True electoral earthquakes in Britain usually come in general elections. But Thursday’s ballots for scores of councils in England and the parliaments of Scotland and Wales have, for now, smashed the century-old Labour-Conservative duopoly. Two years after Labour’s landslide election victory showed the centre broadly holding, British politics has fragmented into an unstable kaleidoscope that makes forecasting the next general election almost impossible. The biggest gainer is Nigel Farage’s nationalist Reform UK, which in many areas has displaced the Tories as the main opposition party. The biggest loser, after Labour’s predicted dismal showing, is surely the political career of Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.
在英国，真正意义上的选举地震通常发生在大选中。但本周四在英格兰数十个地方议会，以及苏格兰和威尔士议会举行的选举，眼下已经打破了持续一个世纪之久的工党-保守党双头垄断。自从两年前工党在大选中大获全胜、似乎彰显中间力量仍大体稳固以来，英国政治已经碎裂成一个不稳定的万花筒式格局，使得预测下一次大选的结果几乎变为不可能。获益最大的是奈杰尔•法拉奇(Nigel Farage)领导的民族主义政党改革党(Reform UK)，它在许多地区已经取代保守党，成为主要反对党。而在工党如预期般表现惨淡之后，输得最惨的无疑是首相基尔•斯塔默爵士(Sir Keir Starmer)的政治前途。