pressure on Keir Starmer over the Peter Mandelson affair culminated in the resignation of Morgan McSweeney, with rumours abounding that Starmer himself might resign the following day. Monday began with a statement by Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar, calling on the Prime Minister to resign — and all eyes fell upon the cabinet to deliver the final blow to a Prime Minister whose authority had evaporated and whose continued occupation of the office had surely become untenable.

And then… nothing. At least, that is, until Deputy PM David Lammy came out issuing a statement in support of the Prime Minister. Over the following hour, as the day drew to a close, similar statements came from every member of the cabinet until, finally, Wes Streeting — suspected by No. 10 to have coordinated with Sarwar on his statement — finally lined up behind Starmer as well. The Prime Minister’s survival in the face of such massive pressure is essentially unprecedented, particularly given the intervention from Sarwar, which has still not been addressed by the government a week later.

Interviewed on Tuesday, Ed Milliband described the events of Monday as follows:

‘Yesterday was a moment of peril for the Prime Minister… but, as a collective body, the cabinet [and] the Labour Party looked at the alternative of going down this road of a chaotic leadership election and trying to depose a Prime Minister, and they said “no, that’s not for us”.

‘[MPs] looked over the precipice … and they didn't like what they saw.’

A remarkable admission from one of the main alternatives to Starmer as party leader — but not an incorrect one. Milliband might be popular within the Labour Party, but according to YouGov his support in the country (17% approval) is worse than Starmer’s (18% approval). Angela Rayner’s (26%) is higher, but her ongoing tax investigation makes it hard to imagine that she would deliver the government from scandal if became PM. If Wes Streeting could make it through the membership, he might have slightly broader appeal on day one — but what would really change other than slightly slicker communication?

For now, at least, the party has decided to stick with the devil it knows — and as crazy as it is, it is hard to argue confidently that that is the wrong decision. They will certainly lose hundreds of seats under Keir Starmer if he survives until the next election, but the chance that changing leader will make things worse, not better, is at least even. The hope among many MPs, particularly on the soft left, is that Starmer — freed of the malicious influence of Morgan McSweeney — might now embrace his ‘true self’ and move leftwards. It is not clear, however, how that might manifest. A change of heart in No. 10 does not add headroom to the budget, and the government has already reaffirmed its commitment to continuing with Shabana Mahmood’s immigration reforms.

This leaves Keir Starmer in a strangely strengthened, yet still fragile, position. If there is truly no alternative, Labour MPs have no choice but to get behind him — but with his authority shot, he no longer has the ability to force them into uncomfortable compromises. What we are likely to see, then, is a period in which backbenchers dominate on policy, with Keir Starmer in office but not meaningfully in power. This zombie government could well limp on until May, with the Gorton and Denton by-election already largely written off by the party — although the release of the Mandelson files still poses the greatest immediate threat to Starmer’s position. It is possible — although perhaps still less than likely — that the logic keeping Starmer in position holds even beyond then, especially if backbenchers start seeing policy commitments that assuage anger. Someone will need to take responsibility for the failures at that election — but with Ed Milliband seemingly more eager to wear a Starmer skin suit than to take the crown for himself, one can imagine that the soft left might use that opportunity to have him replace Reeves as Chancellor, rather than Starmer as Prime Minister.

As Starmer looks to build his new team following McSweeney’s departure, one somewhat unexpected casualty has already emerged: Chris Wormald, the Cabinet Secretary. The position is the most senior in the civil service, and has become an increasingly political appointment in recent years. Wormald himself is rumoured to have secured the position under Starmer by confirming his personal support for the Labour Party, but was always understood as an uninspiring and conservative choice. From 2016-24, he served as permanent secretary in the Department for Health and Social Care, where his handling of COVID was broadly seen to have been poor.

Antonia Romeo, the leading candidate to replace him, is on the other hand thought to be a more interesting choice who is more likely to deliver wider reforms — but she is not without controversy. Friends in the civil service report widespread dislike for her within the organisation, with a sense that Romeo is better at promoting herself than delivering in practice. She certainly seems to be effective at generating support from politicians, given her evident success with Starmer as well as her previously understood closeness with Liz Truss (at least whilst both were at the Department of International Trade). On the other hand, given that the most common allegations that follow her are of vague ‘bullying’, a common civil service term for attempts to get them to actually do their jobs, yet that politicians seem to like her, one wonders if she might actually be quite effective after all.

The other concern with Romeo surrounds her time as Consul General in New York, where she was investigated for financial improprieties. This led to an unprecedented public intervention by former permanent secretary of the Foreign Office Simon McDonald, who essentially suggested that Romeo was unfit for the role on Channel 4 News and that his attempt to advise the Prime Minister on the matter had been rebuffed. For a former perm sec to launch such outright criticism of a sitting one (Romeo is currently perm sec at the Home Office) is more than unusual.

Regardless, no amount of change in the team around Keir Starmer will address the fundamental problem that he himself is not capable of being an effective Prime Minister. Given this strange deadlock, it seems the Labour government will limp on, scandal by scandal, until Reform cruise to victory in 2029. It’s at least a good thing, then, that there is nothing on the horizon that could threaten their position in the polls…

Rupert Lowe launches Restore Britain

On Friday, Rupert Lowe announced the launch of Restore Britain as ‘a national political party’. Restore was originally established as a non-electoral vehicle for Lowe, positioned as something between a think-tank and a campaigning organisation. It will now seek to stand candidates across the country at the next general election. Such a move has been largely inevitable since Lowe was kicked out of Reform at the beginning of last year — his sense of his own position has always been inflated by the adulation of his online fanbase, and (to be fair to him) his commitment to the policies he advances means he was always unlikely to be satisfied with the lack of influence that comes with being a simple independent MP.

It is not clear what kind of impact Lowe could have on the electoral picture. His supporters have pointed to a poll conducted in November by FindOutNow (a pollster which typically produces the most optimistic results for Reform) which suggested the following voting intentions:

Reform: 25%
Green: 18%
Labour: 16%
Conservative: 13%
Liberal Democrats: 13%
“A party led by Rupert Lowe”: 10%

At the time, FindOutNow had Reform far ahead of any other party in standard polling at 31%. Whilst the two polls used different methodology, and therefore should not be understood as directly comparable, there is at least some suggestion here that Restore could have an impact on Reform’s polling position — although, interestingly, their support seems to be drawn equally from Reform and the Conservatives.

That said, we should take this poll with a tremendous grain of salt — not least because the sample size of 1000 is about half of the standard (making the poll substantially less reliable). At the height of the controversy surrounding Lowe’s exit from Reform, a survey by JLL Partners for GB News suggested that only 14% of voters (and only 29% of Reform voters) could identify Rupert Lowe when prompted with a picture of him. Lowe’s public profile is certainly not higher now than it was then, and it would be quite remarkable indeed if more than two thirds of those who can identify the man are willing to vote for a party led by him over any alternative.

A reasonable expectation, then, would be that Lowe would start out from a far lower position than his supporters expect — but even then, it might not necessarily be a big problem for Reform. Much as Tommy Robinson has long served as a useful foil for Farage, offering the public a bogeyman from which Farage can distance himself, the presence of a more radically-presenting party could well make Reform seem like the sensible choice by comparison. To be clear, this question of positioning is entirely separate from policy: Reform is and must continue to be radical in its intentions. But, as those around Lowe would do well to recognize, the aim of politics is not to say the right things in public — it is to win power, and use that power to do the right things in government. Being able to represent yourself as moderate without having to step back from policy commitments is therefore useful.

Nevertheless, when the next election is likely to be an extremely tight balance between five competitive parties (plus the separatists), it is certainly a risk to introduce the prospect of further vote splitting on the right. It’s therefore worth looking at Restore and comparing them to Reform as their supporters have done extensively, to see whether their critiques have merit.

Restore have promised to deport every illegal migrant, abolish the existing asylum system, and thereby end the housing of illegal migrants at the taxpayer’s expense. This is precisely the same policy as Reform, down to the precise language of ‘detain and deport’ and ‘mass deportations’, as their website makes clear:

Restore will bring legal immigration ‘almost… to a complete halt’. Lowe calls ‘net-zero’ immigration too weak, and says that more people need to leave than arrive ‘for the foreseeable future’. He suggested that those who do not speak English, who claim benefits, live in social housing, or commit crime must be made to leave, and that this means ‘millions must go’. Restore published a paper in October 2025 detailing the legal changes that would need to be made to enable deportations. The paper is valuable, and does a good job of outlining roadblocks to deporting those without the right to stay in the country, but it does not make clear how those with existing visas will be dealt with, nor does it make any suggestions for dealing with foreign-born or descended citizens who fall into the categories Lowe described as worthy of deportation. A separate policy announcement in August 2025 proposed ‘overhauling’ ILR to stop the Boriswave, and committed to returning recent migrants.

After initially committing to ‘net-zero’ immigration, Reform have been consistently pushing the line towards net-negative numbers for the past year or more. Farage himself takes every opportunity to confirm this, and Zia Yusuf reiterated the point most recently on Question Time last week. The current plans that Reform have put forward would scrap ILR entirely, replacing current visas with a temporary renewable visa with higher salary thresholds and strict language and character requirements. The implication of this is that there would be no pathway to citizenship for migrants, perhaps outside of marriage.

Again, both sets of policies are substantially the same, with differences only in rhetorical emphasis. It is worth repeating that you should not place any value in therapeutic repetition of your favourite phrases by politicians — you should want them to say what is necessary to secure the support of a large enough fraction of the population to win a majority in Parliament and implement your agenda. If anything, the current Reform policy is stricter on ILR (although one expects that Restore would likely pursue the same ends). Both parties have implicitly suggested that non-citizens who are not economically self-sufficient would find themselves without permission to remain, and therefore would end up being sent home. Neither have put forward any suggestions which would deal with those who do not claim benefits (although under the plans of both those whose earning fall below as-yet unconfirmed thresholds would likely be denied visa renewal), let alone addressing the thornier issue of how to deal with undesirable immigrants and their descendants who already have citizenship.

It would be wrong not to address perhaps the most common source of criticism against Reform and Farage in particular on immigration, which is his comments towards the end of 2024 on mass deportations:

‘For us, at the moment, it's a political impossibility. I'm not going to get dragged down the route of mass deportations or anything like that. If I say I support mass deportations, that's all anybody will talk about for the next 20 years. So it's pointless even going there.’

This came during a period in which the party as a whole softened its stance on immigration, with a number of other worrying comments made. Indeed, Pimlico Journal was critical of Reform on this issue at the time. However, the myopic focus on a few comments made over a few months seems strange in the face of the fact that Reform now list publicly as one of their top priorities the passage of the ‘Illegal Migration (Mass Deportations) Bill’. They have adopted not just the policy but the exact language requested of them.

This gets down, ultimately, to an issue of trust. If you don’t believe that Nigel Farage wants to address the issue of mass migration, I’m not sure there’s much that can be done to persuade you otherwise. This is a man whose first political hero was Enoch Powell — who he knew personally towards the end of his life, and whose support he always desired. It is a man who, as a boy, delighted in the double entendre of his initials, and as a young man left a lucrative career to dedicate decades to the political cause we now inherit. If you interpret his refusal to deliver catharsis at the expense of votes as a sign or untrustworthiness, there is perhaps nothing he can do to convince you either.

This brings us to the last issue worth covering, which is a set of general questions about personnel. In particular, many have attacked Reform for taking on former Conservatives, and have suggested that this legitimates suspicion of their motivations. Again, we have also criticised Reform for some of these announcements — Nadhim Zahawi, Nadine Dorries, and Jake Berry have no business being involved in any political movement of the right — whilst defending others. This criticism, however, rings entirely hollow given that, in the very video in which he announced Restore’s launch as a party, Lowe stated explicitly that he had invited ‘patriots’ from the Conservatives to join him. He is, of course, vanishingly unlikely to be taken up on that invitation, but there is clearly no difference of principle here.

The other side of this coin is the suggestion that Reform has too many ethnic minorities in positions of influence — with a particular focus on Zia Yusuf (unsurprisingly, given his history with Lowe). We have covered this issue before, but it’s worth reiterating some key points here as well. Firstly, anyone who actually bothers to listen to what people say will know that Yusuf is among the most politically sound voices within Reform, constantly pushing beyond the rest of the party (especially on immigration). More generally, whilst it is reasonable to expect higher standards of commitment from those who might have personal reasons to oppose the political project of reversing demographic change, it is not reasonable to dismiss the possibility that individuals can have those commitments regardless of their personal heritage.

As we have stated before, Suella Braverman (who has consistently maintained that she, as an Indian, cannot be English) is far to the right of Tommy Robinson (who supports increased migration of Sikhs and Hindus to counter ‘Islamic influence’) on issues of immigration, race, and culture. What, therefore, are we to make of Reform’s embrace of the former and rejection of the latter? Lowe, for his part, has never made any statement suggesting he would reject party members or candidates from a non-British background, and has historically been close with fellow Reform reject Ben Habib — he has, however, confirmed his intent to exclude Tommy Robinson from any association with Restore (according to those inside the organisation).

Given all of this, there are only three things that Restore offers which Reform does not: an opportunity to reject responsibility for cultivating broad support in favour of the catharsis of hearing your views reflected by a politician, a leadership position for Rupert Lowe, and jobs for those associated with him. In fact, with Lowe’s private wealth and the support of Elon Musk, it seems there will be jobs aplenty. Despite this, it is ultimately unlikely that Restore breaks the pattern of minor right-wing parties historically to secure more than a percentage point in the polls. In the past 80 years, no right wing party not led by Nigel Farage has ever won even 2% at a general election. Perhaps that fact is worth keeping front of mind in the months to come.

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This week, the battle lines have been drawn for a by-election which will show us exactly where British politics as a whole stands today. In a seat split almost evenly between blue-collar suburbia and Muslim enclaves interspersed with student housing, the Greens and Reform fight to prove which insurgent party has the momentum this time. Elsewhere, the Tory Right has lost yet another MP with the defection of former Home Secretary Suella Braverman to Reform UK following months of speculation.

