Andrew Marr’s full analysis of the election results

[0:00] Very grateful. Andrew Marr, presenter of Tonight with Andrew Marr, of course, on LBC, [0:03] has amazingly been quiet for about the last nine minutes. [0:06] Andrew Marr, this is a day of firsts. [0:08] Big-footed by Nigel Farage. It may happen again. [0:12] Right, I warn you now, we will not be going to the news at 9.15 [0:15] because I've got Andrew Marr opposite me and there's so much to discuss. [0:17] Where do you want to start, comrade? [0:19] Well, I think let's start with a calm, middle-of-the-road, predictive position, [0:24] which is that as we sit here now, Nigel Farage is going to be the next Prime Minister. [0:29] I think we are on course for a reform victory at the next election. [0:33] They might have Tories propping them up or not. [0:37] But the way things are, very interesting listening to Farage just now, [0:41] both in your interview and what he was saying in Havering, kept talking about geography. [0:46] And that is the crucial part of what's happening today, [0:50] which is that they are indeed becoming a national party. [0:52] They are winning all over the place. [0:54] Now, the early wins have been in Labour's traditional northern heartlands. [0:59] And that's part of, you know, the Brexit story, part of Boris Johnson's levelling up. [1:04] It's been going on for an awful long time. [1:06] But they're winning there and they're winning in the Tory heartlands [1:09] across the south-east of England as well. [1:11] You put that together. [1:12] You're asking him, can he win an overall majority without London, in effect? [1:16] And the answer is he probably can. [1:18] And the big questions for the other parties are, do they maintain their position? [1:23] Do they try to maintain their position as big national movements? [1:27] Or do they withdraw to their heartlands and their comfort zone? [1:30] Now, that's going to be very, very important in what happens in the Labour Party, I think, [1:34] because, you know, who knows what Keir Starmer is going to do? [1:37] I mean, he said, you know, I'm not going to walk away. [1:39] He said, I'm not going to walk away and plunge the country into chaos. [1:43] Yes, and they've sent a message about the pace of change. [1:46] Pace of change. [1:46] We carry on striding in the same direction and his resolve remains absolutely unchanged. [1:52] And there'll be an awful lot of Labour MPs, I'm afraid, today saying, [1:54] Keir, Keir, let your resolve flop down a little bit. [1:58] Don't be so resolved. [1:59] Do walk away. [2:00] Because I was talking to a leading pollster, I won't say who, [2:05] who makes a very, very simple point. [2:07] He says the Labour Party has this issue. [2:09] If you have a leader who, because of their deep unpopularity in the country, [2:14] and that is what is coming out all across the UK, [2:16] their deep unpopularity can't win you a general election, you have a choice. [2:20] You either get rid of the leader, you change the leader, [2:23] or you accept that you're going to lose the general election. [2:26] Which is it? [2:28] And that, in a sense, is what's confronting Labour MPs today. [2:31] Let's refer back to what we heard from Mr Farage. [2:34] I think you were listening in the other studio. [2:36] A reshaping in British politics. [2:38] And we have professionalised the party. [2:40] You've touched on the former of those in what you said. [2:43] Is the party now a professional operation? [2:45] Well, we'll see. [2:46] It's very interesting. [2:46] He also, you know, he talked about we've got lots of old lags in the party. [2:50] And they've got, you know, Tory retreads and this and that, [2:53] people who are in UKIP and so on. [2:54] But they've got an awful lot of people who are, as it were, amateurs in politics, [2:59] new to politics. [3:00] And some of them will have said stupid things. [3:02] And some of them will be called up for it. [3:04] And there'll be lots and lots of problems the other parties make hay with. [3:07] But I think that kind of underestimates the nature of a kind of popular uprising [3:12] going on here all around the country. [3:14] And I think that is what we are beginning to see. [3:16] As it were, you know, it's all across the English countryside you're seeing [3:22] groups of local people thinking we can do it better than the Tories. [3:26] We can do it better than Labour or the Liberal Democrats. [3:28] We're going to do it as it were for ourselves. [3:30] I think that is the energy, that is the petrol that is driving Farage today. [3:35] Labour appear to have conceded that they have lost Wales, if that is the case. [3:40] How seismic is that, Andrew? [3:42] Well, as you're hearing just now, it is seismic just because of the importance of Wales [3:46] in Labour history. [3:47] Nye Bevan, Neil Kinnock and all of that. [3:50] There'll be a lot of people, including Neil, absolutely dejected and very, very angry today. [3:54] Some of them blame Keir Starmer and the current direction of the Labour Party. [3:59] To you? [4:00] I think it's clearly part of the story. [4:02] You can't put it to one side. [4:04] I think, to be fair to Starmer, you know, he inherited a nightmarish position [4:08] in terms of the weakness of the economy and the international threats. [4:12] But he then made things much, much, much harder for himself by tying himself to those tax and [4:18] borrowing promises during the course of the general election, which meant that he had [4:22] very, very little room for manoeuvre. [4:24] And