Friday open thread: Meanwhile, across the Pond

There were local elections in the UK yesterday. The Scots and Welsh voted for their parliaments, while England had local council elections. 

There was also a by-election yesterday. (A by-election is like our special election to replace a member of Congress.) The Hartlepool constituency had been held by the Labour Party since its creation in the 1970s. Holding on to this seat was critical for Labour and its leader, Sir Keir Starmer, to show that the party had stanched the wound from 2019 when its Red Wall collapsed and the Tories won seats which they hadn't won in decades.

Well.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain scored a striking political victory on Friday when his Conservative Party snatched a bellwether parliamentary seat from the opposition Labour Party, which had held it since the constituency’s creation in the 1970s.

In a by-election in Hartlepool, in the northeast of England, the Conservative candidate, Jill Mortimer, easily defeated her rivals, consolidating Mr. Johnson’s earlier successes in winning over voters in working-class areas that had traditionally sided mainly with Labour.

Better still for the prime minister, the vote on Thursday came after days of publicity over claims that he broke electoral rules over the financing of an expensive refurbishment of his apartment.

That appeared to have counted for little with voters in Hartlepool, an economically struggling coastal town, when the results were announced Friday morning after an overnight count.

Instead, voters may have been focused more on the gradual relaxation of Covid-19 restrictions in Britain after a successful vaccination program for which Mr. Johnson has been able to claim credit.

As Americans, we can see the analogy between this and the fabled Reagan Democrats, as the center-left party has lost touch with the people it was representing. Now it's clear that what Labour are facing is not just a one-off bad result, but a wholesale realignment. Its former voters have no idea what Labour stands for. They had no interest in former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn's warmed-over Marxism, and Starmer has thus far been unable to revive its fortunes.

It remains to be seen if Boris Johnson can truly turn the Conservative and Unionist Party into a big tent, wedding proponents of fox hunting with residents of faded industrial cities. So far, he seems to be succeeding. The inherent contradictions of such a coalition might scupper everything in the end. But for now, he's succeeding, and Labour offer no viable alternative. Combine Labour's collapse in England with its destruction in Scotland by the Scottish Nationalists, and the party is now fully in a long, dark night.