Inside: Gorton and Denton by-election deep dive (free/paid); Suella Braverman’s defection and the future of Reform’s Parliamentary Party (paid).

Gorton and Denton by-election deep dive

The Gorton and Denton by-election is entering campaign season almost immediately after it was called. Labour chose to hold the election on February 26, providing candidates with a rather short campaigning period. It is very likely that, given their barring of leadership hopeful Andy Burnham from the by-election, they are seeking to minimise the impact it will have on the national conversation and finish this painful chapter as quickly as possible. For his part, Burnham has been briefing loudly against Starmer and the NEC for this decision, especially after press officials aligned with Morgan McSweeney briefed journalists that Burnham was told in advance he would lose the vote. They allege that Burnham then threw his hat into the ring anyway in order to damage Starmer and the Party by forcing a public confrontation. This is certainly an ugly political spat, and not one that anyone wants to draw out further.

Burnham’s elimination has had two major consequences. First, the election is now predicted to be an extremely tight race between the Greens and Reform. The Labour vote is not easy to predict due to the murky dynamics of tactical voting in the constituency — many Labour voters are not sure whether Labour will likely win or lose, the black box of ethnic minority voting patterns in these parts of the country and the lack of conclusive polling results with a sample size above 1000. Secondly, it has cleared the way for two other leadership rivals to begin making manoeuvres — Wes Streeting and Angela Rayner. Already Members of Parliament, they have a much more straightforward path to power.

The first candidate to be announced was the Reform UK candidate: former academic and current GB News Presenter Matthew Goodwin. At an event on January 27th, Matt was announced by Lee Anderson — noticeably not by Farage or anybody more senior — to the surprise of many. It was the general view that Reform would run either Zia Yusuf if they were convinced that the constituency would be easy to win, or a nondescript local candidate if they felt that every single vote counts. Goodwin fits clearly into neither category, indicating that the party sees Gorton and Denton as a toss-up. Like Zia, he is an able communicator, a party loyalist (although there have been rumours his bellicose statements on migration and, allegedly, his open speculation about Reform after Farage, have led to him losing favour), and a more intellectual force in the party. However, he also has local credentials. He attended university in Salford, and his father’s family are from Manchester. In a heated exchange with Owen Jones, Goodwin refuted allegations that he ‘grew up in Hertfordshire’. He apparently spent every weekend in Manchester as a child due to his parents’ divorce. Although there is no way to verify that, the scrutiny on any Reform candidate means Goodwin, who is among the most astute candidates for the party, knows that he would gain nothing by lying and risk looking extremely untrustworthy. This combination of vaguely local credentials and a non-negligible public profile could mean that Reform think they might win this seat, and want to ensure that the MP is someone who is loyal and an asset to the Parliamentary party, but also think it is not the end of the world if they lose.

Reform’s chances in the constituency depend on the extent to which the left-wing/progressive vote can be successfully split, general voter turnout, and whether Reform will manage to appeal to the many left-wing white voters in the Denton area. It is almost certain that Reform’s campaign team have made the correct decision to abandon campaigning in the West of the constituency. This area is populated mainly by progressive-voting students and large Muslim families living in terraced houses. We are referring to the area immediately east of Dane Bank Ward.

While ethnic minorities are, of course, not universally anti-Reform, in the context of this by-election Reform will be maximising the white vote. The two left-wing parties will instead offer various flavours of sectarianism to the West of the constituency. Zack Polanski has already made it very clear that, on the doorstep, a major issue for the Green Party will be the war in Gaza and their policy to immediately suspend all arms sales and intelligence sharing agreements with Israel.

The Denton area defies clear categorisation, which makes this by-election result even more difficult to predict. It is split into four wards, which we will now provide a demographic and economic breakdown of. It is worth bearing in mind that we are highlighting data from the ONS 2021 census — we have therefore omitted information regarding working from home and commutes. The only statistic here that could be skewed by the pandemic is the rate of economic inactivity. The ONS itself reported that self-employed individuals on the furlough scheme should report themselves as employed, which many failed to do:

Denton North:

• 88.9% White

• 22% hold a Level 4 qualification or higher

• 71.8% Car or Van owners

• 31.6% Outright homeowners (a further 28.3% owned on mortgage)

• 39% economically inactive

• 13.3% working in skilled trades

• 10.8% caring and leisure

• 12.1% professional occupations

• 9.9% managers and senior officials

• 10.2% sales and customer service

Denton East

• 93.5% White

• 19.8% hold a Level 4 or above qualification

• 75.2% Car or Van owners

• 36.1% Outright homeowners (a further 29.9% owned on mortgage)

• 40.2% economically inactive

• 12.3% skilled trades

• 11.3% caring and leisure

• 8.9% managers and senior officials

• 13.1% professional occupations

• 11.3% sales and customer service

Denton South

• 92.4% White

• 21.1% hold a Level 4 or above qualification

• 71.5% Car or Van owners

• 29.8% Outright homeowners (a further 25.5% owned on mortgage)

• 43.8% economically inactive

• 12.9% skilled trades

• 11.1% caring and leisure

• 10.3% managers and senior officials

• 12.4% professional occupations

• 9.7% sales and customer service

Denton West

• 91.9% White

• 20.3% hold a Level 4 or above qualification

• 77.8% Car or Van owners

• 37.8% Outright homeowners (a further 33.1% owned on mortgage)

• 38.8% economically inactive

• 13.3% skilled trades

• 11.1% caring and leisure

• 9% managers and senior officials

• 12.2% professional occupations

• 10.1% sales and customer service

Dane Bank

• 92.8% White

• 24.8% hold a Level 4 or above qualification

• 84.1% Car or Van owners

• 45.8% Outright homeowners (a further 38.6% owned on mortgage)

• 38.1% economically inactive

• 12.1% skilled trades

• 9.8% caring and leisure

• 12.1% managers and senior officials

• 17.7% professional occupations

• 8.4% sales and customer service

We can see a very consistent set of trends here. The area consists primarily of homeowners, both outright owned and on mortgage. There is an above average rate of economic inactivity (not quite the same as unemployment, since economic activity, according to the ONS, includes those temporarily out of work and seeking it). The vast majority of households own a car or van, and roughly 20% of individuals in each ward have a level 4 qualification or above (highly misleading, as it includes higher level BTECs such as bricklaying but lumps them together with BA degrees). Denton West and Dane Bank are slightly more affluent and likely younger areas, as indicated by the higher rate of mortgage ownership and the higher number of managers and professionals in the area. Across the area, there is a very even split between different employment categories. Denton was overwhelmingly white in 2021, much more so than almost any area of Greater Manchester. Denton can therefore be loosely grouped as a relatively well-off working and lower-middle class area, which has possibly experienced a recent influx of ‘Deanos’, as evidenced by the approximately 10% of individuals working in ‘sales and customer service’ in each area.

In 2024, Denton Northeast, South, and West were all retained by the Labour Party with over 60% of the vote in each ward (although admittedly with turnouts that never exceeded 30%). The Conservatives were the only right-wing opposition in each ward, with Denton North East contested exclusively by the Green Party. In fact, in no election has any right-wing party posed a credible threat to Labour in any of these wards — including UKIP. We cannot reliably say whether this is due to genuine political conviction among locals, or the slavish devotion that the North once gave to the Labour Party because Margaret Thatcher closed the mines and made everyone’s grandfather redundant. What we can say is that the demographics mean Reform must expand past its traditional voter base. The high levels of economic inactivity (again, more likely to be near 30% if we are to believe the ONS’s allegations of misreporting) do create a traditionally ‘Reform’ voter base of disenfranchised, working-class white voters. However, the presence of many professionals in the area means that the race is not as simple as just regurgitating the usual attack lines on immigration.

While he is capable of speaking on economic and public order issues, Goodwin’s bread and butter is immigration. The core anti-migration vote will solidify around Reform, and he prevents any risk of the right somehow splintering. However, the moderate voter from Denton West or Dane Bank, who might be living in a 3-bed with two cars and commuting to a sales job in the City Centre three days a week, may be put off by the wrong messaging. Promising to deport the other half of the constituency is to be avoided. The Northern middle class is a very different creature to its southern counterpart, and certainly more open to voting for Reform. Based on personal experience, they form the backbone of most constituency associations. However, most voters really do decide based on ‘vibes’ who they shall vote for. Goodwin is at risk of simply ‘chudding out’ on the doorstep too often about birth rates and what it means to be English, when the average voter’s opinion still boils down to ‘Nigerian NHS nurses can stay even if the illegals are wronguns’. We must remember that the Green Party are surprisingly strong in the Denton wards, and have been since at least 2023, after the Conservatives reached the peak of their ‘Covid’ vote.

There have been interesting focus groups in the area conducted by More in Common, focusing on last year’s Labour voters. They can be read here. Overall, they indicate a left determined to stop Reform but too sectarian and disunited to figure out the best tactical vote. This particular focus group confirmed the strength of Burnham’s personal vote, as well as that a desire for change motivated them to vote for Labour in 2024. Many intend to vote Green to stick with that desire for change, and fear the rise of Reform. The key issue is that nobody really knows which party — Labour or Greens — has the best chance of beating Reform.

The Green Party have selected Hannah Spencer, the leader of the Green group on Trafford council, to be their candidate. Spencer is a 34-year-old plasterer who has lived in the constituency her whole life, left school at 16, and was first elected to the council in 2023. In an interview with the Middle East Eye, she reiterated that she will stand to oppose Reform’s policies of ‘division’ — specifically Goodwin’s comments that some British-born Muslims are not necessarily British. The selection of an unmarried, white, young, working woman in a Parliamentary seat where the Green Party were thought to be competing with both the outright sectarian Workers Party and the established Labour Party is certainly a bold choice. Rumours that Zack Polanski would stand were quashed within days, perhaps due to him being Jewish, and deputy leader Mohin Ali also confirmed he would not stand. Spencer’s selection indicates that the Green Party seek to use this by-election to present themselves as the only left-wing alternative to the Labour Party, and will be competing directly with Reform for disenchanted Labour voters. Indeed, the previously mentioned focus group indicated the presence of several ‘Reform-Green’ marginal voters, who simply want to vote for a radical party promising change, rather than explicitly endorsing a right-wing or left-wing political platform.

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It’s another awful week for Keir Starmer, as an MP’s resignation gives Andy Burnham the chance to lay down the gauntlet. We feel so sorry for him. Plus, speculation builds about Reform’s ‘shadow cabinet’.

This newsletter’s agenda: Andrew Gwynne resigns — will Andy Burnham finally have his chance to challenge Starmer? (free); Turning points at Davos (paid); Local election delays confirmed (paid)

Andrew Gwynne resigns — will Andy Burnham finally have his chance to challenge Starmer?

On Thursday, long-serving Labour MP for Gorton and Denton Andrew Gwynne announced that he would stand down as a Member of Parliament. Gwynne was previously suspended by the Labour Party on February 8th 2025 after a series of WhatsApp messages were leaked from a group chat titled “Trigger me Timbers”, in which Gwynne made impolitic comments about an elderly constituent. Months ago, it was heavily rumoured that Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham was in talks with Gwynne about potentially contesting his seat following a resignation. At the time, both sides strongly denied the allegations. The two are known to be personal friends as well as close political allies, and with Gorton being one of the few remaining seats in Manchester in which the Labour Party is still competitive, it seemed like a sensible choice for Burnham.

It now seems that the delay to Gwynne’s resignation was due to ongoing negotiations with the Parliamentary estate over his pension, which he will now receive in full, having officially retired on health grounds. Gwynne’s statement remained vague, publishing a doctor’s note which suggests his mental and physical health would make it impossible to continue in position, and as such it has been underreported that the cause of his retirement is in fact long covid. His ‘struggles’ with this ‘condition’ have been known for some time in Westminster, but it is nevertheless an embarrassing end to a long parliamentary career.

After allowing speculation to build over the following days, Burnham announced on Saturday that he had put himself forward to stand in the upcoming by-election. That is, however, only the beginning of his journey back to Westminster. First, he will have to receive permission from a subcommittee of the party’s National Executive Committee to enter the shortlist. That subcommittee is made up of 10 out of the NEC’s 41 members:

Shabana Mahmood (Chair of the NEC, Home Secretary)

Mahmood is firmly on the right of the party, loosely associated with Blue Labour, and a close ally in particular of Morgan McSweeney. It would be easy to assume, given that her commitment to tightening immigration rules has invoked deep resistance from the left, that she would be strongly opposed to giving Burnham the chance to challenge Starmer and shift the party away from the center. Nevertheless, she is personally close with Burnham and has reportedly been in conversation with him in recent months. Whilst many assume she might mount her own (undoubtedly doomed) leadership bid in the event of a contest, or get in behind fellow centrist Wes Streeting, she may well look to throw her lot in with Burnham’s more promising candidacy. Ultimately though, her front bench position makes it ultimately unlikely she will refuse demands from Starmer to block his candidacy. In the event of a tie, Mahmood would have the casting vote.

Peter Wheeler (Vice Chair of the NEC)

Wheeler is a councillor from Cheshire and long-time party stooge. He is considered to be on the right of the party, and is unlikely to favour Burnham’s candidacy.

Lucy Powell (Deputy Leader)

Lucy Powell, Labour’s recently elected deputy leader, is a Burnham ally from the soft left, but has positioned herself as a stabiliser and a peacemaker since taking position, reportedly feeling it would be wrong to use her position to make trouble for the government. She has come out in favour of allowing Burnham to stand.

Mike Payne (NEC Treasurer)

Payne is MP for Gedling, having first stood for Parliament in Newark at the 2014 by-election that brought Robert Jenrick to the House. He has a relatively low public profile, but supported Bridget Phillipson in the leadership election (the candidate of the party’s right and that preferred by Starmer). As Treasurer, he will be particularly concerned with the fact that a Mayoral by-election triggered by Burnham’s resignation would cost the party a forecast £5m. He will almost certainly oppose Burnham’s candidacy.

