What is happening in the British Isles?

Resignations of the Scottish Prime Minister and the Irish Prime Minister, and a strong surge by Labor. Our neighbors across the Channel are experiencing turbulent times.

Focus on the “Channel, Irish Sea and North Sea” zone, not from a weather point of view but from a political point of view. Two resignations of Prime Minister and a third who is threatened by his opposition. Analysis of the situation with the most Parisian of British journalists, Philip Turle.

franceinfo: Let’s start with the resignation of Scottish Prime Minister Humza Yousaf, from the Scottish Nationalist Party. Why is he leaving?

Philip Turle : The Scottish National Party, the pro-independence SNP, has been in power for a year thanks to a coalition formed with the Scottish Greens. However, the two parties no longer agree on the policy to follow in the face of global warming. Humza Yousaf therefore kicked the Greens out. The latter demanded a vote of no confidence in the Prime Minister who, to escape a negative result, preferred to throw in the towel himself. While waiting for the general elections in October, the former leader of the SNP in the early 2000s, John Swinney, is running the shop.

In London, Conservative Prime Minister Richi Sunak is closely monitoring this situation. He knows that in the next general elections in Great Britain, probably in October, his party will lose almost everywhere. He therefore prefers not to see early elections in Scotland now, because that would further increase the Labor Party, widely favored in the polls.

Especially since the last municipal elections were favorable to Labor?

Yes, a tidal wave! And Sadiq Khan, the Labor mayor of London, was re-elected for a third term. All this bodes badly for the conservatives, in power since 2010 with 5 prime ministers. Everyone remembers Boris Johnson, everyone remembers Brexit for which the Conservatives were responsible. Everyone remembers Liz Truss, the disaster that was. Rishi Sunak is undoubtedly the last of a chaotic reign with a very controversial post-Brexit record. Many Britons feel they have been shortchanged over what they got.

In the Republic of Ireland, there too, the Prime Minister resigned?

The Republic of Ireland, which has nothing to do with the United Kingdom – it is a member state of the European Union – is also in turmoil. Léo Varadkar is a young Prime Minister. He left for personal reasons, but also because of the results of the referendum for a revision of the Constitution (which dates from 1937): it was a bitter failure for him. The Irish people rejected by two-thirds his proposal to improve the condition of women to give them modern status. Homosexual, dynamic, Léo Varadkar finds himself facing a retrograde Ireland in terms of morals, which is not tenable for him. He was replaced by Simon Harris, who takes his place until the next election, probably in 2025.

And, just to complete, in Northern Ireland (a pro-British Protestant province), we have for the very first time a Catholic Prime Minister Michelle O’Neill. She comes from Sinn Féin, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) which was at the origin of a civil war that Great Britain experienced with Northern Ireland for 30 years. This is all very unusual.