![\"Brian](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/YS32FALW6FOFZG37KVK6AI25VE.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"Brian](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/A3I53WFJYNNEZBUAXGBSH774X4.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nIt didn\u2019t work. The polls didn\u2019t budge. Labour is in a dire position, trailing at least 10 points behind Farage.<\/p>\n
Keir Starmer\u2019s ratings are plumbing record depths. He\u2019s now the most unpopular leader in Europe, even lower than the beleaguered Macron who has had years to alienate his electorate. <\/p>\n The YouGov poll in September showed 71% of British voters hold an unfavourable opinion of Starmer, giving him a net disapproval rating of -50, his worst ever and the worst on record of any prime minister. It has now plunged to -66. <\/p>\n It\u2019s agreed that he has what The Guardian calls a \u2018reverse Midas touch\u2019, while the BBC calls it a \u2018non-Midas touch\u2019.<\/p>\n The evidence is that a substantial number of people in Britain \u2013 35% \u2013 backed the idea of digital ID in June. However, when Starmer hastily announced his plan for mandatory ID in September, support incredibly sank immediately to -14%. <\/p>\n It may therefore be correct to write off the local government elections but it may also be that Labour advisers are ignoring the real danger which the Scottish and Welsh nationalists pose.<\/p>\n Both John Swinney and Rhun ap Iorwerth reckon they\u2019re on target to win the devolved elections next May.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a revival of support for the SNP and Plaid is running at unprecedented levels of support in Wales, indicating it could be the largest party in the Senedd. <\/p>\n The SNP heads the polls in Scotland at twice the percentage of Labour and miles ahead of Reform, which is taking Labour votes.<\/p>\n In Wales, Labour is a poor third behind Plaid, which is neck and neck with Reform.<\/p>\n Labour is set to lose a by-election in Caerphilly on October 23, a seat the party has never lost. Labour has never lost a Wales-wide election since 1918. Absent the unlikely event of divine intervention, Plaid will win in May.<\/p>\n John Swinney said at the weekend that if the SNP wins a majority, he will demand an independence referendum.<\/p>\n Starmer has already set his face against that but Swinney says \u201cprecedent is on our side\u201d and indicated he will contest in court a refusal of a referendum by Starmer.<\/p>\n How would Scots react to that with support for independence currently at 47%? <\/p>\n Now, think about all that. Labour routed in English councils and mayoral elections is one thing. Labour defeated for the first time across Wales and facing a SNP majority again in Scotland\u2019s parliament is quite another matter.<\/p>\n Labour confined to England, no longer a national British party and facing the demand of the end of the political union the English called Great Britain after they captured Scotland in 1707. <\/p>\n How long would Starmer last after that? Christmas? Would he even make it to the next Labour conference in September 2026?<\/p>\n Surely he would have to resign after such apocalyptic defeats, which at present look likely to happen. <\/p>\n The words febrile and volatile don\u2019t begin to do justice to the feverish, unstable politics in Britain.<\/p>\n No wonder Andy Burnham made an abortive attempt at a heave before the Labour conference. It doesn\u2019t matter that he got nowhere because it wouldn\u2019t have made any difference.<\/p>\n The peril lies in Scotland and Wales. Voters there couldn\u2019t care less who runs the Labour Party, because they feel no affinity with the party in England.<\/p>\n What happens in Scotland and Wales is what matters to them and increasingly they feel the need to have more control over their own affairs, though in the case of Plaid, ap Iorwerth says the Senedd election isn\u2019t about independence \u2013 one step at a time. It\u2019s about getting rid of Labour, which has taken Wales for granted. <\/p>\n Here, we\u2019re just spectators, for English politicians have long ago forsaken the north.<\/p>\n The daft aspect is that the TUV and some in the DUP think they can interest Reform in the north or even, ridiculously, act as Reform\u2019s agents in the north.<\/p>\n What they should really be doing is thinking about the consequences for this place of the politics of a disunited kingdom.<\/p>\n All bets are off. The message from Scotland and Wales is that radical realignment is certain.<\/p>\n If you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article and would like to submit a Letter to the Editor<\/a> to be considered for publication, please click here<\/a>Letters to the Editor are invited on any subject. They should be authenticated with a full name, address and a daytime telephone number. Pen names are not allowed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"THE party conference season is over, now that both the SNP and Plaid Cymru have held theirs. While…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":500770,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5018,3,4],"tags":[748,393,4884,164315,1144,34323,529,712,144354,16,15,1764,164316,51029],"class_list":{"0":"post-500769","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-britain","8":"category-uk","9":"category-united-kingdom","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-manchester-synagogue-incident","14":"tag-northern-ireland","15":"tag-pa2025","16":"tag-police","17":"tag-scotland","18":"tag-synagogue","19":"tag-uk","20":"tag-united-kingdom","21":"tag-wales","22":"tag-wpaburst","23":"tag-wparota"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115376734696310496","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500769\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/500770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n![\"Join](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/B7NTRPKOTNEK7K6CVOMIB2IA3U.jpg\")
\n<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Sir](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/NMCC4FB65VMVXHB3T4RLN5S77A.jpg\")
Keir Starmer has what The Guardian calls a \u2018reverse Midas touch\u2019 (James Manning\/PA) <\/p>\n![\"Leader](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Q3ZKEQBNTBOWBPEEAGOQ7YXXDI.jpg\")
Leader of Plaid Cymru Rhun ap Iorwerth speaks during the party\u2019s annual conference at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff (Ben Birchall\/PA) <\/p>\n![\"Prime](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/ONKT5ALSCFINNFV4LVFTV6MMHU.jpg\")
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer (left) and Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham (Ian Vogler\/Daily Mirror\/PA) <\/p>\n