Ellie Reeves (Frontbench Representative)

Ellie Reeves, sister of Rachel, is MP for Lewisham West and East Dulwich and serves in Starmer’s cabinet as Solicitor General. She faced an aborted deselection challenge after signing a letter criticising the re-admission of Corbynite Chris Williamson into Labour after he was suspended over antisemitism allegations. She is a firm Starmer ally, and will oppose Burnham’s candidacy.

Keiran O’Neill (Union Representative, GMB) & Tom Williams (Union Representative, USDAW)

Neither of the subcommittee’s two union representatives have made public comments on Burnham’s candidacy, nor have the leadership of their unions. Whilst the TUC in general has been shifting left, those unions most supportive of Burnham have been excluded from the process.

Abdi Duale (Constituency Labour Parties Representative)

Duale has not stated anything publicly about Burnham, but his social media activity indicates he is to the right of the party.

Gurinder Singh Josan (Parliamentary Labour Party Representative)

Gurinder Josan, MP for Smethwick, trustee of HOPE Not Hate, and the biggest landlord in Parliament, is a lesser known character, but was heavily involved in the pursuit of Corbynites over antisemitism allegations and is the convenor of ‘old Labour right’ Labour First Parliamentary Network. He is unlikely to align with Burnham.

Keir Starmer

The tenth member of the subcommittee is, of course, Keir Starmer himself. Unsurprisingly, he is thought to be less than eager about allowing Burnham into Parliament.

Based on this list, it would seem that Starmer does indeed have the majority to block Burnham from standing — and with a decision expected later today (Sunday), there is not a great deal of time for supporters of the Manchester Mayor to change that. Ed Milliband and Sadiq Khan have both come out in favour of allowing Burnham to stand, and whilst Angela Rayner has not officially commented her allies have been heavily briefing on his behalf. Rayner is thought to be reluctant to take on the leadership herself, and presumably wishes to allow Burnham to do so in order to prevent a Wes Streeting coronation. Nevertheless, reporting indicates the plan is still to block Burnham’s candidacy. This could be justified by imposing an all female or all BAME list, or simply by stating that the party does not wish to create a by-election in Manchester which Reform would have a strong chance of winning.

Blocking Burnham will come at enormous political cost to Starmer — especially given the overwhelming likelihood that Labour would lose the by-election as a result. Zack Polanski, leader of the Green Party, is understood to be considering standing himself (he is originally from Manchester) and would almost certainly do so if Burnham were taken out of the running. The Greens will do well in Gorton and Denton regardless, but with the support of disaffected Burnham voters the seat will become a straight contest between them and Reform. Losing what has historically been the definition of a safe seat, especially given the extent of concerns over a prospective wipe-out by Reform across their post-industrial heartlands, would confirm that the result in Runcorn and Helsby was no fluke, and that Labour stands to be reduced to catastrophic lows under Starmer’s leadership. Whilst concerns over a Mayoral by-election are entirely reasonable, they will not assuage the anger of the left at what will be seen as a stitch-up by a failing Prime Minister desperate to hold onto power.

If Burnham were allowed through, could he even win in Gorton and Denton? Polling indicates that the seat will be a three-way toss-up between Labour, the Greens, and Reform. More in Common's January MRP has the seat going to Reform, and of the two biggest national vote share based projections (Election Maps UK and Electoral Calculus) one has it going to Labour and the other to the greens. Demographically, the West of the constituency will be the primary battleground between Labour and the Greens, including Denton and the Manchester ward of Burnage. Both are majority minority areas with a heavy Asian population. Denton, in contrast, is overwhelmingly White, and relatively deprived — strong Reform territory. An explicitly Muslim candidate could complicate the picture further. All of these analytics, however, are based on the prospect of a generic candidate. Burnham has a strong personal vote, and would effectively be running against the national party. It is therefore highly likely that he would consolidate the anti-Starmer vote, and that that would propel him to victory.

In that event, Burnham would have to resign as Manchester Mayor, triggering a by-election for the position. Whilst no polling exists for that eventuality, Reform’s position across the area would put them in pole position. One might expect a strong Green performance as well, making a Labour victory all the more difficult. It may, however, be to the benefit of Reform to avoid this possibility. Despite the predictions that performance in local government would be crucial to their continued popularity, most have continued to ignore the affairs of councils as they typically do. This is broadly a good thing — whilst there have been some relatively successful Reform administrations, many have struggled with inexperience and lack of agency due to statutory obligations (most notably in Kent). A Reform Mayor, however, would have a substantially higher profile, and could therefore pose a risk to their national image.

A final note — it has been suggested that Zia Yusuf could stand as the party’s candidate in Gorton and Denton, no doubt in part on the basis that he might secure at least a small percentage of the Asian vote, or at least reduce the vehemence of opposition from that group to a Reform campaign. Whilst that reasoning is not unfounded, this would be a mistake for the party and for Yusuf individually. Pimlico Journal has been supportive of Yusuf’s role, and having him in Parliament would be no bad thing — but there is little to be gained at the moment from risking a loss which would damage the party and Yusuf’s place within it when he already has a sufficiently high profile. Beyond that, listening to speeches from Ed Davey and responding to constituent’s petty concerns seems a poor use of time for the man primarily responsible for constructing Reform’s party machine.

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Finally, a big week in British politics, or at least for Reform, which will be the focus of all three sections today. As a result, it’s a double-length newsletter this week: lucky you.

This newsletter’s agenda: Robert Jenrick defects to Reform (free); Was it a mistake to accept Nadim Zahawi? (paid); Reform appoints local leadership in Scotland and London (paid)

Robert Jenrick defects to Reform

This Thursday began with an event for which there is essentially no precedent in modern British political history: Kemi Badenoch woke up before midday. At around 11am, she sent a video to all Tory members via email and to the media, explaining that she had not only sacked Robert Jenrick from the shadow cabinet, but removed the whip and even suspended his party membership, having been presented with ‘irrefutable evidence’ that he was planning to defect to Reform ‘in the most damaging way possible’ to both the Conservative party in general and his shadow cabinet colleagues individually.

Despite initial rumours of the serendipitous discovery of a printed copy of Jenrick’s resignation speech being discovered by one of Kemi’s team on a CCHQ kitchen table, it quickly became clear that a junior member of Jenrick’s own team had leaked screenshots of the document to the party leader late Wednesday evening. The previous Thursday had seen a Shadow Cabinet away-day, at which Jenrick’s seeming lack of interest and engagement had been noted by Badenoch’s team as a potential sign of unrest. Badenoch then invited Jenrick to meet on Wednesday, before receiving the screenshots, where it is suspected she offered to promote him to Shadow Chancellor (poor Mel Stride) in exchange for his continued loyalty. Jenrick did not confirm this, but suggested that his conversations with Badenoch did not reassure him that fundamental change was possible under her leadership, regardless of his own position. Having decided to remove him by Thursday morning, Badenoch delegated the task of informing Jenrick to Chief Whip Rebecca Harris.

As the news of Jenrick’s firing broke, Farage was in the midst of a press conference announcing Malcolm Offord as Reform’s leader in Scotland (more on that later). Media questions at the briefing therefore bounced somewhat schizophrenically between local Scottish outlets asking questions about issues obscure to those south of the border and national press pushing Farage for comment on the bigger story. Farage confirmed that he had been in conversation with Jenrick, but that there had been no plans for an immediate defection, and said he would be calling Jenrick once they wrapped up their conference. Indeed, Reform had a second press conference scheduled for 4:30pm in London, which was billed as a pillory against delays to local elections.

A suspense-filled afternoon was finally broken just after 4pm, with the following ominous tweet:

Shortly after, Farage came onto stage at Reform’s Millbank HQ and announced that he had indeed been in discussions with Jenrick; that those discussions were now over, and that he was pleased to welcome his party’s newest MP. If there was suspicion that this had been planned for Thursday all along, it was eliminated by the two minutes that followed — which must have been the longest two minutes of Farage’s political career — as the day’s rushed choreography meant Jenrick failed to appear on cue.

That momentary embarrassment soon evaporated as Jenrick came on stage to deliver what was perhaps the most damaging speech to a party leader that has been given by a British politician since Geoffrey Howe resigned from the cabinet of Margaret Thatcher. Whilst not necessarily a gifted orator, Jenrick is certainly capable of delivering a message effectively, and so he did. He provided a comprehensive summary of Britain’s decline, before pointing the finger squarely at the Conservative party:

‘I will never forget attending a Cabinet meeting where a “plan” to stop the boats was signed off that everyone accepted – knew – wasn’t going to work. Some even joked about it. I resigned days later.’

…

‘At a recent shadow cabinet, a debate broke out. The question was put to the group: is Britain broken? I said it’s broken. Almost all said it’s not broken. And we were told that’s the party line. A few had a third view. It is broken, but we can’t say so because the Conservative Party broke it.

If they won’t admit publicly to you – the people – what they broke, how can you have any faith they will fix it? The Conservative Party in Westminster isn’t sorry. It doesn’t get it – and hasn’t really changed.’

…

‘Now, the people I’m about to mention are all decent people. But I need to explain myself.

Look at the top table – the shadow chancellor, Mel Stride, has rightly attacked Labour for hiking taxes to fund more scrounging. There’s just one problem. He was the Cabinet minister who oversaw the explosion of the welfare bill. And it was him that blocked the reforms needed.

Priti Patel, the shadow foreign secretary, created the migration system that enabled five million migrants to come here – the greatest failure of any British government in the post-war period. When asked about this last year, she defended her actions. She doesn’t believe she did anything wrong.’

…

‘Let me be clear. They doubled down. I can’t kid myself any more. The party hasn’t changed and it won’t. The bulk of the party don’t get it, don’t have the stomach for the radical change this country needs.’

What are we to make of the day’s events, and what will their impact be on the British right?

Firstly, did Jenrick jump or was he pushed by a Conservative leader keen to defenestrate her principal rival and shore up her position within her party? It is impossible to know whether his claims that he had made up his mind are true — he could hardly claim otherwise, and having been so thoroughly extirpated from the party he had spent decades building a career within he had little choice but to immediately defect to Reform, lest he be abandoned in the wilderness with only Rupert Lowe for company. Having written such a speech, it seems hard to argue that there was still a part of him considering remaining within the party. Our guess is that he had indeed decided to defect, but was holding out for commitment from Farage to appoint him as Reform’s Shadow Chancellor before confirming that decision. Whilst that appointment may still come, and may even be a positive development, it is undoubtedly better for Farage to retain flexibility having had Jenrick’s leverage removed for him by Badenoch.

Secondly, did Badenoch make the right call in getting ahead of Jenrick’s defection? Tory politicians and commentators have been out in force, praising Badenoch’s ‘strong action’ against him. The reality, though, is that the moment Jenrick stepped out on stage at Reform HQ, anything that had happened previously became irrelevant to anyone outside Westminster. What will be remembered by the public is not Badenoch’s pre-emptive action, but Jenrick’s unrelenting broadside against his former party. That said, there is nothing more that Badenoch could have done to limit the damage, and what her actions have certainly achieved is the confirmation of her own position, which may well have been threatened by a surprise defection. She played a disastrous hand as well as she could have done, but her prize is remaining captain of a ship which was already sinking and is now rapidly catching fire as well.

Indeed, the ludicrous suggestions that the departure of Jenrick leaves the Conservative party in a stronger position, freed of internal disagreements, show that many in the commentariat have still failed completely to understand the nature of the situation. The hypocrisy of Tory loyalists attacking a former colleague for their naked ambition aside, Conservatives will find it impossible to land attacks on the person that many within and outside the party considered one of their most valuable assets and who was consistently promoted throughout his time in government. If they truly believe him to be a wastrel, why did so many of them nominate him for the leadership? Why did Badenoch appoint him to her Shadow Cabinet?

Thursday’s speech is just the first in what will be a constant series of attacks levied by someone who was in the room at every turn as the Conservative Party betrayed its voters, destroyed the country, and laughed whilst doing so. Every time that Jenrick reveals a new story of Tory betrayal, Badenoch will be forced to defend the legacy that she has tried so hard to run away from, or to vindicate his judgement that Reform offers a better vehicle for change if she refuses to do so. As soon as Jenrick left the stage at Reform HQ, all the worst ghouls of the past fourteen years emerged from the woodwork, praising Badenoch’s leadership and encouraging her to return to ‘sensible, pragmatic conservatism’ now that the nefarious influence of the ‘far right’ had been vanquished. This path will almost certainly lead the party to new lows in the polls, and yet with a gaping hole to her right it will be difficult for Badenoch to resist the pull to the center.

Jenrick’s defection is, as such, a disaster for the Tories. But is it a good thing for Reform? It is certainly the case that the party is running the risk of tainting itself by association as it accepts more and more Tory defectors, but the extent to which this is the case is easily overstated. Nobody outside of Westminster has ever heard of something called ‘Jake Berry’, let alone can they identify such a creature as an agent of Boris Johnson. On current polling averages, 45% of the population intends to vote for Labour, the Lib Dems, or the Greens. On a purely mathematical basis, there aren’t a lot of committed socialists left over who might be lending their support to Farage.

Indeed, the often-touted Labour-Reform swing voter is not necessarily all it’s cracked up to be. Just as with Boris Johnson’s coalition in the ‘red wall’, most of the voters supporting Reform in historic Labour areas are not out-of-work coal miners pining for a return to post-war social democracy. They are far more likely to be in the trades or running small businesses. If they are employed, it is in what remains of the private sector. These are the people who support the two-child benefit cap and are incensed at their rising tax bills (if, that is, they haven’t found a way to operate on a cash basis). Those who receive their income from the state, whether as an employee or a benefits claimant, are still supporting Labour and always will.

Reform should therefore be less concerned about being viewed as a right wing party, but that is not to say they should be blasé about further association with the Conservatives. Where they do have a great deal of support, as Farage has had for the past two decades, is among the disaffected and non-voters. This constituency certainly do regard the Conservatives negatively, not because of their stated policies but as a party of the establishment which has consistently lied to the electorate. It therefore matters greatly which conservatives they allow into their ranks, and it remains to be seen whether Jenrick truly has credibility among this crowd.

