Abstention lowest since 1997 at 32.5% (cf 53% in 2022)
Macron’s big gamble has failed. By calling a snap election, he thought the French people would rally around his centrist party and the moderate left to put Le Pen’s Rassemblement National (RN, National Rally) back in its box after its victory in the recent Euro elections. He assumed a bigger turnout would not favour Le Pen’s extreme right-wing, post-fascist party. On the contrary, 20% more people turned out than in 2022. The RN consolidated its Euro vote and successfully allied with a split from the mainstream Les Républicains (LR, the Republicans). In terms of actual votes – around 12 million if you add in the votes of the Zemmour current who got less than 1% – this is a massive breakthrough. Previous scores in legislative elections were less than half this.
“Macron’s gamble has backfired spectacularly, with the Rassemblement National consolidating its Euro vote and securing an unprecedented number of MPs in the first round.”
The RN has never had so many MPs elected in the first round. They were already the biggest single party in the National Assembly, and it is probable now that they will maintain that position with even more MPs. However, it is still uncertain whether they will get the 289 MPs needed for an absolute majority, which would guarantee them the premiership with their young leader Bardella.
Everything depends on what happens in the second-round run-off. The top two stand automatically, but the third candidate can run in the second round if they have more than 12.5% of the registered voters. All the discussion immediately following the election focuses on whether the best-placed candidate to defeat the RN is given a free run by any eligible third-place candidates stepping down. Leaders of the Nouveau Front Populaire (the New Popular Front-NPF) from the Socialist Party, the Ecologists, and La France Insoumise (France Unbowed – LFI) led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, have all called for this ‘barrage’ (bloc) to stop the RN winning.
En cas de triangulaire, si le Rassemblement national est en tête et que nous sommes troisième, nous retirerons nos candidatures.
However, leaders of Macron’s Ensemble (Together) party have been much more equivocal. Some have called for blocking the RN with a single candidate, while others have said they will judge on a case-by-case basis. Bruno Le Maire, current economics minister, and Edouard Philippe, former Macronist prime minister, hold this position, saying they will vote for the social democratic left but not for the LFI. They refuse to support second-placed candidates from the LFI, whom they consider as extreme as the RN. These people do not like the way the LFI have supported the Palestinians and condemned the Israeli state or criticised police actions in ethnic minority neighbourhoods. This vacillating position could help the RN squeeze past both the Left and the Macron parties in a three-way race in some areas.
Extraordinary numbers are appearing from reliable opinion poll surveys in Britain.
MRP (Multi-level Regression and Post-stratification) surveys (explanation here : MRP explained) are much more accurate than traditional opinion polls – and still : we must remember these numbers are just a snapshot, the real thing might be significantly different on July 4 2024.
All of that said : Gamblegate (Tory insiders placing insider bets on the surprise date of the British general election) and Brexit neatly symbolise the self-created swamp of the 2020’s British Conservatives.
Copyright Steve Bell 2023/All Rights Reserved e.mail: belltoons@ntlworld.com tel: 00 44 (0)1273 500664
Jeremy Corbyn Might Retain Islington North
This MRP survey makes some interesting predictions for untypical constituencies. For example here is the Islington North Prediction : Expelled ex Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn (independent) might defeat the official Sir Keir Starmer candidate.
Bad six county News for the Democratic Unionist party
None of that is good news for the Democratic Unionist party (DUP). The flat earth dinosaurs of the six counties are tipped to win North Antrim (home of Ian Paisley Junior MP) but the numbers are getting tight : Antrim North Prediction
A long shot : tactical nationalist voting might cause the first Westminster Paisley election defeat since 1970 when the reverend Ian senior first won the seat.
Sometimes the beginning contains the end. ‘Drowning Street’ and ‘Things can only get wetter’ were among the headlines in the newspapers the day after Rishi Sunak’s announcement of the July 4th general election. He hoped for gravitas and drama that could somehow jolt the polls. Instead, he stood there getting completely pissed on. His voice was drowned out by an anti-Brexit protester broadcasting the 1997 Blair anthem, Things will only get better. It is almost as though his team hung him out to dry (or rather to get drenched). Was there really no staffer who knew that the police cannot stop you playing loud music at the bottom of Downing Street? Nobody to even hold an umbrella for the leader? All this expresses his isolation and the dire state of the Tory party as well as a complete lack of political nous.