so, in a sense, since then, he has been looking at the mercy of events rather than [4:28] really reshaping the country. [4:30] I know you're on and I'm going to tell everybody you've got a special show tonight, so I will [4:34] let you go fairly soon because you obviously weren't thinking about that. [4:36] I need to get a word for you on Kemi Bevanock and the Conservatives, Andrew. [4:38] Well, she hasn't had a great day either. [4:40] I mean, her ratings are doing better. [4:43] She's doing better in the House of Commons. [4:45] She is cutting through. [4:46] Very interesting that James Cleverley, who I think is the most talented and eloquent of [4:51] her shadow cabinet, and did, of course, you know, think about the leadership for himself, [4:55] talked about himself being in her slipstream. [4:58] Very, very interesting word, that. [5:00] That suggests that she has complete, as it were, loyalty inside her shadow cabinet. [5:05] Not the case, of course, when Robert Jenrick was still there. [5:07] So she's in a better position. [5:09] But frankly, if the Tories lose Essex, if the Tories lose Suffolk and all those parts [5:13] of the English South East, then they are in almost as much trouble as Labour. [5:17] Someone who has forgotten more about voting systems than I'll ever know, Andrew Marr. [5:23] Is first past the post past it? [5:24] Yes, it absolutely is. [5:26] We now have... [5:27] First past the post, to remind people, is basically an electoral system [5:30] founded on two things. [5:32] The importance of geography. [5:33] You have to be the person for your area. [5:36] And secondly, that you want a very clear, decisive one party wins and another party loses. [5:42] It's based on two parties swinging. [5:44] It's a bicycle made for two. [5:46] And we now have five cyclists on the bicycle in England and six cyclists on the bicycle in [5:51] Wales and in Scotland. [5:53] And we are entering a completely new political landscape, Nick. [5:58] I think we are going to see a big sort of group on the right of British politics, including [6:04] reform and the Conservatives, versus a group on the left of British politics, certainly [6:09] involving Labour and the Lib Dems, possibly even the Greens. [6:12] Two great coalitions fighting. [6:13] So we're going to be into a world of deals and pacts and arrangements and all of those [6:19] kind of red lines that we are not used to. [6:21] We have entered continental politics, but without continental voting systems. [6:26] They've dragged an extra shift out of you tonight. [6:28] Is that right? [6:29] They do. [6:30] What are you going to be talking about from six? [6:31] Brutal, brutal, tough. [6:32] There'll be nothing to talk about. [6:34] I mean, to be just serious, to people listening, you know, there are huge numbers of results [6:38] still to come. [6:38] We don't know about London. [6:39] There are strong indications that Labour have done much better in London, perhaps, than [6:44] they feared. [6:45] And the green surge hasn't been quite as big as we expected. [6:49] I think, by the way, just one other thing to say here. [6:50] We have two kinds of populism now in this country, Nick. [6:54] We have the populism of the right, Nigel Farage, you've just heard. [6:57] And there is a kind of, as it were, competing populism of the left. [7:00] And I would call it populism because in both cases, there are kind of big, big villains [7:04] to be attacked. [7:06] In the case of reform, it's migrants and people coming in from this country. [7:10] And in the case of Greens, it's all these, it's the wicked rich. [7:14] And I think what's interesting is that the populism of the right, it goes back to the [7:19] Brexit vote you were talking about, and UKIP, and then reform, is much more strongly entrenched. [7:26] And Nigel Farage is a much more understood leader in this country than is Zach Polanski. [7:32] The green populism is younger, more difficult to analyse at this stage, and I think less [7:39] deeply rooted. [7:40] So we have at least two populisms. [7:42] And I think in London, Labour will hold off green voters a bit better, partly perhaps [7:47] because of the anti-Semitism rouse, I don't know. [7:50] And so that's all still to come. [7:51] Scotland's still to come. [7:52] Scotland's absolutely crucial. [7:53] We haven't talked a lot about that on the show, but if the SNP win a single vote majority [7:59] in Holyrood, one MSP, then they will call for a referendum. [8:06] And we have to ask ourselves whether Labour in London at the moment, going through the [8:10] turmoil they're going to be going through, are strong enough to hold that off. [8:15] And we've heard reform, we've heard Nigel Farage say that they have a right, they may [8:19] have a right, it's not an unreasonable request, so we would be heading then towards debating [8:24] the entire future of the United Kingdom again, if that happens. [8:29] We'll have to wait for that, we'll have to wait for Wales. [8:31] All right, so much to discuss tonight. [8:33] Andrew Marr, from Sydney, absolute privilege having you in today, Andrew. [8:37] It's a privilege to be here, so shall we just ingratiate each other for a bit? [8:40] Andrew Marr, I will try and listen, but I'm going to be honest with you, there's a bit [8:43] of a Fleet Street Old Lag's lunch, and you know what a Fleet Street Old Lag's, so I might [8:47] not be tuning at six, you'll just be getting going at six, I understand, I do. [8:51] Just be ordering the dangerous third bottle. [8:53] Andrew Marr appearing here on LPC.