Where Jenrick definitely brings value to Reform is credibility in government. This is an issue which is often underrated, because mid-term polling allows voters to ignore their concerns over the viability of a party as a governing force and register their dissatisfaction freely, but there is good reason for the near-universal trend of populist parties losing ground during the election itself. Given that ‘no harm’ is the best result that can be expected from Reform’s capture of local governments, it is crucial that their national team seem plausible by the time the general election comes into view.

Of course, some of this ground can be made up by bringing in talented figures from outside of politics, including business and academia (the addition of James Orr is positive for this reason). Ultimately, though, Reform will need individuals who understand how government works currently if they are to be successful in changing it. Despite bringing in some crusty grandees from the Blair years, Labour have had a great deal of difficulty grasping the machinery of state as ministers who entered parliament during opposition attempt to manage civil servants with decades of experience frustrating the will of politicians. This dynamic must be navigated; legislation must be passed — Jenrick brings experience that will help with both.

Jenrick also brings some clarity of vision to a party which has, as yet, a rather impressionistic programme for government. His assessment of Britain’s problems is almost identical to Farage’s, but, unlike any of Reform’s existing team, he is someone willing to work through the weeds of policy to find solutions. He is therefore an excellent complement to that team. Farage and Yusuf can point effectively to the ills of broken Britain, Kruger and Orr can provide deeper analysis of their causes — Jenrick is the person best placed to stand between the two, and construct an agenda for national renewal.

And what of Jenrick himself? We are, after all, placing a great deal of responsibility on the shoulders of a politician who was initially elected as a Cameroon and who remained relatively in the center of the Tory party until only a few years ago — as undoubtedly will Farage, with a front bench appointment now inevitable. Can we trust such a person?

Let’s deal with the obvious first. Jenrick was not just a member of the Conservative government, but served as immigration minister under Rishi Sunak at the tail end of the Boriswave. It’s important to recognize that this, on its own, does not tell us much about Jenrick’s true beliefs. Britain has long since ceased to practice meaningful cabinet government, and it is absurd to suggest that a member of Cabinet, let alone a minister within a department, has the autonomy to push a policy that contradicts the desires of the Prime Minister except in the most exceptional cases. There are questions over the precise machinations that led up to the event, but the fact remains that Jenrick resigned from this position and made explicit at the time that his decision was the result of a refusal to carry out a policy that both he, the Home Secretary (Suella Braverman), and the Prime Minister knew could not succeed in bringing down legal and illegal migration.

It is never possible to know the truth of a person’s motivations, but Jenrick’s account of his political transformation is entirely reasonable, and indeed predictable. In fact, the vast majority of people who now consider themselves to be some form of right-wing followed exactly the same trajectory over exactly the same period, beginning with COVID and the George Floyd riots and continuing as the Boriswave wrought untold transformation upon the country. It is particularly entertaining to see members of that group among Jenrick’s harshest critics, conveniently forgetting their own ideological failings from earlier times. How is it that Carl Benjamin, the Sage of Swindon, who in 2020 founded ‘the liberalists’ as the last bastion of race-blind libertarianism, feels able to critique others for being perhaps a eighteen months later to the party?

We are not in touch with Jenrick directly, and so cannot offer our own account of his inner truth, but friends of Pimlico Journal who are have no doubt that his views are as he represents them, and that is good enough for us. We would also remind readers that Jenrick spent most of last year positioned well to the right of Reform, not just on immigration but on economics and civil service reform as well, as Farage himself noted just over a year ago. For all these reasons, and for the simple fact that consolidation of the radical right within Reform clarifies the political road ahead and improves the chance of a functional majority in 2029, we think Jenrick’s defection is very good news indeed.

A few other threads to tie up on this topic before we move on. It’s always slightly unfair when one politician in particular gets labelled ‘ambitious’, as if every MP in the house and every staffer serving them doesn’t get just that little bit stiffer imagining themselves entering No. 10, but it is certainly not wrong to point out that Jenrick is a man who wants to be Prime Minister. That said, any talk of Jenrick challenging Farage or in any way showing disloyalty is completely indulgent on the part of the chattering class. One does not join ‘a protest party led by the Messiah’ to challenge Christ for the crown. One look at the two sat together at Thursday’s press conference tells you everything you need to know about the power dynamic between Jenrick and Farage. He will make no trouble, and indeed has no incentive to — he is a young man, who will almost certainly hold a great office of state in the next government, serving a leader who will be a not-too-spritely 65 upon entering office and who has already tried to retire twice. He is smart enough to know that his best bet is to make Reform a success, and to fight it out with Zia Yusuf and others to succeed Farage when he retires.

Finally, will there be others following Jenrick over the line? Many of his supporters were stalwarts of the Tory right who have been in Parliament since the Thatcher years — it is hard to see them defecting now. Neil O’Brien, perhaps the party’s best policy mind, would be a coup for Reform, but is currently serving in a bespoke Shadow Cabinet role constructing the party’s new platform and has shared criticisms of Jenrick following his defection. It’s unlikely, then, that he will be following in his footsteps.

Jack Rankin and Katie Lam, two of the 2024 intakes most prominent right-wingers, have also been mooted as potential defectors, but in our view neither are likely to make the jump. Rankin’s seat in Windsor is one of the few likely to survive 2029 with a Tory majority, and Reform support there is very limited. He has reiterated his support for the party, which seems genuine (if misguided). Lam, who shares an office with Rankin, is politically aligned with Jenrick — but the two are not personally close, as rivals for chief tribune of the Tory right. With Jenrick’s departure, Lam’s influence will grow — but how much damage can the party sustain before that becomes a hollow prize? The third 2024 alum who has historically been considered a Jenrick ally, Nick Timothy, was appointed Jenrick’s replacement before his defection was even official.

There is one MP who could follow Jenrick’s lead: Suella Braverman. She has had a number of conversations with Reform over the past year, and we understand that her reluctance to jump was in part due to hopes of a return to the front benches under a future Jenrick leadership. Braverman has been quiet since the election, only making a public splash during debates over the basis of English identity when she declared that she was not, and never could be, English on account of her ethnic background. She has, however, done some good work on legal reform, including producing a paper on leaving the ECHR alongside Richard Tice and the Prosperity Institute. She would therefore have some merit as a defector.

The main downside of Braverman from our perspective is her foreign policy views: she is an unreformed Atlanticist and a particularly fervent supporter of Israel — neither necessarily disqualifying, but we would prefer a Reform government recognize all foreign states as precisely that and advance British interests as a priority. Her pivot to foreign policy indicates it is here that she would seek a role. That said, with the exception of Zia Yusuf, Reform is remarkably united on these issues, with Farage being one of the few remaining major party leaders in Europe willing to express continued commitment to the US relationship without any caveat. On that basis, perhaps her advantages in other places outweigh the risk.

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As promised, today we will be taking a break from rolling coverage to make some predictions on what the coming year has in store.

This newsletter’s agenda: Predictions for 2026 (free/paid)

Predictions for 2026

Prediction #1: Keir Starmer will no longer be Prime Minister on Jan 1, 2027

At the beginning of 2025, Keir Starmer had plummeted almost ten points in the polls from the start of his Premiership. Reeling from a deeply unpopular budget and speculation over the future of his Chancellor’s career, he kicked off the year with international condemnation over his handling of the grooming gang scandal. At the beginning of 2026, one wonders what Sir Keir would give to return to such heights of popularity.

Predictions of Starmer’s demise, which have gradually risen in pitch over the course of the past year and especially since September, have been tempered with the wisdom that the Labour party, unlike the Conservatives, do not remove their leaders. Whilst this caution certainly has some validity, I’m not entirely sure how reliable it is - after all, Labour has only once been in government long enough for discussion of a change in leadership to take hold (at least in normal circumstances), and in that period they not only removed a leader, but the most electorally successful leader the party has ever seen.

Electorally successful Starmer is not. In May, he will lead the party to a historic defeat. Labour hold the vast majority of council seats that will be up for election, and last contested these seats in 2022 during the height of partygate. They have a great deal to lose, and lose they will: in Newcastle, Manchester, West Yorkshire, and the West Midlands to Reform; in London and Birmingham to Greens and Independents. Worse than all of this, in all likelihood he will ensure that Labour comes third in both Wales and Scotland, behind the Nationalists and Reform.

A Prime Minister can survive a bad set of local elections. What cannot be survived is the failure, time and time again, to win a single political victory. Every major event of 2025 was bad news for Starmer and his government. Every decision taken was unpopular, and with almost every attempt to reclaim the agenda he has been forced into U-turns by his own backbenchers. Watching Starmer’s premiership feels like being forced to view the most ridiculous and contrived comedy of errors on repeat.

Throughout the past year, Labour MPs have been hard at work developing an explanation for their abject failure in government. At first, they suspected that they were in fact doing a perfectly good job, and blamed the government communications department for failing to inform the public of this fact. For a while, they settled on Rachel Reeves and her steadfast refusal to allow a nice currency crisis. Then, it was the perfidious influence of Morgan McSweeney and the cult of ‘Blue Labour’. They don’t offer these explanations any more, because they have settled on one far simpler; Keir Starmer is not up to the job.

Conviction in that hypothesis will only grow as the new year brings new opportunities for Starmer to squander, because it is fundamentally and obviously true. There is no way back from this realisation. In private conversations, not even Starmer’s allies pretend to envision one. The only areas in which the government has achieved some success, under its own terms, are on immigration and the US relationship - both of which have only made them less popular among their own core supporters. What has resulted from this is a strange kind of hostage situation, in which Starmer’s only defence is to promise a drawn-out leadership contest and remind his party of the previous government to suggest that changing leaders can bring more damage than keeping them despite their overwhelming unpopularity.

Such a precarious balance cannot be maintained for long. Whether it comes immediately after the May elections, or takes a little longer, that balance will collapse, and Starmer will be removed.

Prediction #2: The next Labour Leader will be…

An MP told me recently that the relationship of a political party to their leader is like a marriage. There may or may not be love involved, but what really underpins any relationship is a deal - he provides something for her; she provides something for him. There is, therefore, a certain fog of war which makes it very difficult to understand that relationship within a party that is not your own, just as it is very difficult to understand what makes another couple’s marriage work.

To stretch that metaphor perhaps beyond its original intention, the Tory party has always known precisely what it wants in a suitor - the ability to win (at least, as perceived by Tory MPs and members). The Labour party, on the other hand, has a somewhat quixotic approach to engagements. The extent to which it is happy to be a virtuous loser should not be underestimated, but it should also never be assumed that there is no desire among Labour members to pick a candidate who can win, especially when losing would mean allowing Nigel Farage into Downing Street. Predicting the next Labour leader is therefore a difficult task. Let’s have a look at each of the contenders.

Angela Rayner was the first name mentioned as a potential successor to Starmer, back when such talk was considered idle gossip about the far future. She remains a leading candidate to replace him, as the reigning parliamentary leader of the party’s soft left. Many in the party feel that her working class roots and unpolished manner could appeal to voters lost to Reform, whilst the leftwards pivot on policy that she would certainly usher in would appeal to those lost to the Greens.

Nevertheless, she has been badly damaged by the tax scandal that lead to her resignation from government last year, and whilst her appointment would bring a new political direction to the government, she does not at this point feel like much of a fresh face. At a time when bond yields are at record highs, electing the most left-wing major candidate in the race would be a risky move for Labour, and some among their membership recognize this despite dissatisfaction with the government.

Wes Streeting is perhaps the name most often thrown about today as a potential challenger to Keir Starmer — but not necessarily as a potential leader. This is because he is widely understood not just to be part of the Labour right, but specifically of the Blairite tradition: not a popular place to be in the Labour of 2025. It would be wrong, however to dismiss Streeting’s chances. In November, his net approval rating among Labour members was +19%, having climbed over the year, putting him solidly in the upper half of the cabinet. He has performed well in his brief, and mostly maintained support within the NHS. He is seen as one of Labour’s best media performers, and since late last year he has put across a clear pitch for his leadership without being explicitly critical (which, as Andy Burnham has shown, can blow up a campaign before it begins). His chances are better than many give him credit for.

Speaking of Burnham, whilst it may seem the Manchester Mayor has already missed his opportunity, he remains the most popular Labour politician in the country and one of the most respected within the party. Despite this, the fact remains that he is not an MP, and therefore ineligible to stand for the leadership. As much as the Labour left might hope to be saved by their prince across the water, Keir Starmer retains control of the NEC — which would have to approve any candidacy for a by-election. Weak as he may be, Starmer is not going to roll out the red carpet for his biggest challenger. As such, it seems any discussion of his chances were he to run will remain moot.

Ed Milliband is another name often mentioned as a potential leadership candidate — but whilst Labour members view him very positively, polling indicates they do not see him as a future leader. This is unsurprising, given his previous failure in that role. Milliband, for his part, has ruled himself out — although that should be taken with a pinch of salt. Perhaps he is angling for an appointment as Chancellor under a future Rayner government?

Bridget Phillipson and Lucy Powell, both candidates for the deputy leadership, deserve a mention on this list — but neither has the profile to mount a serious challenge. Whilst positioned to the right and left of the party respectively, neither have a particularly strong identity with any one faction, meaning both lack the support base of a Wes Streeting or an Angela Rayner. Finally, we should mention Shabana Mahmood. Unfortunately for Maurice Glasman and Morgan McSweeney, Mahmood’s tenure as home secretary has rendered her singularly unpopular with the Labour membership. Despite what we and the country at large might see as her successes, she has no chance of taking the premiership.

So what is our prediction? Who will emerge as Prime Minister before the year is out? In our view, it will come down to the wire between Rayner and Streeting. Since we have to come down on one side or the other, we’ll play it safe and bet on Rayner — but in our view, it is a toss up. The contest itself will determine who comes out on top, and whilst Rayner can simply play to her left wing credentials, Streeting will put forward a far stronger vision for saving the party’s political prospects. To dismiss that he has a real shot would be a mistake.

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For the first newsletter of 2026, we felt we should take a moment to look ahead at what the coming year has in store, and put our reputation on the line with some predictions. After all, there’s never any big news so soon after the new year…

That look ahead will now be in a bonus newsletter on Saturday.