A few minutes later you had Keir Starmer looking composed and prime ministerial in front of not just one, but two Union Jacks. He gave an intelligible, brisk speech summed up in the word on the rostrum – Change. Labour is not really going to change much but it does not look like it will lose the marketing campaign. Sunak’s excruciating performance was a bit like watching West Ham smashed last week – you knew the game was up when Man City’s Foden scored within two minutes. Nobody doubted the inevitable, City was going to win the league. Images count in elections where most voters get their news from the TV and non-print media.
On February 24 2022 the biggest war in Europe since World War 2 began : Russia invaded Ukraine.
In London The British SWP promotes Marxism 2024 – like the fictional insular Brit Basil Fawlty, Alex Callinicos (and a supporting cast including Jeremy Corbyn,Tariq Ali, and Yanis Varoufakis) offer parody politics.
This event is planned as 100% free of Ukrainian left and social movements and antiwar Russians. No debate here and no solidarity with victims of imperialism unless it is western imperialism.
Biggest war in Europe since WWII but this event is planned as 100% free of Ukrainian left and social movements and antiwar Russians. No debate here and no solidarity with victims of imperialism unless its western imperialism. https://t.co/3K7cnIlof0
— European Network in Solidarity with Ukraine (@EuropeanWith) May 11, 2024
For a different perspective, on Tuesday May 14 join socialists from Ukraine, Russia and elsewhere who are campaigning for the freedom of a political prisoner Maksym Butkevich.
FREEDOM FOR MAKSIM BUTKEVYCH / LIBERTÉ POUR MAKSIM BUTKEVYCH / LIBERTAD PARA MAKSIM BUTKEVYCH / СВОБОДА ДЛЯ МАКСИМА БУТКЕВИЧА
ZOOM MEETING 14th May at 19.00 p.m. CET (check other time zones here: https://t.co/jXv4HADMzg).
In the run-up to these elections, Sunak tacked to the right. The government televised a roundup of migrants preparing for Rwanda flights. Sunak dramatically announced the threat of extremism after Galloway won Rochdale. He warmly welcomed the anti-trans Cass report. The Tories inaccurately attacked Labour as a party wanting to give amnesty to immigrants. They cut National Insurance to fool voters they may be better off amidst a cost of living crisis fuelled by huge rent and mortgage rises.
🗳️ *Total* councillors after 2024 local elections:
— Stats for Lefties 🍉🏳️⚧️ (@LeftieStats) May 6, 2024
Sunak is not a great political operator or campaigner. Suella Braverman urges him to go further right by leaving the European Convention on Human Rights and setting a more brutal cap on net migration. Some of her allies are trying to cajole former Prime Minister Boris Johnson back into a front-line role. Damian Green and Andy Street, representing the shrinking one-nation conservatives, call for Sunak to return to the political centre. The hard right has deferred replacing him before the general election, as the pretenders likely want to avoid getting tainted by leading the Tories to a big defeat. Everything is being prepared for a major post-election reconfiguration on the right.
Racist Dog-Whistles, Pro-Motorist Rhetoric and Anti-Woke Hysteria
Nigel Farage may be keeping his powder dry for now, aiming to mop up both the Tory Right and the Reform UK Party into a new outfit he can lead. The election results show that racist dog whistles, pro-motorist rhetoric and anti-woke hysteria are not resonating with the electorate. Susan Hall, the pro-Trump London mayoral candidate, led the Tories to an even worse defeat than last time.
Recent political events in England and Wales suggest chaos : Support for Rishi Sunak’s Tories is dive bombing. The excellent Stats for Lefties site regularly updates numbers, and they are startling :
🗳️ Seat estimate based on latest poll:
🟥 LAB 515 (+315) 🟧 LD 63 (+55) 🟨 SNP 31 (-17) 🟦 CON 17 (-355) 🟩 PC 4 (=) 🟩 GRN 1 (=)
Starmer might be scoring an own-goal in Scotland. This Bella Caledonia article reviews the latest developments. Source : The Settled Will About the Author Mike Small : Mike Small
The Settled Will
How do you understand the latest polling from IPSOS which puts the SNP ahead of Labour by seven points and predicts they would pick up 40 seats in the next General Election?
