Our fragmented political model will endure for the foreseeable future – and Reform will benefit from it until Burnham learns that cooperation is key
As I wrote last week, whatever its current troubles, Reform UK has hardly disappeared. Meanwhile, those black-clad quasi-paramilitaries may well be another augury of a frightening immediate future. One more English settlement – the town of Barnham, in Norfolk – is seemingly poised to stage a pretend independence referendum in protest at plans to locally accommodate asylum seekers. Oh, and our new Labour prime minister has just held cordial talks with a US president who has not only brought a modern de facto fascism to his homeland, but wants to export it to Europe.
But hold all those cheerful thoughts for a moment, and let us have a look at the Labour party as it gathers in Liverpool. The slogan plastered all over its conference is “Hope Again” – which, unlike last year’s dreadful “Renew Britain”, suggests that a few people at the top might have belatedly learned the basics of pithy political storytelling.
John Harris is a Guardian columnist
