Four Countries, Four Elections, and the Bigger Picture

Thoughts on some recent key elections:

Four recent election results show us quite a bit about how those in the conservative camp can win – or lose. While each of the four nations differ quite a bit from each other, there are also some similarities. And while what works in one nation might not work in another, there are still some lessons that can be learned from all these countries.

I refer here to the US, the UK, Canada and Australia. As should be known, conservatives had a big win last November with Trump as he sought to further drain the swamp and challenge the leftist bureaucracy and hegemony. Nigel Farage just a few days ago had a massive win in the local council elections, trouncing the Tories and Labor.

And in other recent elections, the lack of a strong conservative leaders meant that the socialist left has again won in Canada, while the leftist Albanese has won again in Australia. If someone like Dutton could not stand up for women, nor resist the net zero madness that will keep destroying our economy, then the Liberals will have no chance of getting re-elected anytime soon.

If Australia had a strong, consistent and principled conservative leader and conservative party, they might be able to achieve some of the reforms here that Trump is doing in the US and Farage hopes to keep doing in the UK. But right now it looks like this is not going to happen.

So we need to see if we can learn from elsewhere. As mentioned, all nations differ, but some principles might be transferable. The UK is in a real bad way, and the election of Keir Starmer in April of last year has simply made matters worse, and very early on in his term his approval ratings were falling big time. Unchecked immigration and Muslim rape gangs are just some of the many massive problems that must be dealt with – and soon.

Farage

Let me speak a bit more to the big wins by Reform UK. For those not up on things there, this media report offers a fairly good overview of the recent elections and how they are shaking things up in the UK:

As of Friday morning, some votes are still being counted, but the results so far show significant gains made by the Reform UK party, led by Nigel Farage, a long-standing supporter and ally of President Donald Trump. Most Reform UK gains have been at the expense of the Conservative Party, the current opposition to the Labour government.

 

However, Labour has also lost seats across the country, including a disappointing defeat in the Runcorn and Helsby by-election, whereby a seat in the House of Commons was up for grabs. The historically close by-election saw Reform UK candidate Sarah Pochin tip Labour to the post, winning by just six votes.

 

Responding to the results, Prime Minister Starmer told the BBC on Friday morning that the loss was “disappointing” and vowed to learn from the experience. “The message I take out of these elections is that we need to go further and we need to go faster on the change that people want to see,” he said.

 

Meanwhile, Farage said of the result: “It sends a message across much of the country that we are now the opposition to the Labour Party in government.” Whilst the Labour and Conservative parties have traditionally been the U.K.’s main political bodies, right-wing politician Farage has been driving forward Reform UK in hopes of potentially challenging the usual British political order. This first hurdle for Farage offered glimpses of exactly that.

 

According to YouGov polls before the elections, voting intention on April 28 showed that 26% of voters would choose Reform UK if there was an election to be held the next day. This was ahead of the current Labour government at 23%.

The Trump effect

The articles goes on to say how much of an impact the Trump movement had on the success of Farage and Co:

Trump’s influence was felt heavily in the lead up to England’s local elections. As mentioned, Farage is a vocal supporter of the U.S. President, with the two expressing similar viewpoints. A core policy of the Reform UK party—whose popularity has steadily grown since last summer—is its plan to “freeze immigration.” Farage focused heavily on immigration during the 2016 E.U. referendum, of which he was a key figurehead.

 

For the last decade or so, Farage has argued that immigration puts a strain on the National Health Service (NHS) and has claimed there’s a threat to “British values.” These talking points were key focuses of the party’s election campaign last year, not too dissimilar to Trump, who has put tackling immigration at the heart of his second term in office.

 

Farage has been an advocate of Trump’s policies for many years. The U.K. lawmaker met with the President after his election in 2016, described him as “the most resilient and brave person” he had ever met at a 2020 election rally, and called Trump an “inspiration” during a Reform UK rally in February. https://time.com/7281644/trump-influence-local-elections-england-nigel-farage-maga-rallies-slogans/

So in the UK at least, with the big wins for Reform UK, the Trump effect may have been for the good. But the lamestream media keeps going on and on about how bad the Trump impact was for Canada and Australia, saying for example that Dutton went too much to the far-right.

As I explained in yesterday’s piece, that is arrant nonsense. It is exactly because Dutton – presumably at the insistence of his minders, advisors, and weak fellow Libs – went so softly and so middle of the road that he and the party were smashed.

