The term “political earthquake” gets overused. What is happening in Great Britain is more like a once‑in‑a‑century end of a political order.

It began in 2024 with the death of the Conservative Party – a party unlikely to restore itself. And it will continue over the next few years with the death of the Labour Party. The May local elections, just days away, will mark a major step forward. Labour is almost certain to lose two of the places it has dominated for generations: Wales (for a century) and London (for half a century).

But this isn’t just about one bad election night. It is the culmination of decades of neoliberalismSupply Side Economics Full Description:Supply-Side Economics posits that production (supply) is the key to economic prosperity. Proponents argue that by reducing the “burden” of taxes on the wealthy and removing regulatory barriers for corporations, investment will increase, creating jobs and expanding the economy. Key Policies: Tax Cuts: Specifically for high-income earners and corporations, under the premise that this releases capital for investment. Deregulation: Removing environmental, labor, and safety protections to lower the cost of doing business. Critical Perspective:Historical analysis suggests that supply-side policies rarely lead to the promised broad-based prosperity. Instead, they often result in massive budget deficits (starving the state of revenue) and a dramatic concentration of wealth at the top. Critics argue the “trickle-down” effect is a myth used to justify the upward redistribution of wealth., deindustrialisation, austerity, and the systematic destruction of any alternative vision within the mainstream parties.

When Party Systems Die

Political orders come to an end eventually. They are based on the material conditions that gave birth to them. They are either replaced by a new order that makes coherent sense to the population, or there is a protracted period of chaos out of which a new order eventually emerges.

The last time this happened in Britain was after the First World War. The Liberal Party had been in ascendancy throughout the pre‑war years – the party of new industrial capital, free trade, limited government, and individual rights. But the war split the Liberals. Lloyd George formed a coalition with the Conservatives, and by 1922 he was ousted. In 1924, the first Labour minority government appeared, and by 1929 a two‑party system of Labour and Conservatives had emerged. The 1945 election cemented it.

That system has now run its course.

The Thatcherite Rupture

The destructiveness of ThatcherismMonetarism Monetarism is the economic school of thought associated with Milton Friedman, which rose to dominance as a counter to Keynesian economics. It posits that inflation is always a monetary phenomenon and that the government’s role should be limited to managing the currency rather than stimulating demand. Key Mechanisms: Inflation Targeting: Using interest rates to keep inflation low, even if high interest rates cause recession or unemployment. Fiscal Restraint: Opposing government deficit spending to boost the economy during downturns. Critical Perspective:Critics argue that monetarism breaks the post-war social contract. By prioritizing “sound money” and low inflation above all else, monetarist policies often induce deliberately high unemployment to discipline the labor force and suppress wages. It represents a technical solution to political problems, removing economic policy from democratic accountability. has a huge part to play in this. From the late 1970s onwards, the neoliberal moment de‑industrialised Britain, broke union power, left working‑class communities atomised, isolated, and poorer. Everyone got poorer – except an elite few.

The key markers of the crisis are well known: the financial crisis of 2008, Brexit in 2016, the destruction of the Corbyn movement within Labour, and austerity from 2010 onwards. The economic assumptions that Thatcherism was built on blew up in 2008. Brexit smashed Britain’s role as the transatlantic bridge between Washington and Brussels – a role that had been central to its neoliberal identity. Austerity killed hundreds of thousands, caused the decay of communities, and turned Britain into a nation in de‑development.

When an anti‑austerity movement emerged within Labour, the Labour right – “Tories by any other name” – mercilessly destroyed it. In its place we got Keir Starmer: a centrist technocrat who, despite his blandness, has been happy to support Israel’s genocide in Gaza, to out‑Tory the Tories on persecuting asylum seekers, and to attack trans rights.

The Failure of Triangulation

Starmer’s strategy has been simple: tack to the right on culture and immigration, while offering nothing economically. The hope was that voters would hold their noses and vote Labour because “we’re not Reform”. But that strategy is failing.

In the Gorton and Denton by‑election, Labour warned that a vote for the Greens would let Reform in. People voted Green anyway – and got Green. In Caerphilly, Labour warned that a vote for Plaid Cymru would let Reform in. People voted Plaid – and got Plaid. The old “vote for us or you’ll get the fascists” threat no longer works.

Why? Because people have realised that Labour is incapable of addressing the fundamental crisis. The problem is not just Keir Starmer – though his dishonesty and incompetence are staggering. The problem is that the Labour Party has spent thirty years (longer, really) drifting to the right. Several generations of party operatives and MPs have absorbed the consensus that market logic is the special sauce that will solve everything. They cannot conceive of an alternative.

The Two Beneficiaries

So where are voters going? To two very different parties.

Reform UK – funded by a reclusive Bitcoin billionaire, backed by the propaganda channel GB News, led by Nigel Farage – offers a populist, proto‑fascist nationalism. The party is a private company, not a democratic membership organisation. It is the battering ram for a fraction of vulture capitalism that has almost completely captured the state.

The Green Party – untainted by large private donations, hostile to the tabloid press, offering a genuine left‑wing economic alternative – has already won a stunning by‑election on an anti‑racist, cost‑of‑living platform. The left vote that Labour has abandoned has found a home in the Greens.

What comes next? A new two‑party system of Reform and Greens is possible. If the Greens win power, a significant chunk of the country will feel like it’s under enemy occupation. If Reform wins power, progressive voters will feel the same. Either way, the Conservative and Labour parties will be confined to the margins – minimal players in a world that has moved past them.

The Real Culprit

The thing that has killed our two political parties is neoliberalism. Both main parties embraced its economic and social outcomes. Both are now incapable of addressing the contradictions and crises those outcomes have produced – because they are incapable of considering any other economic or political philosophy.

Now they embrace a post‑2008 version of neoliberalism: not free‑market Thatcherism, but an oligarchic, rent‑extracting capitalism that does nothing other than impoverish a significant portion of the population while making the well‑to‑do year‑on‑year more insecure.

When a political class fails for 15 to 20 years, non‑stop, to address a single question or grievance – and in fact makes things significantly worse – it is hardly surprising that the old political order is about to be taken out to a field and put out of its misery.

The May elections will tell us an awful lot. But the direction of travel is already clear. The two‑party system that emerged after the First World War is dying. What replaces it will define British politics for the next generation.

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