In a catastrophic week for the expectations of the Labor opposition in the UK, two election victories have shed some light on a bleak picture. The mayor of London, the Muslim Sadiq Khan, has won his re-election, although the final tally has shown that his lead over the Conservatives was not as comfortable as polls had told him for months. The British capital uses a two-round voting system, in which to proclaim itself the winner, any candidate must obtain more than 50% in the first count. The Greens and Liberal Democrats jeopardized his re-election, and Khan had to wait until late Saturday night to learn that he had finally managed to retain the mayoralty. The latest crime data in the city,and his battle with the Johnson administration over financing deficit municipal transportation had eroded the politician's popularity.
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"We will build bridges instead of walls between City Hall and the central government, to create a greener, fairer and safer London for all its citizens," Khan promised in his victory proclamation speech. London remains Labor territory, but the great hope of the British left is in the city of Manchester. Its mayor, Andy Burnham, has also been re-elected with 69% of the votes. His confrontation with Johnson, when Downing Street punished the city with a more severe confinement than the rest of the country without at the same time providing the necessary financial aid, raised Burnham in the imaginary of progressive voters, to the point that his name begins to circulate as the future leader of the party. "In the distant future, if the party thinks it needs me,He knows I'm here and that he can tell me, ”the mayor assured
Sky News
.
New Labor leader Keir Starmer is going through a crisis whose outcome is still uncertain.
A year after taking over from the party to replace veteran leftist Jeremy Corbyn, the electoral debacle in last Thursday's municipal elections, especially in the traditional left-wing voting areas of northern England, has put people on the ropes. the direction of training.
Starmer assured that he would take full responsibility for poor results, but in the end he has decided to mercilessly expel
number two
from Labor, head of the campaign and party chair, Angela Rayner.
The allies of the former leader, Corbyn, have accused Starmer of acting cowardly and promise to stir the waters of a left that is unable to raise its head in the face of a Boris Johnson overwhelming in its results and popularity.
Scottish Crisis
The prime minister, however, has barely had time to savor his party's victory at the polls. The promise of Nicola Sturgeon, leader of the nationalist SNP and undisputed winner in the Scottish regional elections, to hold another independence referendum during the new term, has left the ball on the roof of Downing Street. Johnson has come up with a new concept,
Team UK
, to convince citizens that the best way out of the current crisis is with the collaboration of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. This same Saturday, it was summoning its leaders by letter to a prompt meeting to coordinate efforts.
Scotland's chief minister, who fell just one seat away from obtaining an absolute majority, has promised to launch a new legal process of separation from the United Kingdom, and has warned Johnson that if she challenges the process in court, she will he will be facing the majority will of the Scots. "The British Government refuses to accept the Scottish democratic will, and that means that it no longer considers the United Kingdom to be a union of countries based on consent, a voluntary union, but is proposing to keep us inside by force," he said. Sturgeon said on the BBC.