As mentioned, he could not even stand up and defend women, making a clear statement about how men are NOT women, and we must protect women and children from the radical trans agenda. His weakness on the climate change issue (“I am nor a scientist”) was another major cave-in to the radical left. Dutton was not moving towards Trumpism, but away from it – at a million miles an hour.

Spectator Australia’s Alexandra Marshall correctly observed: “Donald Trump just said Anthony Albanese is ‘very good’ and he has no idea who Peter Dutton is. And the press – with a straight face – says that Dutton’s closeness to Trump lost the election? How are people believing this…”

And as for Farage, anyone who can so rattle the ruling government must be doing something right. As another report stated:

Sir Keir Starmer’s MPs have warned that the Prime Minister’s first 10 months in power “haven’t been good enough” as they slammed Labour’s “catastrophic” local election results. Reform has won its first-ever regional mayor in England while Labour managed to hold on to a hat-trick of mayors across the country. https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/2049628/labour-runcorn-reform-local-election

No saviours

Regular readers of this website will know that I talk a lot about politics and the like. But they will also know that I speak of biblical and spiritual realities as well. Yes, we must concentrate on policies, politicians, political parties, number crunching, and so on. But the Christian can only go so far here. God must always be the main focal point of any such thinking and discussion.

I am surprised that I need to keep saying this, but there are of course no perfect politicians. None of the conservative leaders – even the better ones – are going to bring in the Kingdom. All are light-years away from being the Messiah. Thus people like Trump, while doing a lot of good, also have various weaknesses and problem areas.

That is true of Farage as well. Consider just one example of this. Last November he did an interview on The Winston Marshall Show. The 54-minute discussion looked at a number of key topics. From the 30- to 40-minute mark they discussed immigration and Islam.

Farage, like all politicians, needs to be careful in how he expresses things, but he seemed to want to have a bit of both ways on this. He said deporting illegals is necessary, and reducing legal immigration is also needed. But he wanted to say that Islam is not so bad – that most Muslims basically embrace UK values, more or less.

At the 35-minute mark he said that the majority of British Muslims disapprove of Islamism and violence. The host seemed to have a more sensible view on these sorts of things, pressing Farage on these matters, even citing alarming poll findings on this. But he still insisted that most Muslims are OK. He said, ‘We will lose if we politically alienate Islam.’ So is Farage weak and clueless on Islam? Or is he just being realistic as he seeks to win votes?

Time will tell how such an approach will work out for him and Reform UK. But some conservatives there and elsewhere have expressed concern about his remarks on Islam, and whether he might already be compromising too much. The whole interview is found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8nhUR46ZqE

And what about other Reform UK winners who might be somewhat at odds with Farage on this. Consider a final news report:

Reform UK’s first mayor has called for migrants to be “put in tents” rather than hotels. Dame Andrea Jenkyns, named as Greater Lincolnshire’s first ever mayor, made the comment as she called for “an end to soft touch Britain” in her victory speech following local elections on Thursday. Securing a resounding victory, she won in every area of the county except one with a total of 104,133 votes.

 

Dame Andrea, who will now represent about 1.1 million people who live in the combined county for the next four years, said tents were “good enough” to be used in France. Speaking at the count at Grimsby Town Hall, the former Tory MP, said there would be “an end to soft-touch Britain”. She said: “We will tackle illegal migration. We’ve been working on policies.” https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/2050195/reforms-first-mayor-says-put

Other areas that might concern us about Farage could be mentioned. But it is also the case that he has been a rather consistent and visible politician for some twenty years now. He has had a fairly coherent ideology and he has stuck to his guns. These are some of the traits of a strong leader.

Final spiritual reflection

As I keep saying, politics is important, but politics is not everything. While good political outcomes are often easily replaced with bad political outcomes, and vice versa, there is only one constant; there is only one enduring and unchanging reality: God and his rule. So that is the framework in which we view everything, including election results.

Big losses in Australia and Canada. Big wins in the US and UK. You win some and you lose some. But God is always winning. Keep your eyes focused on him. As we read in 2 Chronicles 20:12 “O our God, will you not judge them? For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you.”

That is the bottom line for us. It seems the odds are against us. It seems the numbers are against us. The wins for faith, family, freedom and life seem far too few, while those arrayed against us seem to be so many, and so powerful. It can get overwhelming at times.

So what do we do if we live in a country that increasingly hates on Christian values, elects secular leftists to office, and wages war on the beliefs and values of our faith? How do we respond? Well, we keep our eyes on him. We keep fighting. We keep working. We keep trusting. And we keep praying.

“Our eyes are upon you.”

[1952 words]