Writing after the US midterm elections, Andrew Neil says Prime Minister Andy Burnham misread the result on his way home from the Commonwealth summit in the Caribbean. Burnham said the pendulum had swung away from populism. Neil argues that it has not.
Neil notes that voters roundly repudiated Donald Trump and that, from January, Democrats will control both the House and the Senate, a result he says will privately satisfy Burnham and sit more comfortably with Labour than Trump’s MAGA movement. He adds that a Democratic Congress will not tightly restrain Trump in his final two years, when he no longer needs re-election.
The column says the prime minister is looking towards Europe, where populism remains strong. France faces widespread street unrest exploited by ultra-left populists and a parliament gridlocked by left and right populists. Neil writes that the next French president will almost certainly be Marine Le Pen of National Rally. Italy already has a right-wing populist prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, whose hopes of re-election next year are complicated by a new far-right party led by a former army general who wants mass deportation of foreigners and a ban on gay people appearing on television between 6pm and 11pm. In Germany, Alternative for Germany won two state elections this autumn and leads national polls with almost 30 per cent, against about 20 per cent for the centre-right and 13 per cent for the centre-left.
Neil contrasts a US economy that added 165,000 jobs last month and cut unemployment to just over 4 per cent with stagnant major EU economies, where average unemployment in the four largest is 7.5 per cent. He says Labour politicians are growing bolder about rejoining the EU, with Burnham’s encouragement, rather than moving closer to a United States where Democrats are resurgent.
Burnham said “Britain is back” as he left the Commonwealth conference, a phrase Neil recalls Keir Starmer using two years ago, and spoke of Britain’s “unique trust among nations”. Neil says that trust was not obvious at the summit, where Caribbean and African governments intensified demands for trillions of dollars in slavery reparations.
Burnham also called the midterms an opportunity to refocus on the cost of living, “the issue that everyone, everywhere is struggling with”. Neil calls that fantasy. He writes that Trump’s strategists could not get him to address living costs even when they threatened his party, and that Trump instead talked about a gilded White House ballroom, Republican candidates, a Halloween party at Mar-a-Lago and, for the first 23 minutes of his last rally, cleaning a reflecting pool in Washington.
On Ukraine and the Gulf, Neil says both conflicts have raised energy prices, but the midterms do not point to an outcome Burnham would welcome. He writes that Trump wants a deal with Vladimir Putin that would open Russia’s energy and mineral wealth to American companies and to Trump’s family and friends, amounting to a Russian victory. In the Gulf, he says the midterms have encouraged Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to be more intransigent, while Trump is considering a resumption of major hostilities. Intelligence sources, Neil writes, say the IRGC would respond with missile and drone attacks on the energy facilities of America’s Gulf allies and possibly the desalination plants they rely on for water, sending energy prices higher.
Neil links that outlook to Britain. The Bank of England raised interest rates by a quarter point to 4 per cent this week, with further rises possible next year. Inflation is 3.7 per cent and the Bank forecast 5 per cent by spring, or more than 6 per cent if the Gulf deteriorates. He says household fuel bills will soar in January, food prices will rise next year, many mortgages are already at 6 per cent, and after-tax income will fall this year and by more in 2027. The government’s message, he writes, amounts to “Not our fault, guv.” He argues voters will reject that, as American voters rejected Trump, and that this should worry Burnham.