One of the ironies of Brexit is that since leaving the EU, the UK has become a more European country. Tax and spending levels – once likened to the US’s – are beginning to resemble Germany’s. Britain’s “flexible” labour market is undergoing continental-style regulation. And it will soon be the government’s job to make the trains run on time.
The UK’s politics, too, has an increasingly European appearance. Two opinion polls published this week – by YouGov and More in Common – feature four parties on between 17 and 24 per cent of the vote: Labour, the Conservatives, Reform and the Liberal Democrats (riding an anti-Trump wave). Throw in the Greens (on between 7 and 9 per cent) and this starts to look like a new era – the age of five-party politics.
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