This newsletter’s agenda: Trump kidnaps Maduro (free/paid)

Trump kidnaps Maduro

Overnight on Friday, US Special forces kidnapped Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro from his Caracas safe house along with his wife. The operation followed months of espionage, and involved the deployment of 150 aircraft alongside the elite special mission unit ‘Delta Force’. It began with an almost complete shutdown of electricity supply to the city, after which a number of key military sites — and also the Mausoleum of Maduro’s predecessor and founder of modern Venezuelan socialism, Hugo Chavez — were taken out from the air. As of Sunday, it appears the operation was carried out with zero US deaths and without losing a single US aircraft. In total, it lasted two hours and twenty minutes.

The scale, speed, and violence of the mission was, of course, dictated ultimately by the requirements for success. Nevertheless, the opportunity to remind Trump’s international opponents of the overwhelming military capacity of the United States will not have been unappreciated in Washington. Maduro was in no way poorly protected.

What comes next is still unclear. The Venezuelan government has appointed Maduro’s deputy, Delcy Rodriguez, as acting President. Rodriguez has expressed outrage at the actions of the US, and demanded the immediate return of Maduro — although Trump has indicated that she has privately committed to working with his administration. This is not implausible, as the US remains positioned for a ‘second wave’ of actions which would surely see her arrest if she refuses to co-operate. The internationally recognised liberal opposition, led by Nobel Prize winner Maria Machado, has so far been largely snubbed by Trump, who has said that the US will ‘run’ Venezuela until a suitable alternative government is found. What that means has not yet been explained, and the US does not appear to have operational control on the ground as of today.

Why did Trump authorise this action? Ostensibly, it is a result of Maduro’s involvement in the drug trade, and to a lesser extent a reaction to the emigration crisis that his leadership has caused. Neither of these justifications should be taken particularly seriously. To the extent that Maduro’s regime has taken part in the drug trade, it has largely been enabling the shipping of cocaine to Europe — America’s problem is with fentanyl, which is primarily manufactured in Mexico — and the emigration crisis has been a problem mostly for neighbouring South American countries, although the US has seen a small increase in Venezuelans crossing the border.

The real answer, then, involves two highly connected motivations: oil and geopolitics. Some have minimised the importance of Venezuela’s oil reserves by pointing out that the country’s supplies, whilst among the largest in the world, consist almost entirely of ‘heavy crude’ — viscous and difficult to refine — which is far less valuable on the international market compared to, for example, American shale oil. This misses the fact that, prior to the discovery of shale deposits, the US invested a great deal into refining capacity which focused specifically on heavy crude for the precise reason of its lower market price. 70% of US domestic refining capacity depends on heavy crude as a result.

Increasing production in Venezuela, which has been hindered by poor management under Maduro’s leadership, would therefore lead to substantially lower fuel prices at home — counteracting America’s persistent inflation and decreasing cost of living whilst enabling further cuts to interest rates. All of this is crucial for Trump’s success in the upcoming midterm elections. Trump himself has explicitly touted the prospect of American oil companies gaining access to Venezuelan reserves for this purpose.

Increasing global oil output will not just decrease prices for the United States, even if it does monopolise some degree of the supply (as doing so would reduce US demand in the rest of the market). It will reduce prices across the world, putting particular strain on the Russian economy at precisely the time Trump most requires leverage over Vladimir Putin to secure a peace deal in Ukraine which is politically acceptable at home.

There are other geopolitical advantages presented by a new US-led regime in Venezuela. The biggest importer of Venezuelan oil today is China, who have been stockpiling resources to increase their resilience against trade shocks since Trump returned to power. In the recent National Security Strategy document, curtailing Chinese access to natural resources, particularly oil, was a key motivation for wanting Europe to take a more active role in the management of the Middle East whilst the US pivots westwards, lest a power vacuum allow Chinese influence to grow. Halting or at least reducing Chinese access to Venezuelan fuel supplies will help achieve the same goal. Of course, the NSS also makes clear that the administration’s new interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine not only commits them to opposing non-hemispheric influence in the Americas, but also to removing hostile regimes within the continent. Taking out Maduro is clearly consistent with that line. Venezuela is also a major supplier of oil to Cuba, much of it virtually for free, in exchange for sending medical personnel to Venezuela. The Cuban economy is currently in its greatest ever crisis; Trump will have been lobbied hard by Cuban-Americans to force its collapse. Now that this ‘lifeline’ is gone, and with so little trouble removing Maduro, will Cuba be Trump’s next target?

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As 2025 draws to a close, we bring you our final newsletter of the year. We’ll be kicking off 2026 with a three-part roundup of the past year before normal service returns.

The much-awaited first episode of the Pimlico Journal Politics Podcast will release on Friday 9th January, and will be free for all readers.

A belated merry Christmas, and an early happy new year to you all on behalf of the team here at Pimlico Journal.

This newsletter’s agenda: The Alaa Abdel Fattah scandal (free); Labour’s looming Trade Union crisis (paid); The Church of England Reparations Row (paid).

The Alaa Abdel Fattah scandal

In December 2021, the Home Office under Conservative Home Secretary Priti Patel granted UK citizenship to Egyptian activist and software developer Alaa Abdel Fattah. Fattah has a long history of protest and activism in favour of various causes in his home country, and was heavily involved in the 2011 Egyptian Revolution, during which he organised protests against then-President and long-time dictator Hosni Mubarak. As a result of his activism, he has been in constant conflict with Egyptian authorities, and has been arrested many times.

Fattah was first arrested in 2006 after he participated in protests calling for an independent judiciary. He spent 45 days in jail before being released, and was not arrested again until 2011, when he was accused of inciting violence after 27 people were killed when protests he was involved in became riotous. He was charged, among other offences, with stealing weapons and shooting at soldiers, but after several months of legal and political strife he was released under a travel ban. In 2013, he was arrested once again for demonstrating against the new Egyptian constitution, and was sentenced to five years in prison, from which he was released in March 2019 with five years’ parole. In September of that year, he was re-arrested without charge and whisked off to Tora Prison, where he was tortured by a ‘welcome parade’, and eventually sentenced in 2021 to five years for ‘spreading false news and undermining national security’.

Beginning in 2006 but accelerating after his 2021 sentencing, Fattah gathered a large social media following which campaigned actively for his release on the grounds that he had been illegally prosecuted on trumped-up charges as a result of his political activism. Beginning in Egypt, this movement quickly spread, in part through the diaspora, across the world and particularly to Britain. As it turned out, Fattah’s mother (Laila Soueif) had been born in London, although she appears to have spent most of her life in Egypt, where she was a professor of mathematics at Cairo University.

Fattah began a hunger strike to protest being held under poor conditions in solitary confinement in 2022, which is when MPs and Lords began calling for the government to intervene in the case and bring Fattah to Britain. This quickly morphed into a cause célèbre which various public personalities jumped onto, including the likes of Olivia Coleman and Stephen Fry — the usual suspects. His mother began her own hunger strike in 2024, outside the Foreign Office headquarters in Westminster, to protest Egypt refusing to release him even after the end of his sentence.

Fatah was ultimately released on September 23rd of this year, following a presidential pardon. Then, on December 26th, it was reported that Fatah had been relocated to the UK to be with his family. Keir Starmer tweeted that he was ‘delighted’ at this news, at which point the controversy about Fattah on X began, as demonstrated by the community note issued under the post:

These are not even the worst things that Fattah has said:

• In 2010, he wrote that ‘humanity will not b redeemed until we commit genocide against all white people’.

• In 2011, he wrote that he wanted a drone so that he could ‘shoot Zionist weddings’ and that ‘police don’t have rights, we should just kill them all’

• He endorsed suicide bombings if they ‘end a few Zionists’ lives’.

• In 2012, he wrote that living in South Africa had convinced him that ‘the extermination of whites is a desirable thing’ and that ‘by the way I’m a racist, I don’t like white people’ — a clarification one can’t help but feel unnecessary.

• In 2013 he wrote that he wanted ‘more fear’ to convince white males that ‘racism costs lives,’ and that ‘random shooting of white males’ was necessary.

• He has referred to the British as ‘dogs and monkeys’.

This list could go on indefinitely, but you get the point: Fattah is a radical anti-white activist who despises Britain and its people. He comes from a family of Egyptian political activists who have no real connection to Britain, but who have manipulated citizenship laws to enable them to use a country that they explicitly renounce as a safe platform from which to conduct political activity abroad.

It goes without saying that the fact that a man whose only ties to this country are through his anchor-baby mother is eligible for citizenship and has been moved to Britain (likely at taxpayer expense) by our own government is egregious regardless of any specific facts about the person, but it is particularly aggravating given that an increasing number of our own people are being harassed by police and even prosecuted for social media posts far less incendiary than Fattah’s, yet his have somehow flown under the radar despite his public profile. Fattah did not even undergo the laughably flimsy ‘good character’ or 'Life in the UK’ tests when granted citizenship as a result of a Supreme Court ruling in 2019 which found these incompatible with the ECHR when citizenship is passed from a UK-born mother.

What is remarkable about this story is the breadth of ignorance displayed by our political class in relation to Fattah. A massive campaign of celebrities, intellectuals, and politicians from every establishment party — including the Conservatives — sought to release this man from prison and have him effectively seek asylum in Britain, despite these posts having been in the public domain for years prior. At best, it shows a complete lack of interest in ensuring that the interests of the British people are protected by the state when it considers who to allow into the country. At worst, it shows that our governing elite actively considers deeply-felt hatred for the British people a perfectly reasonable viewpoint which should have no bearing on a person’s eligibility not just for residency, but for membership in the political community. Even Liz Truss, who has been shrieking about the scandal across all of her social media channels, had to be reminded by the ever-vigilant Community Notes that she too campaigned for Fattah’s release and resettlement in Britain when she was in office.

On another level, it is painful to see how Parliament has become increasingly a base for irrelevant social activism by people whose politics is entirely telephonic, bearing no relation whatsoever to real issues faced by British people. The SNP and the Labour Party are particularly bad here, but many Tory MPs fall into precisely the same camp. It speaks to a deep weakness in our state that separatist parties are not only allowed to sit freely in the legislature, but also to campaign to import foreign political agitators without any benefit to Britain.

It is impossible to say for certain whether Fattah belonged in prison. Clearly, he was politically targeted as an opponent of the regime — but it is undeniable that he has been deeply involved in political activism which has, on many occasions, turned violent. The truth is that this question is of absolutely no relevance to anyone in Britain. Egypt is a corrupt dictatorship, and Sisi is known to be brutal; I sympathise with anyone who would oppose such a regime in their own country. Nevertheless, it is neither in the British national interest nor a goal of British foreign policy to seek the overthrow of corrupt dictatorships around the world. Fatah is a political actor in a violent country: he played the game, and he lost. It is not up to Britain to save him from the consequences of his actions, however sympathetic we may be, and it is in fact directly contrary to our interests to do so and thereby provoke ill feeling between ourselves and a foreign state.

Whilst Starmer has responded to yet another move blowing up in his face with his trademark inaction, the Conservatives have been quick to jump on the bandwagon, denouncing the Prime Minister’s support for Fattah in hopes of an easy comms win. It’s hard to understand this strategy, given that it was Liz Truss who began pressuring Egypt to release and relocate him, and that Priti Patel’s Home Office granted him his bogus citizenship. Time and time again, the Conservative Party — only a year since losing power — has attacked Labour for decisions that were clearly and obviously made during their administration — a fact which anyone with access to Google or Grok can verify in seconds.

This has been the consistent weakness of Badenoch’s political strategy, resuming ‘business as usual’ opposition to provide a generic alternative to Labour, staunchly opposing . ‘I wouldn’t have done that’ is not a credible line when, in fact, you were in government only last year and you did do precisely that! Attacks on the ‘Uniparty’ here are, then, completely justified, and Reform have certainly picked up on that opportunity. Indeed, they have reason to do so as the sheer hatred for Starmer begins to cover over memories of the last Tory government, and Badenoch’s party inches ever more reliably into second place.

Labour’s Looming Trade Union Crisis

The General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress, Paul Nowak, has recently given an interview to the BBC. Representing 5.5 million trade union members from 48 trade unions - some of which openly fund and campaign for the Labour party - he is one of the most influential organised labour leaders in this country. While reporting has focused on Nowak urging Starmer not to rule out re-joining the EU Customs Union, some of his warnings about where trade unionists are heading politically are very interesting:

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The last week leading up to Christmas is usually, in British politics, a quiet one. This has been no exception. Even Reform has chosen to focus on small, policy-oriented conferences, not stunts and defections. Today, we take a look at where the Left and Right are as the year draws to a close, as well as updating you on some small stories this week.

This newsletter’s agenda: The State of the British Left (paid); Reform UK’s Christmas Report Card (paid); Miscellaneous stories: Wes Streeting, Erasmus, Robert Jenrick (paid).

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This newsletter’s agenda: Should we ‘Unite the Right’? — Round 2 (free/paid); The Employment Rights Bill will do nothing to fix Britain’s labour market (paid); Can you still expect a ‘jury of your peers’ in modern Britain? (paid).

Should we ‘Unite the Right’? — Round 2

The last time that we discussed the potential for a Reform-Tory pact was back in March, when the proposition was floated by certain Conservatives — apparently backed by donors — wanting to ‘unite the right’. At the time, it was clearly an unserious proposition. Those involved seemed to naively assume that Reform would be eager for such a deal, not understanding that Farage held all the cards even then, with the Tories needing him far more than he needed them, or that a deal on which party would stand where would be impossible to reach. As I wrote at the time:

There is no real possibility of this kind of deal for the basic reason that Reform are currently primarily eating into the Tory vote in Tory areas. While it is true that their relative support over the Conservatives is probably highest in the North and Wales, their absolute support in many parts of the South (and in particular, Essex and Kent) is higher. And, for the most part, absolute support is what matters in winning seats.

Since then, aside from consistent moaning from Jacob-Rees-Mogg, we have heard very little more about a pact from anyone in either party.

