The UK just concluded a round of local elections, and the wreckage was extensive for the nation’s two (now erstwhile) dominant political parties. Those local elections were wide ranging. Of the total number of local seats (of all types of “local”), 40% or 5,000 were up for grabs. Those 5,000 ran the local gamut:

Every level of government below the London parliament was up for grabs: the national assemblies in Scotland and Wales; the patronage-rich regional assemblies and mayoralties of the English provinces; the big-city, big-spending borough councils of London, Manchester, and Birmingham; and the hundreds of village and neighborhood wards.

The outcome was

• Reform UK: additional 1,453 seats, control of 14 councils
• Liberal Democrats: additional 155 seats
• Greens: additional 441 seats, control of five councils
• independents [sic]: additional 34 seats, now totaling 205
• Conservatives: lost 563 seats, 6 of their 15 councils
• Labour: lost 1,496 seats, 38 of their 66 councils
• 64 councils now have no overall control

Some 3rd grade arithmetic. Reform UK’s 1460+ seats represent 29% of the seats up for grabs. That’s almost 12% of the total such seats.

If that momentum continues, it’ll likely be bye-bye to both Labour and Conservatives in ’29, which is the latest by which this British Government must call elections, a call that’s controlled by the majority party, so far, Labour. That deadline stands unless Labour can engineer a successful no-confidence vote against their current Prime Minister, Keir Starmer. That, though, would bring forward the demise of Labour and Conservatives both.

Would Labour dare? It’s already about to become irrelevant as its internal civil war over who will lead the party (much less be the government’s Prime Minister) is beginning to generate the party’s rapid unscheduled disassembly. Still, there is an upside to a successful no-confidence vote; the ensuing general election will drag the Conservatives into the dust bin with them. Labour, after all, would be loathe to see the Conservatives survive them.