So, what does the 1 May electoral success of "Reform UK" - the duplicate Tory party led by self-promoting opportunist Farage and multi-millionaire property tycoon Richard Tice - actually signify?
Election experts claim it heralds an electoral "sea-change"! And that along with the increase in seats won by Lib Dems and Greens, the two-party system is becoming a 4 or 5-party system!
But unless first-past-the-post is replaced by proportional representation, the number of votes cast for a party won't necessarily be reflected in the number of seats it wins. So no, this isn't a back-door reform of the two-party system by Reform. Not at all!
Anyway, the 23 councils and 6 mayoralties in the west and east of England which were up for re-election, only involved a tiny minority of the electorate, in mostly Conservative-voting constituencies. So it's not wise to draw conclusions, nor predict the future on the basis of such a small voting sample. But when were the media's talking heads ever "wise"?
For sure, the main losers in these elections were the discredited Tories, after 14 years of attacks against the working class and poor. No doubt about that. They lost control of 15 councils. One of their MPs described this as an "aftershock" from July's general election earthquake.
Indeed, voting changes nothing!
But Labour also lost votes. And in a big way. The Runcorn parliamentary by-election was won by Reform, which overturned a 14,696 Labour majority.
In fact a large anti-Labour protest vote went to Reform in places like Doncaster and Durham. Labour's Ros Jones did win Doncaster's mayoral election, but with a narrow 698 majority over Reform, and she immediately spoke out against the Labour government's policies. Yes, those "tough choices" on the back of pensioners' fuel allowance and cuts to disability payments, while claiming that this was the only way to get waiting lists down in the NHS!
However, if workers chose to vote Reform because of what it says, that's quite another matter: because those two rich capitalists, Tice and Farage, who portray themselves as defending working class interests, are wolves in sheep's clothing. Their election campaign was about one issue only: decrying "illegal" immigrants, ad nauseam.
And they lied, claiming asylum seekers are fakes and freeloaders, in fact, projecting their own characters onto refugees, who risk everything to make it to Britain, since there are no safe or legal alternatives. And just like Trump, they claim outrageously that migrants are "criminals and rapists".
That said, it's worth noting that Reform's 32% share of the vote represents 32% out of the 35% who turned out, i.e., just 11% of voters - and just 3% of the total electorate, since two thirds of voters stayed home. So even if punters believe their inflammatory BS, it's hardly great shakes!
The one party that's missing
Post-election, Labour has let it be known that it has "listened and learnt" from its poor results and is rethinking its fuel allowance policy. So far, that's it!
Starmer's announcement of a "fantastic" free trade deal with India (yes, one of the poorest countries in the world if you count economic output per head of population) is no doubt meant to overshadow the electoral bad with economic good. As if!
However the one policy which has helped to blight Labour's electoral fortunes (only 20% of the total electorate voted Labour last July; it was no "landslide"!) - and which the loyal media don't like to mention - is its stance on Gaza.
On this, no "learning" is evident, nor even possible: Starmer continues to support Israel's mass destruction and slaughter (and now starvation to the death) and to prove it, he sends British jets to join those of Trump and Netanyahu, to bomb Yemen and kill the Houthis - the only active supporters of the Palestinians today.
For this reason alone it is clear that the working class needs its own independent policy, in solidarity and support of those who are directly under attack by the imperialist countries' military power - or their proxies and agents... And so too, when it comes to the issue of immigration: the working class needs to demonstrate that it's not duped by fraudulent "friends" like the pro-capitalist Reform and their ilk, and that we know that our true friends are the immigrant workers and refugees who form a vital part of our class, bringing new blood, courage and experience to our ranks.
That's why there is no time to waste: our class must build the one party that does not exist yet - the revolutionary workers' party - not to break the two party system or win votes, but to break the system itself, in order to build a new society, based on production for need, not profit, in a world where borders are abolished, ensuring that all the planet's resources are available for everyone...