That was until Round 2 began last week when the Financial Times reported that, at a meeting with donors, Farage claimed that he would be open to a pact with the Tories so long as Badenoch was not leader. The donors reportedly suggested that he had gone so far as to say that a pact was ‘inevitable’. Later the same day, Farage attacked the Financial Times and denied that there would be an agreement, but he did use the words ‘reverse takeover’ in his denial, sparking further speculation about defections. Soon after, there were reports that ‘senior figures’ in Reform wanted Jenrick to defect. Pointedly, Farage refused to comment on this. All of this, it should be noted, was happening in the context of a stalling momentum of Reform in the polls. Whether this was on Farage’s mind if he did indeed make these comments is hard to say.

It is clear that within Reform there are somewhat different opinions on whether more Tory defections are desirable, given the apparent incoherence of the party’s approach to this topic — compare, for instance, their often harsh rhetoric with their acceptance of clearly useless defectors like Nadine Dorries and Jake Berry.

At one extreme stands Zia Yusuf and those around him at Reform HQ. These people mostly refuse to socialise with anyone or anything Conservative, and also have very hostile relationship with the Tory-aligned media. Yusuf has even implied that right-wing Tory MPs like Jenrick and Braverman should be in prison for their role in the Afghan scandal, and responded with his now-characteristic vehemence once the Financial Times’ article was released. The relationship of this faction in headquarters with the party’s current Tory defectors (with the exception of Danny Kruger and Andrea Jenkyns) seems to be very negative, and they seem to be devoting a lot of energy to both blocking new defectors, and to discouraging future defectors by being so unpleasant to them so publicly and so often.

Their view is that the Conservative Party will end up tarnishing Reform’s brand by associating them with the last — disastrous — Tory Government. There is also a genuine desire to build something completely new rather than grafting the Reform project onto the old Tory one, as they worry will inevitably happen should there be too many defectors; a new project requires new people, they would argue. Labour have already started trying to use this line against Reform (though not to much effect). More cynically, they may also not want competition for senior positions in policymaking and, ultimately, in the Cabinet, as some Tory defectors seem bound to demand: Braverman, for instance, would surely want to become Reform’s Foreign Affairs spokesman; Jenrick would demand even more, and would quite obviously create a new power base within the party (even if we assume his complete loyalty to Farage, which is not a given). Tory factionalism could, in this argument, become Reform factionalism.

Others in Reform seem less hostile. Richard Tice is one example (though he seems to have relatively little hold over the main centres of power at Reform, and relations between him and Farage are reportedly strained). But probably more importantly, Farage’s old inner circle, largely composed of people who he has known since his UKIP days, plus some of those working in and around Parliament, seem more open. My understanding of what, exactly, these people think is weaker, but they seem to be rather less closed off to the mainstream media — and, probably tellingly, most of the information in the mainstream media about Reform seems to come from them, not HQ, which appears to be a tight ship. (The immediate assumption of a number of people I know to the reports was that the ‘source’ was Gawain Towler, though I should stress that I have no evidence for this either way.)

It is somewhat ironic that people who have dedicated much of their adult lives to opposing the Conservative Party are now taking this stance, but there we go. One explanation may be that this faction, despite their temporary victory over Yusuf when he resigned as Chairman, once again appear to be somewhat out of favour in Reform.

Ultimately, though, Nigel Farage is the ‘king’ in Reform. He has the final decision on the party’s approach to the Tories. He has his different courtiers, but a pluralistic organisation it is not. My view is that Farage’s own sentiments are closer to the ‘old guard’ group, though intellectually he probably acknowledges the strength of the view of the HQ group. One friend who spoke to Farage fairly recently recalled him claiming that the Tories could have bought him off with a peerage (I doubt that this is true, but it is somewhat remarkable that even at this late date he is making such a claim). I cannot see into Farage’s soul, but there is a touch of Ramsay MacDonald about him: he feels spurned by the establishment, but is still psychologically drawn to them in some way. He is also, fundamentally, just not that disagreeable of a person; again, very different to Yusuf and friends. Given this, it’s easy to see how undesirable defectors might end up making their way through despite the machinations of the HQ group. He is also worn down from being ‘Mister Racist’ for so much of his adult life, and may yearn for respectability more than the (often much younger) radicals and misanthropes in HQ — but perhaps British politics needs more radicalism and misanthropy. However, his evidently high respect for Yusuf seems to suggest that he knows, intellectually, that he must still hate the Tories.

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We’ll be dedicating a full article to the budget later this week, and since there has been little else in the news in Britain we thought it was about time we gave you an update on what’s happening elsewhere on the continent.

Assuming there’s no big news in Britain this week, we’ll continue this roundup in the next newsletter as well, looking at France, Denmark, and the Netherlands. That newsletter will be published on Saturday morning, as will future newsletters from here on out as a result of successful lobbying from the PJ WAGs association to free up our Sunday evenings. Who said Pimlico Journal doesn’t respect family values?

This newsletter’s agenda: Nawrocki is becoming his own man — and Poland is heading for a right-wing government of some kind (free); Romania pursues fiscal consolidation, but big questions remain about the long-term viability of the four-party coalition (paid); Friedrich Merz’s coalition creaks as Germany heads for third year without growth and the Alternative for Germany takes first place in the polls (paid)

Nawrocki is becoming his own man — and Poland is heading for a right-wing government of some kind

Good morning from Pimlico Journal’s cryogenically frozen Poland correspondent. I have been defrosted in the office microwave to provide you with an update on what’s been going on in Europe’s fastest-growing economy.

When we last zoomed in on Poland, it was in the context of the Presidential elections — from which the PiS-backed ‘citizen’s candidate’ Karol Nawrocki emerged victorious by a slim margin. If you are not familiar, Nawrocki is a bodybuilder, a historian, a former football hooligan, and a snus addict. As of this week, he’s also Poland’s most trusted politician. On the other side of the spectrum is Adrian Zandberg — who we briefly mentioned in our election breakdown earlier this year — the leader of the far-left ‘Razem’ party, which split from the broader left-wing coalition ('Lewica’) having refused to support Donald Tusk’s centrist government. Zandberg bears an unfortunate resemblance to Sully from Monsters Inc.

It is fair to say that I seriously underestimated Nawrocki as a politician and as a President. He was widely expected to be much like his predecessor Andrzej Duda — a puppet of the docile PiS establishment who would simply keep quiet and follow the orders of the party’s felinophile eminence grise, Jaroslaw Kaczynski. So far, it seems these expectations were far off the mark. Nawrocki has built on his image as a down-to-earth patriot, and he now commands a sizeable personal following, cultivated both via official channels and with the tried-and-tested medium of TikTok edits produced by teenagers and students. Despite living outside of Poland, I see at least one edit of Nawrocki and his enormous presidential BMW on my feed every day — typically with Polish football ultra rap as a backing track.

Beyond projecting a strongman image, he has achieved tangible results by wielding his veto against some genuinely unpopular laws. Tusk’s coalition has failed to pass controversial legislation expanding the usage of wind energy and building new turbines as a result, and Nawrocki has refused to expand and extent social benefits to Ukrainian refugees. He has also vetoed various other laws attempting to create red tape around corporate governance and the energy sector.

The polls — never entirely reliable anywhere and less so, if anything, in Poland — have made for interesting reading these past few months. Poland 2050, a centrist party led by former Speaker of the Sejm Szymon Holownia, has completely collapsed after a brief period of excitement. Their partners in the ‘Third Way’ alliance, formed for the recent Presidential election, the PSL — Poland’s oldest political party, founded in the 1880s — have also virtually disappeared. This is primarily due to Holownia’s terrible performance in the Presidential election, where he won just 4% of the vote, and partly due to general public dissatisfaction with the government (in which they are coalition partners). Their position was not strengthened by widespread rumours that the PSL would enter a coalition with PiS and vote against Tusk in the motion of no confidence which was filed immediately after the election.

Many polls also indicate that, having split the already limited left-wing vote between them, neither New Left nor Razem will enter the Sejm at the next election (currently scheduled for 2027). New Left have recently scored one victory, however: the election of Wlodzimierz Czarasty, one of their MPs, to replace Holownia as Speaker of the Sejm. Czarasty is a former member of PZPR (the ruling party during Poland’s communist period). This is not unheard of for Polish politicians, but unlike many others he also held party positions: Czarasty was a leader in the communist youth organisation during the 1980s. Aside from looking like a character from the cover of the video game Worms, he has caused a splash for having banned the infamous Grzegorz Braun from appearing in the Sejm due to his regular outbursts against Jews and homosexuals (among other groups).

Braun himself has had a strong few months in the polls. His party, KPP (a far-right splinter from Konfederacja, the main grouping for the anti-PiS right) is currently at around 7% on the aggregators. They have previously seen highs of 11%, although these mostly come from ‘friendly’ pollsters which have consistently overestimated support for them and for Konfederacja. Broadly speaking, they have succeeded in stealing some of Konfederacja’s momentum, but the latter remain at about 17% in the polls and Braun is mistrusted by the vast majority of Poles. He has also been making increasingly Pro-Russian noises and attending various ‘peace marches’, as well as meeting with notorious far-right agitator Wojciech Olszański, a man who claims to be a ‘fascist, nationalist, and Stalinist’. I am almost certain that the government will move to ban Braun’s party — with tacit support from the rest of the right — if he is credibly assessed to be a Russian agent. Poland is still corrupt enough that hard evidence, whilst preferable, will be optional for such a move.

Overall, it looks highly likely that PO will take a beating at the next election. Seat projections are very hard to do properly, but most attempts now predict a very slim majority for a theoretical PiS - Konfederacja coalition. This would not be good for the latter in the long term, as being anti-PiS has become a key part of their identity and political appeal. PO will also not be able to ally with any of the remaining parties, unless New Left manage to remain in the Sejm and dramatically outperform the polls. In short, Poland is heading towards a right-wing government of some kind — but the battle for momentum among various factions will continue at least until elections are called.

—Anonymous Contributor, Pimlico Journal

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A friend told me at dinner recently that there was once a day on the BBC, many decades ago, where the newsreader informed the country that nothing had happened that day, and that was all there was to the programme.

Sometimes, producing this newsletter, which is meant to be on British politics, I feel some sympathy with that newsreader. With 2029 a strange sort of singularity on the horizon, one cannot help but feel that even this government’s most significant announcements amount to little more than trivia. There’s a long way still to go.

(An earlier, unedited version of this newsletter was published this morning by mistake. Apologies for filling up your inbox!)

This newsletter’s agenda: Shabana Mahmood’s immigration reform agenda (paid); Russia has now presented something that can at least be the basis to negotiate a final deal — but will it be enough to end the war? (paid)

Shabana Mahmood’s immigration reform agenda

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This week, we discuss Labour’s u-turn on a policy that hadn’t even been announced, Morgan McSweeney’s strategic missteps, and question whether ‘neutrality’ is even possible for a news organisation in the twenty-first century.

This newsletter’s agenda: Without McSweeney, what’s left of Starmerism? (free); Income tax not to rise, after all that… (paid); Yes, the BBC is biased, but right-wingers make a conceptual error when they complain about this (paid).

Without McSweeney, what’s left of Starmerism?

Less than eighteen months since Labour was elected with a huge 174-seat majority, Keir Starmer’s government is floundering and running out of political steam. Of course, this will not come as a surprise to readers. Contrary to popular opinion, (Sir) Keir Starmer (KC) isn’t bereft of ideology, but is rather a deeply ‘conservative’ (in the literal, not political sense) man of the establishment who is basically happy with Britain as it was configured in 2024, who doesn’t really know what do with his time in office when he’s not arresting political opponents or stuffing his face with McCoy’s crisps. It’s not an easy time for a man like Starmer to be in charge.

Following an already difficult month, in which the government has been forced to contend with near-constant leaks and u-turns over the upcoming Budget alongside almost daily stories on the Prison Service’s impotence at preventing the accidental release of violent criminals, Starmer now faces the prospect of losing his oldest and most important adviser: Morgan McSweeney.

McSweeney is widely believed to have cleared (if not initiated himself) several ‘unauthorised’ No 10 briefings attacking Health Secretary Wes Streeting, one of the few Labour ministers with any remaining credibility, for allegedly planning a coup. Streeting, who must be the most self-promoting Cabinet Minister we’ve seen since Matt Hancock’s egomania during the pandemic, is clearly very ambitious. His main difficulty is that the Labour membership hates him, meaning he is unlikely to credibly challenge Starmer unless he somehow took charge without a leadership contest — but this may not be enough to stop him trying. (Also, Streeting may well lose his seat at the next election, though he’s hardly the only senior Labour figure that this applies to.)

So Team Starmer being suspicious of Streeting is not insane. But unfortunately, it seems McSweeney foolishly moved pre-emptively in an attempt to destroy Streeting before his leadership challenge could begin in earnest. Some sources claim that the attacks were triggered by someone registering the ‘wesforleader.co.uk’ domain; Streeting and his team deny any involvement, and it is more than possible that someone was either making mischief, or looking to sell the domain at a later date.

Many in the Parliamentary Labour Party, including most Starmer loyalists, have long felt that McSweeney has been too clever for his own good, and that this disastrously botched attempt to flush out an as yet non-existent challenger is simply the final straw.

It’s difficult to emphasise how big a loss McSweeney would be for Starmer. He is no political mastermind — he succeeded in purging some of the most naïve people in General Election election campaign in decades — but he is one of the very few people left in the Labour Party who believe it should be ruthlessly committed to reducing immigration, crime, and the cost of living in order to secure reelection, rather than indulging its own hobby horses on these topics.

So, having already lost Sue Gray, Angela Rayner, three communications chiefs, and his principal private secretary inside his first year, Starmer now seems likely to lose the one adviser who at least dimly grasps how Labour could win the next General Election.

But given much of the intellectual energy behind Starmerism has come from McSweeney, what would a Starmer government after McSweeney even look like? Well, one clue came this week: Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden announced that he intends to take another look at the decision not to compensate nearly three million ‘Waspi women’, who bleat that they weren’t given sufficient warning that their pension age was to be increased from 60 to 65, ruining their delicately-laid retirement plans. Not even a policy: just consultation.