At the last general election IPSOS predicted the SNP would win 48 seats (and were the most accurate pollster to predict the result). The SNP would indeed later win 48 seats. If the ‘extinction event’ that is predicted for the Conservatives this would mean the SNP taking 70% of available seats in Scotland. If Labour annihilate the Tories in England as looks very likely, there’s a possibility of the SNP becoming the official opposition.
The wider party prediction seat prediction is: SNP 40 Labour 13 Conservatives 2 Lib Dems 2
Emily Gray from IPSOS Scotland said: “The SNP lead by 7 points on General Election voting intention, but Labour are narrowing the gap. There’s a Rise in public trust in Scottish Labour, including on the NHS and the economy – though SNP still the most trusted party.”
It is published on the ISJ site, a British website :
“International Socialism is associated with the [British] Socialist Workers Party, but articles express the opinions of individual authors unless otherwise stated. We welcome proposals for articles and reviews for International Socialism..”
A resident of Great Britain advises these posters are appearing in an English city. The correspondent observes “Someone is sailing very close to the wind with electoral law even if it is an accurate account of what he said. This is the latest and biggest of a series of these that have popped up locally.”
Has anyone seen these posters in other parts of the British state, including the bit styled “Northern Ireland”. I am guessing the posters would be popular in Scotland and Wales. They could catch on!
A correspondent wondered “And of course it’s not what he said!” – so the blog team looked it up.
Here is another article in a series concerning Britain’s political tankies (left wing activists who identify positively with Stalinist tanks sent into countries neighbouring Russia to crush popular working class and democratic uprisings – for example Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968). A leading spokesperson of Britain’s “Stop the War” Campaign is Andrew Murray, who operates within a narrow political spectrum opposing active solidarity with the Ukrainian masses. Regrettably Murray shares practical common ground with activists from a different non-Stalinist background, the British Socialist Workers’s Party. This political poison – supporting any camp that is opposed by United States imperialism – is demolished below by the social democratic author Paul Mason. Mason might do his readers a favour by pointing to the fact that many currents with political origins on the left of Stalinism and Social Democracy – for example the Fourth International, solidarity movements such as the European Network for Solidarity with Ukraine, many anarchist organisations and activists – advocate policies on Ukraine in accord with his own thinking. The main Irish radical left organisation – People Before Profit – is strangled by political campism. It needs rapid lessons offered by Scandinavian comrades :
Stop The War movement finds yet another reason to tell Ukraine to stop resisting…
Putin’s regime is in danger of collapse therefore Ukraine should stop fighting…That’s the message from Stop The War. Having been struck dumb by the events of Saturday 24 June, the campaign has finally come out with a line, penned by self-styled Ukraine expert Andrew Murray.
Tomás Ó Flatharta, inspiration of this blog, was a talented writer. This is an example of his work, full of interesting personal and political insights.
T.J. O’Flaherty travels from Dublin to London to participate in the May Day celebrations during that year’s General Strike and penned this wonderful essay on the day’s events.
‘An Historic May Day in London: New Days in Old England’ by Thomas J. O’Flaherty from the Daily Worker Saturday Supplement. Vol. 3 No. 134. June 19, 1926.
I LEFT the usually turbulent but now comparatively peaceful Dublin on the evening of the 30th of April, bound for London. Dublin is not an easy place to leave—particularly for those with a thirst for the dramatic.
But May Day in London in 1926 with 1,000,000 coal miners out of the pits! And with a general strike threatened! This was something that many men and women would sacrifice years of ordinary existence to experience. So I resisted the temporary invitation of friends to spend a week shooting curlews in the heather-clad mountains of Wicklow, or discussing the futility of things in general with the cynical intelligentsia of Dublin who survived the gats of Black and Tans, Regular and Irregular Republicans and Free States.
Tomás Ó Flatharta 