Donald Trump should be given back his access to social media
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Starmer s pitiful pitch to England s north-east is a recipe for more disasters | Alex Niven
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What’s more, the NIP is already preparing its own first electoral contest in Hartlepool, close to Durham, where it will be represented by former Colne Valley Labour MP Thelma Walker (though due to problems registering with the Electoral Commission, Walker will appear on the ballot as an independent). According to Survation, Walker is polling third at 2%, ahead of both the Lib Dems and the Greens. The fact that Starmer himself has had to step in to canvass in the absence of grassroots activists in the by-election campaign risks making a Labour loss a new low point in his already beleaguered leadership. If Labour does lose, as it is likely to, it will no doubt try to blame the NIP. It should start by blaming itself for the NIP’s very existence.
The Northern Independence Party (NIP) may have begun life as a Twitter joke, but those still scoffing would do well to learn from recent history. Italy’s Five Star Movement erupted into political life on the back of a comedian’s blog, before flipping Italian politics on its head. The Brexit Party, founded in 2018, was a hollow shell but transformed British politics in the short time of its existence (it was renamed Reform UK in January 2021). Both were helped by money and, crucially, more representative electoral systems than first-past-the-post. But as Paolo Gerbaudo argues in his 2018 book
Digital Party, the combination of the increasing political prominence of social media and popular disaffection with the