It is, in truth, an unmistakable glimpse of what Starmerism will look like with even less central authority: dithering, terrified of its own backbenchers, and paralysed by whichever stakeholder group is shouting loudest this week.

—Christopher Bright Deputy Editor, Pimlico Journal

Income tax not to rise, after all that…

In our previous coverage of the upcoming budget, much like everyone else we were writing under the assumption that Rachel Reeves was going to raise income tax, thus incontrovertibly breaking one of Labour’s manifesto pledges. OBR forecasts were suggesting that she had to raise as much as £30bn in order to remain within her ‘fiscal rules’, and increases to other taxes that could possibly raise this much revenue — corporation tax, national insurance and, above all, VAT — had seemingly been ruled out. So income tax it was. It wasn’t yet confirmed, but Starmer refused to stand by his manifesto pledges in the Commons — so it looked like it was confirmed… until it wasn’t.

The lead-up to the budget has been all-consuming. One aspect of this is that there have been an unprecedented number of leaks, thus giving the media something to talk about. But what’s more remarkable is that it seems as if virtually all government business has totally ground to a halt. Some kind of government slowdown is normal, but this is unprecedented, both in length and extent.

The original understanding of the Chancellor’s plans was that there would simply be an increase to income tax, including (but not limited to) the basic rate. Later emerged the so-called ‘2 up, 2 down’ plan from the Resolution Foundation, which sought to square the circle by making the plan more redistributive while arguing that it was — at least arguably — more compliant with Labour’s manifesto pledge on not raising taxes on ‘working people’ (as pensioners and landlords, among others, would be hardest hit by such a scheme).

The general reaction to these two plans in the media sphere was not especially negative, at least if you exclude those who were bound to be negative no matter what Reeves decided to do. In general, tax specialists like income tax and VAT, as these are generally considered the two least distortive taxes that would plausibly raise sufficient revenue for Labour’s purposes. VAT was unlikely to be increased due to its reputation in Labour Party circles as a ‘regressive’ tax — so income tax it was. Such a path, while breaking Labour’s manifesto, was seen as preferable to the so-called ‘smorgasbord’ approach of increasing a wide variety of less individually significant taxes, many of which are highly distortive. For many, these plans seemed like the most likely to strike the right balance between achieving fiscal consolidation, growing the economy, and satisfying backbenchers and voters. And, in my view, they weren’t far wrong in saying this — so long as the black hole remained as big as £30bn.

In fact, a number of commentators urged that, if Reeves was already going to break manifesto commitments, she might as well go further and raise even more money than she actually needed — so as to avoid having to go back again for more. This is the kind of argument that sounds like it makes sense, but doesn’t in reality: the additional money would spur more demands for spending from your incontinent MPs, soon putting you back where you started. But more on the strange psychology of these commentators below.

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Today, we examine Reform’s economic policy agenda, and their pivot away from immediate tax cuts towards fiscal consolidation; review the Labour reshuffle from the perspective of two months on; and, in some more light news, take a look at the ‘Youth Parliament’.

This newsletter’s agenda: Reform pivot from tax cuts to fiscal consolidation (free/paid); The absurdity of the Labour reshuffle (paid); Britain’s ‘Youth Parliament’ needs Reform (paid).

Reform pivot from tax cuts to fiscal consolidation

Laying out his vision for the British economy this week, Nigel Farage sought to cast Reform as the government in waiting, saying he would drop their manifesto promise of £90 billion in tax cuts, and instead focus on cutting public spending and reducing public debt. Reform will keep its pledges to restore inheritance tax relief for small farmers, as well as lifting the two-child benefit cap for families where both parents are in work, but will be a government of sweeping ‘deregulation’ rather than major tax cuts. In a sentence, Reform wants to be ‘most pro-business, pro-entrepreneurship government this country has seen in modern times’, but will not substantially lower taxes due to the ‘dire state’ of the public finances.

Of course, many readers of Pimlico Journal — being in that admirable class of ambitious, hardworking young men that make up the ‘London and Home Counties grotesque’ — will be disappointed. The tax burden is at its highest in at least seventy years. The country hasn’t seen real economic growth for almost two decades. Tax freedom day is now later than at any time since records began. But without a more fundamental rethink of government spending — especially on welfare — than Reform can currently countenance, it’s difficult to see where the fiscal headroom for major tax cuts could come from (George Spencer outlined how a Reform government could go further on their proposed welfare cuts last week).

At the electoral level, Farage’s commitments are probably a necessary move to woo over not only right-leaning voters sceptical of Reform’s economic credibility and recent pledges to nationalise the steel and large parts of the utilities industries, but also shore up a perceived weakness in the City of London (notably his speech was given at Banking Hall, just a stone’s throw from the Bank of England) and investor confidence in a Reform government.

So it makes sense politically. But clearly there are big questions about how Reform will actually generate economic growth. Reform’s answer is to raise productivity by encouraging a ‘culture of risk taking’, massive deregulation and bringing businesspeople into government. They want a ‘Big Reform’ akin to the ‘Big Bang’ of the 1980s that would entail a massively simplified tax code, less cumbersome KYC procedures, and less regulators. In Farage’s own words:

We have not taken advantage of the opportunities to deregulate and become more competitive. The harsh truth is that regulations and regulators, in many areas, are worse than they were back in 2016… We will free businesses to get on and make more money. We will bring into government people with real expertise in their areas. And we will signal a change of attitude towards work, making money and success.

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This week we discuss Reform’s big speech on their plans to transform government, and dive into some more rumours in advance of Rachel Reeves’ budget.

This newsletter’s agenda: Reform announce Project 2029 (free/paid); Rachel Reeves to balance an increase in the basic rate of income tax with symbolic raids on the wealthy (paid).

Reform announce ‘Project 2029’

On Tuesday, Danny Kruger (Reform’s newest MP and head of ‘preparing for government’) and Zia Yusuf (Reform’s ‘head of policy’, to whom Kruger apparently reports) appeared together at a press conference to discuss the ongoing development of Reform’s plans for transforming the operations of government and the civil service once in office. The two are reportedly close allies within Reform leadership, and have got along well since Kruger defected in September.

Kruger’s presentation began with the announcement of Reform’s intention to develop a far more detailed agenda for government than any incoming administration in recent memory, including a range of pre-written legislation to give them a running start to their first term in office. In addition, the party will have candidates lined up for key appointments, bringing in ‘expertise, advice and executive capacity’ from outside Whitehall, to both civil service leadership and ministerial roles. The intention, according to Kruger, is to ensure that a Reform Government is positioned to give a clear list of priorities to civil servants upon entering Downing Street — not the other way around.

He went on to outline a series of reforms designed to bring the civil service to heel, including a new civil service code which removes duties to consider international law and expands the definition of impartiality to cover expression and promotion of ‘socially controversial views’ (rather than just direct support for a political party). He declared that senior civil servants and those at the center of government will be made accountable to ministers, including giving ministers the power to hire and fire key people in their delivery team.

These changes are welcome, and demonstrate the level of seriousness which Reform has adopted over the past six months in particular. Whilst the first weeks of the Trump administration demonstrated the power of ‘shock and awe’ to keep internal resistance to a minimum, the subsequent slow-down has shown the limits of that strategy, and whilst expanding the definition of impartiality is useful, civil servants who wish to pursue their own agenda will still seek to do so regardless of any restrictions. For that reason, we must hope that as plans further develop, and further develop they must, they lean more on the latter measures — making as much of the civil service as possible vulnerable to direct ministerial accountability — than the former.

Kruger lambasted the growth of the Civil Service, which has accelerated since COVID, and the failure of pay freezes which have merely led to rampant overpromotion and an absurd situation in which there are substantially more middle-grade employees than low-grade. He suggested that the civil service would have its headcount substantially reduced, allowing leases on many government buildings (which come up for renewal during the next parliament) to lapse and restoring the government to its eponymous home street of Whitehall.

Crucially, he did not commit to specific numbers on employee reductions, instead insisting that the size and shape of the civil service must be informed by a revised understanding of its desired functions. Such a commitment represents a refreshing rejection of populist temptations which the Conservative Party readily embraced in arbitrary calls to return headcounts to 2016 levels.

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This week, we discuss Reform’s failure in the Caerphilly by-election, rioting in Ireland, the collapse of Starmer’s grooming gangs inquiry, and a rumoured tax raid on lawyers and accountants.

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This newsletter’s agenda: Reform loses Caerphilly by-election (paid); Starmer’s grooming gang enquiry at risk of collapse (paid); Another round of protests in Ireland amid mass vote spoiling in Presidential Election (paid); Rachel Reeves plans tax raid on high-paid lawyers and accountants — Labour-voting GPs likely to be relieved (paid).

Reform loses Caerphilly by-election

On Thursday, Reform suffered a somewhat unexpected defeat in the Caerphilly by-election to the Welsh Parliament. Whilst polling is always unreliable for such small contests (total turnout was less than 32,000), what modelling was available suggested that Llyr Powell (the Reform candidate and long-time Farage ally) would secure the seat by a slim margin. In reality, the total collapse of the Labour vote, which fell from 46% in 2021 to only 11% in 2025, enabled Plaid Cymru to claim victory with 47% of the vote (and a 3,843-vote majority) from a thirteen-time candidate in a town that has been solidly Labour since the Westminster constituency’s creation in 1918. Labour’s defeat here means that it no longer has a majority in the Welsh Assembly even with the support of the Liberal Democrats. Reform won an impressive 36% of the vote, but fell well short of Plaid; meanwhile, the Tories were virtually annihilated, falling to just 2%, in yet another humiliation for Kemi Badenoch.

The defeat will be lauded by much of the commentariat as a turning point in the Left’s thus far unsuccessful efforts to quell Reform’s seemingly unstoppable rise. Already, much has been made of Thursday’s result, with figures across the Left claiming it as ‘proof’ that Reform has hit a ceiling and, even more importantly, that there remains a strong appetite among the electorate for progressive politics despite the unpopularity of Keir Starmer’s Labour Party. In this reading, a more left-wing party won in a rejection of Starmer’s ‘Tory lite’ approach.

Despite having had a gut feeling that Reform would not be able to make it over the line in Caerphilly, seeing the result when it first came out was a bit of a sting. Nevertheless, it’s important not to be particularly disheartened. The Left’s complacency in the face of overwhelming popular discontent is our strongest asset, and we should remain focused and committed whilst learning the appropriate lessons from the failure. The ‘progressive alliance’ approach is more than possible for Reform to undo with clever campaigning.

Given a diverse opposition, Reform must take great care to choose the correct strategy in each individual constituency. Throughout this election, the party’s primary target in their campaign was Labour — understandable, given their incumbency in all three of Caerphilly, Cardiff, and Westminster, and the widespread disillusionment of their voter base. Reform’s online communications centred around ‘ending 100 years of Labour rule in Caerphilly’, and emphasising that ‘lifelong Labour voters are making the switch to Reform’. On polling day alone, the Reform X account made nine posts referencing Labour, and only one mentioning Plaid (and even then, only by lumping them in with Labour).

In hindsight, dedicating only half a tweet to the party which would ultimately beat you seems foolish. No less than Farage himself said less than a week before the by-election that he expected the election to be a ‘two-horse race between Reform UK and Plaid Cymru’. Given Labour’s bad polling nationally and the string of scandals that have hit Welsh Labour in particular over the past few years, this was not exactly a remarkable prediction. Whilst winning over Labour voters would always have been a core part of the strategy, asking voters to ‘send a message’ to Keir Starmer is not enough when they have easy access to an alternative party which also provides a chance to ‘send a message’, at least in their own estimation.

As Labour loses support to other left-wing parties, Reform will increasingly be opposing a wider left-wing (or even simply anti-Reform) coalition that coalesces highly tactically around a single party based on local conditions, rather than a true single-party force. Much of Plaid’s vote in Caerphilly was lent simply to stop Reform, and it is not implausible that a similar tactic will be deployed nationally, whether officially organised or not. In such a situation, it is imperative that Reform learn to structure their messaging specifically to break apart that tactical coalition and keep the vote against them split. Plaid have provided plenty of material through the years which Reform could have used to attack them and their far-left positions.

A substantial minority of Plaid’s votes in Caerphilly appear to have come from former Conservatives, keen to keep Reform out of office and reassured by Plaid’s supposedly 'nationalist’ stance, which is seen as vaguely right-wing. Even more Plaid voters may have been dissatisfied, culturally right-leaning Labour voters who would have been reassured by Plaid for similar reasons: after all, as a very useful article notes, one voter, opposed to illegal immigration, even claimed that Plaid ‘put the Welsh first’. An analogy can be drawn with the fact that relatively few Liberal Democrat voters in England know how left-wing that party really is.

Preventing this coalition from forming by tying Plaid to the worst excesses of left-wing politics should have been the top priority. This shouldn’t have been difficult: Plaid are far more extreme than Labour on virtually every issue, and Reform should have had adverts running constantly with clips of Plaid’s leader Rhun Ap Llowerth declaring that ‘there is no such thing as illegal immigration’ throughout the election. By focusing solely on Labour merely because they are the incumbents, Reform will continue to allow opposition to coalesce around whichever alternative has the strongest chance locally, which will often not be Labour given current polling. Tactical voting requires tactical campaigning.

While adjusting strategy in the ways described above will be important for Reform in the coming months and years, it’s important not to overstate the significance of this result. Reform would likely have won the seat were it not for the unusually high turnout created by months of media attention on the race. Although Reform will inevitably have to win traditionally left-leaning constituencies to obtain a majority, the fact that Caerphilly is even in play is a sign of Reform’s unprecedented strength.

Reform will have another chance to show their support in Wales next May, when the entire Welsh Parliament will be up for election. If current polling is at all to be believed, I expect that result will be far less disappointing.

—WolfOfClapham Contributor, Pimlico Journal

Starmer’s grooming gang enquiry at risk of collapse

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It’s been a relatively slow news week, and the headlines have been mostly dominated by the ongoing row over Chinese espionage. We’ll be discussing that issue in more detail in Saturday’s editorial, but today we’ll be looking at some smaller stories from the week.

