Why France’s elections are a warning to Starmer

Marine Le Pen's far-right party has led the first round of France's parliamentary elections. Credit: AP

One of the iron laws of politics is that disaffection breeds extremism.

There was proof of that in this weekend’s French parliamentary elections, where - on a relatively high turnout - the vast majority of voters backed the hard right Rassemblement National and the far left bloc the Nouveau Front Populaire.

Macron’s Centre was squeezed till the pips squeaked, to deploy a saw from an earlier British era.

This is a European earthquake.

The idea that Marine le Pen’s party - with its racist and anti-EU roots - could form the next government in France (we won’t know whether that will happen till after next weekend’s second round of voting) was unthinkable for much of the post-war era.

Not any more. And the far right is growing across Europe.

Here in the UK, Nigel Farage’s Reform has stated the blooming obvious, that it won’t be forming the government in the UK after Thursday’s poll.

But as I said to Labour’s leader today on a last tour of constituencies to gee up the party’s door knockers, the failure of Macron’s bold and ambitious centrism is a lesson for the UK.Starmer agreed.

He told me that trust in [mainstream] politics is broken.

Nigel Farage's Reform UK has picked up significant support in the General Election trail. Credit: PA

So if he and Labour take power at the end of this week, he says his over-riding priority is “to address the everyday concerns of so many who feel disaffected by politics”.

There is the challenge. If he governs only for party loyalists and activists, especially at a time when all the polls show he may be respected by voters but certainly not loved or even especially trusted, any victory he achieves may be pyrrhic.

He says he wants to be prime minister for two terms, for ten years, to achieve the change he says this country needs.

But the lesson of France is that if millions of people continue to feel unheard, they’ll dump him with the ruthlessness and unsentimentality he showed when dumping his own predecessor.

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