Starmer promised unity but the reality is Britain is more divided than ever, writes Nick Ferrari

However, as the dust begins to settle on these seismic local elections it's not unfair to say the United Kingdom looks less "united" than ever.

If there is one abiding message from the local elections in much of England and those in Wales and Scotland it was that the old ‘first past the post’ electoral system is well … past it!

The previous tandem riders, the old guard traditional parties of the Conservatives and Labour, have enjoyed eighty virtually untrammelled years in power.

This is either by clinging to power, swapping sides of the house or flirting with the Liberals or, after that, the Liberal Democrats.

And as recriminations rage among the duopoly parties over this weekend and through next week, they must face a particularly unpleasant truth: they’ve only themselves to blame.

Because when Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said outside Havering Town Hall on Friday that this had been “a re-shaping of British politics” and “an historic shift in voting” he was right, and it was drearily reinforced by Sir Keir Starmer’s admission of defeat.

The Prime Minister said the results “sent a message about the pace of change” and “days like this don’t weaken my resolve to deliver the change that I promised,” blithely ignoring the cause of the haemorrhaging of support for his Labour party, which is there has been no change.

Having been elected on a policy of avoiding stating there was anything in which he actually believed, save for everything Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives supported was wrong, Starmer suddenly found himself with the levers of power.

It is just that he had no idea which level to actually pull, or why.

Initially we heard that everything Labour had inherited was a disaster and would take up to a decade to put right. This was shelved and we have been inundated with messages of how well we were all doing!

And that neatly meant no change whatsoever – as that was what the previous government(s) had been telling us for years.

The truth was voters had experienced no change in their lives.

Job prospects - poor

Bills - still rising

A and E units - queues

Growth - non-existent.

Meanwhile, the Conservatives continued to brazen it out pretending they have all the answers while conveniently forgetting they exited the corridors of power less than two years ago, begging the question why they didn’t put those policies into effect when they were able to.

The old voting system was initially introduced to provide a quick, definitive result for our general elections but now a new model has to be found that better reflects our electorate.

That cannot be ignored.

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