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This newsletter’s agenda: West Midlands Police seek to prevent an Israel-Palestine themed race riot in Birmingham — all major party leaders outraged (free); James Orr joins Reform leadership (paid); Live from inside the mind of Claire Fox (Paid); Farage’s partner Laure Ferrari investigated by the European Union’s anti-fraud office (paid) — plus, a preview of this week at the Pimlico Journal.

West Midlands Police seek to prevent an Israel-Palestine themed race riot in Birmingham — all major party leaders outraged

On 16 October, West Midlands Police recommended to Birmingham’s Safety Advisory Group (SAG) that supporters of the Israeli football club Maccabi Tel Aviv should not be given an away allocation for their Europa League game against Aston Villa in November, in effect banning them from the match. In making their recommendation, the police highlighted ‘…previous incidents, including violent clashes and hate crime offences that occurred during the 2024 UEFA Europa League match between Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv in Amsterdam.’

This regional policing decision was immediately condemned by every single major party leader with the sort of indignity usually reserved for the aftermath of terror attacks: Kemi Badenoch described it a ‘national disgrace’, Keir Starmer warned against tolerating ‘antisemitism on our streets’, while Nigel Farage claimed the lack of an away allocation took ‘racial discrimination to a whole new level’. The decision has not yet been overturned, but given the strong pressure from the Government over the last three days, it now seems unlikely that the ban will ultimately remain in place. (The ban remains in place as of time of publication.)

But why are West Midlands Police fanning the flames of the Fourth Reich against the wishes of our elected politicians?

Let’s start with the basics. Aston Villa are a Premier League football club based in Aston, Birmingham. A little under one-third of the population of Birmingham are Muslim, and this figure will be higher among young men, which is the demographic most liable to causing trouble. British Muslims aren’t usually especially fond of Israelis (or indeed Jews) at the best of times, but are particularly unhappy with them after the 18,000 dead children over the course of the two-year bombing campaign in Gaza. The concentration of Muslims is even higher around Villa Park, Aston Villa’s stadium, with 70.2% of the residents of the surrounding Aston Park area reporting as Muslim in the latest census.

Nonetheless, geopolitical strife alone is surely insufficient for the entire city to be made unsafe by the mere presence of a relatively small number of Israelis, so why the concern? As the police noted in their statement, Maccabi Tel Aviv have form. I get the impression that when the likes of Robert Jenrick and Michael Gove burst into their ferocious defences of the ‘right’ of Maccabi Tel Aviv fans to travel here, they are (whether deceptively or not) conjuring up the image of a crowd of kippah-wearing, middle-class Ashkenazi professionals.

In reality, while Maccabi Tel Aviv are not quite Beitar Jerusalem (a team so notoriously anti-Arab that no Arab has ever played for them), Maccabi supporters are highly nationalistic, and often sing anti-Arab and anti-Muslim songs; indeed, an Israeli NGO declared Maccabi fans to be the second most racist in Israel, only beaten by the aforementioned Beitar. In 2024, when Maccabi Tel Aviv played Ajax in Amsterdam, chants included such lyrics as ‘Death to Arabs’, ‘Let the IDF fuck the Arabs’, and ‘Why is there no school in Gaza? There are no children left there.’ It should go without saying that these chants are deliberately offensive (and, wrongly, are criminal in almost all Western countries except the United States). They also have nothing at all to do with Ajax (which was historically considered a ‘Jewish’ club, and has relatively good relations with Maccabi). Moreover, in addition to their offensive chants, Maccabi Tel Aviv fans also scaled houses to pull down Palestinian flags and attacked taxis driven by Muslims. This can only be interpreted as seeking confrontation not with Ajax fans per se, but with all of the Muslim residents of the city; in fact, virtually none of the violence that followed was between Ajax fans and Maccabi fans.

While this was going on, Amsterdam’s Muslims plotted attacks against the Maccabi Tel Aviv fans via messaging apps, with one chat referring to it as a ‘Jew hunt’. The hopelessly outnumbered Maccabi fans were chased on scooters by men armed with knives, beaten, chased into canals, and forced to shout ‘Free Palestine’ when captured by mobs. Miraculously, no one died. It is impossible to say how much of this violence was planned prior to the arrival of the Maccabi Tel Aviv fans, and how much of it was motivated simply by a desire to respond to their provocative behaviour. But in any case, the precedent has been set, and the question of who was principally to blame for the violence in Amsterdam is not relevant in making this policing decision.

What West Midlands Police quite reasonably inferred from the riots in Amsterdam is that if you have a city with a large Muslim population who hate Israel — and, proportionally, Birmingham has far more Muslims than Amsterdam — it is difficult to ensure the safety of a few thousand free-roaming Israeli nationalists intent on chanting about how much they like seeing dead Muslims. Of course, the British police do know how to deal with two groups of fans intent on chanting about how much they like terrorism and killing each other: Rangers and Celtic play each other at least four times a season. What is somewhat novel, and makes the match potentially unpoliceable, and at a minimum exorbitantly expensive, is the ambient risk of violence from the vast (and highly-dispersed) number of those in the local area who are not football fans, and who the travelling supporters have already shown themselves willing to provoke into confrontations, despite the Israelis being massively outnumbered, with predictable consequences.

Ever the pragmatist when it comes to Israel, Robert Jenrick has demanded an enormous deployment of police from other forces to assist Maccabi Tel Aviv fans in getting to the match safely. Far-left activist Nick Lowles agrees that the Israeli fans should be allowed to travel, but also that they should all be arrested if they ‘sing racist chants or attempt to carry out any racist attacks’. The resulting synthesis is that two thousand Israelis should be released from Birmingham New Street, and police from as far afield as Northern Ireland should run around arresting them for chanting while also arresting Pakistanis on scooters for fighting with them in a sort of grand Benny Hill sketch. Is it really West Midlands Police who are being unreasonable here?

If you are unhappy about the ‘character’ of the ‘locals’ in Birmingham, and in particular are unhappy with the fact that they might respond to mere words with violence, it seems rather strange to specifically start making such an issue of it when a foreign football club travels there. And, for those who have complained about Birmingham before, it is silly to demand that this situation somehow gets undone in the one month before the match takes place: this is obviously impossible. It is perfectly logical that West Midlands Police are making a decision based on the reality of Birmingham — which is, after all, what they’re policing — and not some kind of imagined ‘free speech’ ideal (not that ‘free speech’ ever applies to football fans in any other context, as Pimlico Journal has observed before). It is also perfectly logical that they are unwilling to spend a vast number of resources in order to somehow ‘prove’ to the public that there is nothing wrong with Birmingham, Israelis, or Muslims. If you don’t like Birmingham’s reality, and in particular the effect that this is having on Israeli football fans, then you should have worked to change it long ago, rather than complaining about the police who are having to deal with this reality today.

Obviously, it is totally ridiculous that the policing of a relatively minor football match has become an issue of national importance. I feel genuinely sorry for people who dislike the sport when this minutia takes up days of attention from senior public officials, as if the carrying out of well-ordered football matches is sufficient proof that the British state is still functional.

We should stop demanding special exemptions from our draconian police powers around football just for Israelis. If West Midlands Police have decided that Maccabi Tel Aviv are too expensive (or even outright impossible) to deal with, and we object to that decision, then we should more generally review whether police should actually have the power to decide how many fans are allowed to go to games based on whether they feel up to doing their jobs in the first place. From my perspective, which is obviously very different from that of the police, I am not opposed to allowing an away allocation at this game: it would not bother me at all if the Maccabi Tel Aviv fans travelled, ended up in running battles for two days, and caused an international incident because they got beaten up by the ‘locals’. Why should I care? This is hardly a stain on the character of Aston Villa fans, given that none will be involved (those who do not follow football at all should know that very few Aston Villa fans are Muslim, despite the demographics of the area around the stadium). It would reflect the character of modern Birmingham, not Britain as a whole.

All right-thinking people should oppose demands for special exemptions to be made to policing practices on behalf of a group of Middle Easterners, especially when doing so involves spending a fortune. This demand for a special exemption is, after all, purely so that Keir Starmer (and the rest of the political establishment) can boast, disingenuously, that the British state is still competent enough to police a football match, that Israelis are indeed safe in Britain, and, most importantly from their perspective, that there is nothing at all amiss with the Muslims who live in Birmingham.

—Scott Goetz Deputy Editor, Pimlico Journal

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Today, we wrap up our coverage of conference season, and touch on an issue which has been quietly simmering for some time, but which looks likely to be Starmer’s first controversy following MPs’ return to Parliament. Plus - an update on Donald Trump’s quest for the Nobel Peace Prize.

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This newsletter’s agenda: Conservative Party Conference reviewed (Free/Paid); Is Starmer looking for rapprochement with China? (Paid); Peace in the Middle East? (Paid).

Conservative Party Conference reviewed

Kemi Badenoch became the second of two party leaders to come out of a party conference in better condition than they came in this week, although neither has yet seen any improvement in the polls to reflect this. That convincing the party faithful to give you a round of applause and a couple of months without a leadership challenge is seen as an impressive achievement for the leaders of both of Britain’s main political parties shows just how dire their situation is - especially when they sit at a combined vote share comfortably below 40%.

Nevertheless, the good sentiment around the Tories’ performance is not entirely unwarranted, and it is impressive to have left such an impression with a conference that even most Conservative Party members didn’t bother to turn up to. Whilst not quite the historic oratory achievement some have built it up to be, Badenoch’s headline speech on Wednesday was a marked deviation from her previous performances. For the first time, the Tory leader appeared eager to outline her understanding of the problems Britain faces, and to offer at least some of the solutions her party would put in place in the unlikely event of their victory at the next general election. Her speech landed some effective criticism of Starmer, and even managed to be funny in places - not the easiest thing to achieve, especially when party morale is so low.

Badenoch began her speech by arguing that only by delivering on the economy and on immigration could Britain avoid the decline felt across every aspect of national life, from national security and public order to education and healthcare. She did a good job of conveying her own history with the Conservative Party before pivoting into the party’s history in government, reminding voters of their historical successes whilst implying what she called ‘the challenges of our generation’ cannot simply be addressed by reheating the political platform of the 1980s. She attacked the government over taxes, welfare spending, and employment. Her rejection of stagnation continued, referencing competition with India and Poland as examples of how far we have fallen over the past two decades.

When it came to solutions, Badenoch reaffirmed her commitment to leaving the ECHR, and to deporting 150,000 illegal immigrants. On welfare, she declared that a Conservative government would end access to benefits for non-citizens, tighten the eligibility criteria for benefits on the basis of mental health conditions, and restrict access to motability to those with the most serious disabilities. She proposed cutting the civil service by almost 25% (back to 2016 levels), removing responsibilities from the police which distract them from law enforcement (allowing a tripling of stop-and-search), and banning doctors from going on strike. On Education, she pledged a reversal of restrictions on academies and the abolition of low-value degrees, with the money saved funding a doubling of apprenticeships.

The centerpiece of Badenoch’s pitch was on fiscal responsibility, where she attempted to draw a clear distinction between her party and Reform. Pledging at least half of all savings to deficit reduction, she announced cuts of $7bn to foreign aid, $8bn to the civil service, and $23bn to welfare. She declared her intent to abolish current net zero targets, along with taxes on fossil fuels, and open up North Sea oil for extraction. Finally - and to much applause from the audience - she announced that she would abolish stamp duty entirely for primary residences.

What are we to make of these announcements? First of all, credit where it’s due. Whilst many of these measures may not go far enough to address the scale of the disaster this country faces, the overall assessment of how things are going wrong and what must be done to turn them around is the right one, at least to the limited extent one can hope for from the Conservative Party. Badenoch’s speech was, therefore, exactly what it needed to be to launch her party’s attempted return to the national conversation - although it remains to be seen whether anyone is ready to listen.

Particularly refreshing was Badenoch’s willingness to hold the line against spiralling welfare spending, especially in the face of Farage’s weakness on the issue. Politically speaking, it is undoubtedly the right call for the Tories to focus solely on the economy to the extent it is possible to do so, despite the fact that immigration is still the more important issue for the country and for voters. As Keir Starmer has discovered, attempting to compete with Reform on this issue only gives Farage greater strength because he is the person voters trust to take radical action. The few times Badenoch did mention Reform, it was to attack them over their support for welfare spending. That said, this strategy can only work if the Conservatives leave no space for Reform to attack them on immigration, which would require matching Reform’s commitment to reverse the Boriswave and fundamentally overhaul legal immigration going forwards. Not only has Badenoch failed to do this, her speech included no commitments whatsoever on legal migration.

The worst part of Badenoch’s platform, though it may be initially tempting to many readers, was her proposed cuts to the civil service. Whilst reductions in government spending will be necessary, and despite the undoubted fact that many generously salaried mandarins contribute very little to the effective running of the state, it is frustrating to see the Conservatives once again going down the dead end of blindly hacking at the state to reduce expenditure. Simply requiring existing departments to reduce headcounts will not produce a more efficiently run government, but it will further decrease the state’s already barely existing capacity to address the country’s existential problems. The only viable approach to reducing waste is a ground-up rebuilding of departments based on new mission statements which clearly define each organisation’s goals and responsibilities - and anything short of that will only worsen both sides of this problem.

Whilst Badenoch’s speech certainly stole the show, she was not the only one who had announcements for the party in Manchester last week. Mel Stride, whose position as shadow chancellor remains a source of dismay to us at The Pimlico Journal, gave a rather weak speech overall, but made headlines with his announcement that high street shops, pubs, and restaurants would be exempted from business rates under his plans to revitalise town centres and stimulate economic activity.

Whilst a valid policy in its own right, I doubt that tax cuts would save high street businesses whose fundamental problem is that nobody wants to be in town centres any more. The decline of the high street is a consequence of falling living standards, rising crime, general decay and visual repugnance, and of course immigration making the experience of visiting such places increasingly alienating, even outside of the big cities. Nevertheless, at least there’s something here to help pubs in particular cling on until something more radical can be done.

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