> it’s quite misleading (to readers who don’t follow UK politics) to suggest that there’s any hope of it winning an election.

I wish.

Brexit was pretty unthinkable even just a few years before the referendum. And now… well, toss-up between the top 5(!) parties, because somehow the Greens and Lib Dems are polling at similar levels to Conservative and Labour, all a bit behind Reform who didn't exist a few years back.

And when bad times come, insular nationalism (both in the sense of xenophobia and autarky) poll well.

The world-wide bad-times storm is getting super-charged right now, though I can't tell how much this is malice vs. incompetence from the White House.