Could the election herald the rise of the small party?

These are heady times for Britain’s smaller political parties. Seldom has there been as much interest from voters in breaking away from the stale embrace of the entity known to many as the ‘LibLabCon’.

On the left, the Greens keep growing – though their addiction to identity politics in general and the militant trans movement in particular puts a ceiling on their potential progress.

In the muscular centre, there is a revival of the SDP making steady progress. The party, which these day is stoutly pro-Brexit and leans to the left on economics and the right on culture, won a second seat on Leeds City Council from Labour in May. It now has around 2,000 members, of which I am one. Its leader, the erudite William Clouston, has taken advantage of Britain’s new broadcast media platforms, becoming a frequent guest on GB News and Talk TV.

But it is on the radical right that there is most activity, with the Reform party led by Richard Tice regularly chalking up six per cent vote shares,.