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The UK has become the first European country to accede to the CPTPP, joining some of the fastest-growing economies in the world in a trade bloc with a combined GDP of £12 trillion. Bilateral free trade agreements with all but one of the member states are already in place. Joining the bloc removes tariffs and other barriers to trade without submitting to unaccountable supranational bodies and without tearing up the British constitution. Needless to say, this would have been impossible had the UK not left the EU, which remains the only trade bloc in the world with its own Parliament.
Out and into the world: Britain accedes to the CPTPP
European leaders will meet with NATO chief Mark Rutte this week to discuss the possibility of deploying ‘peacekeeping’ troops to Ukraine. It has been suggested that European troops could be deployed as part of a ceasefire agreement to ensure that any promises made are enforced. It seems hard to imagine Putin agreeing to have (for example) German troops patrolling the Donbas, but exploring options for a cessation of hostilities is a positive step.
The credit ratings agency Moody’s has downgraded France’s rating in response to the ongoing political crisis caused in part by the government’s inability to balance its budget. Macron has now appointed centrist François Bayrou as Prime Minister, who will be responsible for passing a budget for 2025, a task that eluded Michel Barner.
A leaked EU negotiating document has revealed what the EU hopes to gain from Starmer’s ‘reset’. Demands include free movement for the under 30s and a total capitulation on fishing licences, whereby the UK will be bound by EU rules as though it were still a member state. These demands – which will be extremely unpopular in the UK – ought to convince the government that the UK is better off looking further afield for trading opportunities.
EU looking to extract concessions from Starmer
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz will face a vote of no confidence on Monday which he is widely expected to lose. That will pave the way for new elections in February, in which the AfD, currently polling second after the CDU, will be hoping to make gains.
Media
Daniel Hannan on cancel culture
Marc Sidwell on the need to build in Britain
Blog
First past the post in UK elections by Graham Gudgin
The 2024 general election was the most disproportionate in UK electoral history. The Labour party won a huge 64% of seats despite gaining only a third of the votes (and the support of only a fifth of all those eligible to vote). Current polls show a big decline for Labour even from the low level of last July. Labour, Tories and Reform all now have similar vote shares in the 20s. First- past-the-post elections with three matched parties are potentially unpredictable and a period of political instability is possible after the next election.
A Labour government which falls far short of its oft-stated aspirations is unlikely to recover from its present low standing in the polls. If Reform can avoid the faction-fighting which tends to occur in emerging parties, it may achieve a sustainable parity with Labour and the Tories. However, with three evenly matched parties in a first-past-the-post election the results in future elections will be highly unpredictable.
Key Points
A poll published this week showed Reform ahead of the Conservatives and just one point behind Labour. This comes after several high-profile defections by former Conservatives and amidst growing speculation about a sizable donation to Reform from Elon Musk. In public, the Tories make a big show of sticking their head in the sand when it comes to a challenger party on the right. In private, they ought to be worried.
It is hard to draw conclusions from sporadic polling a long way from an election, but there are good reasons to think that Reform is gaining momentum. The problems which drove voters away from the Conservatives in July only seem to be getting worse under Labour. Immigration is still out of control, there are no signs of an economic turnaround, and, despite going on ad nauseam about ‘change’, Starmer’s government seems happy to tinker with a failing system instead of embracing more fundamental reforms. In these conditions, Reform’s message ought to take root.
The defections of some high-profile former Conservative MPs are perhaps less important than the less well-reported defections of donors and local branch members. Reform’s biggest obstacle to electoral success is a lack of a national campaigning machine. If they are to gain momentum over this Parliament, through local elections, by-elections and the like, they will need to put together the sort of infrastructure that Conservative campaigners can take for granted. Name recognition might make a nice headline, but the local activists and campaigners who are switching allegiance to Reform will likely do more damage to the Conservatives in the long run.
Kemi Badenoch’s plan to see off Reform and win back voters seems to consist of ignoring the problem, at least for now. This is presented as being grounded in confidence, as though the Conservatives can recover on their own merits, but is perhaps more likely grounded in doubts about how well the Tories under Badenoch would fare in a fight with Farage. He, on the one hand, has been making the same arguments for more than a decade and is clear about where he stands, they, on the other, are recent and seemingly reluctant converts to centre-right politics, having governed as social democrats all the time they were in office.
Badenoch is right that putting out detailed policy plans would be foolish at this stage, but she needs to offer something to the public to show the direction of travel. At the moment, all she seems willing to commit to are vague references to old ideas and bizarre disagreements about sandwiches. It is, of course, still early days both for Badenoch and for Reform. Local elections next Spring will be the first real sign of who has the momentum. But for now, without a bold intervention from the supposed Leader of the Opposition, it seems that Reform are on the march.
