Morgan McSweeney, Dominic Cummings and Tony Blair. They represent wildly different political traditions and instincts, but to spend any time with them is to be immediately struck by how closely their analyses can overlap. And right now, their Venn diagram has taken on a particular relevance as British politics contemplates the future of Nigel Farage and Reform UK.
It might sound absurd to the casual observer. These men hold wildly varying beliefs and, in many ways, define themselves in direct opposition to each other. McSweeney’s entire project is predicated on the idea that Blair’s “radical centrism” is not only out of date but politically objectionable for not taking seriously the working classes Labour exists to represent. Blair, in turn, remains eyerollingly dismissive of McSweeney’s “blue” Labourism and his attempt to win back the disaffected old voters lost in the years of high Labour liberalism. Both men, in their different ways, reject out of hand what they would see as Cummings’s brand of anarcho-conservative populism. Cummings, meanwhile, believes that McSweeney and Blair are both achingly anachronistic in their understanding of the modern world and what is necessary to make the British state function.
And yet, there is much that binds these three figures together. Within weeks of entering No. 10, McSweeney had come to the same conclusion as both Cummings and Blair: the British state, in its current form, is not fit for purpose and needs what Keir Starmer has since called “a complete rewiring”. Of all the influential figures in British politics, Blair and Cummings today are among the most convinced of the seismic nature of the coming technological revolution, not just for jobs and wages, but for politics itself. All three are also convinced that without fundamental reform, the duopoly which has ruled Westminster since Labour broke past the Liberals in the Twenties may not have long for this world.
With the election of Donald Trump in November, and the rise of Elon Musk as a figure of epochal power, Westminster has entered into a tailspin of speculation about the prospect of Nigel Farage being the figure who might finally put this teetering political system out of its misery. Despite having only five MPs to Labour’s 402, there is now open speculation that Farage may not simply expand his party’s presence in parliament at the next election, but win the next election, becoming prime minister himself.
Farage himself plays up such speculation for obvious reasons. “We are about to witness a political revolution the likes of which we have not seen since Labour after the first world war,” he told The Spectator Parliamentarian of the Year awards. “Politics is about to change in the most astonishing way. Newcomers will win the next election.”
It is worth stressing at this point that the barriers to a Reform victory remain enormous. To win outright, Farage would need to double the party’s vote share and see both Labour and Tory support collapse. Reform now lies in second place in 98 constituencies, 89 of which have a Labour MP. The Tories, meanwhile, are in second place in 292 seats, 218 of which have a Labour MP. The fundamentals of British politics, in other words, make it far harder for Reform to win the next election than the Tories.
Historically, too, it is hard to find any precedent to bolster the idea that Reform can go from five MPs to a majority in one term. The Labour Party won its first seats in 1900. By 1918 it had increased its representation to 57 seats and then 142 in 1922, when it finished second for the first time with 30% of the vote. Still, it was not until 1923 that Ramsay MacDonald became prime minister at the head of a minority administration, and 1945 before Labour won a majority.
Yet what is remarkable is how many serious political operators and insiders in British politics now believe that there is a plausible (if still unlikely) chance of Farage becoming prime minister in 2029 or 2034 because the old rules no longer apply.
Blair’s view, for example, is that just as the industrial revolution gave rise to new political movements, so too will the technological revolution we are now entering. A world of automation, AI, Silicon Valley and China simply cannot sustain the same political divides which existed at a time of industrialisation and mass trade unionism. In Blair’s view, only if the two main political parties reform to reflect the reality of the world that now exists — or will soon come into being — can they hope to survive.
Cummings, similarly, believes the conditions are coming together for a period of far deeper and darker upheaval; the failure and corruption of the old order will become so systematic that it breaks down at rapid speed. Brexit, in his view, was an attempt to get ahead of this change. The revolutionary nature of AI, which may wipe away the industries on which Britain depends — law, accountancy, finance and the creative arts — will only accelerate the implosion, Cummings suspects, releasing forces as unpredictable as they are unmanageable.
These forces could combine to squeeze the life out of British industry just as Donald Trump sends the US economy into overdrive with his programme of massive tariff increases, tax cuts and spending reductions. It is a perfect storm. And at this point of chaos, a Trump-light alternative in Britain, fuelled with money from Elon Musk, could sweep Farage into power. Given the right funding, senior figures in the wider Conservative movement believe that Reform could launch a hostile takeover of the weakened Tory party, like a spider crab shedding its old shell as it grows.
In one sense, it is possible to see Blair and Cummings as the yin to the other’s yang. Cummings sees history as a dark, chaotic process of disorder and renewal, while Blair cannot escape his faith in progress. Both, though, see the world entering a period of climactic change which may result in something entirely new coming into being.
Enter McSweeney, whose politics are less sweepingly visionary than either Blair or Cummings, rooted in the grind of British life rather than the sweeping historical forces which will or will not overwhelm the country. Yet he too recognises the global move towards conservative populism, and believes, for Labour’s part, that only tangible improvements in people’s everyday lives will be enough to hold back the Faragist advance. His party’s campaign strategy for 2029 is already set: don’t risk a return to chaos with Farage and Badenoch.
Earlier this year, in advance of the election in June, McSweeney and his team in Labour HQ analysed every possible threat to a Labour victory, including from Reform. All potential vulnerabilities were identified and, where possible, closed down: Green pledges abandoned, spending plans watered down, and language around immigration and Brexit tightened up to leave no doubt in voters’ minds. As part of this work, the party’s most senior figures delved into the danger of Farage’s insurgency. McSweeney had two essential observations which guided Labour’s strategy: first, in the election in 2024, Reform would probably help Labour by splitting the Conservative vote; second, that this story could change dramatically by 2029.
The truth is that Reform remains more of an existential threat to the Tories than Labour. It is far from impossible that Labour will limp through both this term and a second because the Right has split in such a way that even with less than 30% of the vote, Starmer remains in power with Liberal Democrat support.
But the nature of Britain’s electoral system means that once a threshold has been passed, the barriers which once held an insurgent party from growing can suddenly accelerate its rise. The model here is the SNP in Scotland, which rose from six seats out of 59 in 2010 to 56 in 2015. Those looking for straws in the wind point to the recent council by-election victory for Reform in St Helens in Merseyside, one of the safest Labour constituencies. In a ward where there was hardly any Tory vote to cannibalise, Reform topped the poll in a first past the post.
The central reality of British politics today is that the window of possible outcomes appears to be widening at an astonishing speed. We have never before been in a position where an insurgent political party is level-pegging with both main parties while being supported by both the richest man in the world and the most powerful.
Nigel Farage may finish the next election in second place in the popular vote and fourth in terms of actual MPs. Alternatively, he may follow in Ramsay MacDonald’s shoes by leading his party into second place in a hung parliament and become Prime Minister of a minority government. But the most remarkable fact of British politics today is that the best observers I know are no longer able to say which one of these two scenarios is more likely.
Looking at where the McSweeney-Blair-Cummings venn diagram overlaps, we can draw one central conclusion: revolutionary change is coming. The question is: who will thrive in the chaos it unleashes?
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Source: UnHerd Read the original article here: https://unherd.com/