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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

Political narratives are extremely hard to shift once they have set. There are still people who erroneously attribute Labour’s 1992 election defeat to Neil Kinnock’s over-exuberance at a party rally. Now, as the Conservative party digests the most unpalatable result in its entire history, the first battle will be to set the official version of why they lost. And since this is central to the looming leadership contest, the fight has already begun. In fact it started well before the election.

Where all agree is that this week’s loss marks the collapse of the broad, contradictory and probably unsustainable coalition assembled by Boris Johnson after Brexit, which brought white working class and Leave-supporting voters into the Tory tent alongside successful liberal-minded globalists.

But there, the debate starts. On one side are those Tory rightwingers like Suella Braverman and David Frost, who argue that on tax, immigration and net zero, the party abandoned its core voters, opening up the space for the success of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.

For them the wipeout is entirely explained by a split on the right. In this account Rishi Sunak is a woke, Tory left-winger whose ideological betrayal was compounded by his ineptitude in calling the election before it was necessary and running a disastrous campaign.

The more convincing counter-narrative is that voters felt worse off and were repelled by a government they concluded was incompetent. Defeat was sealed by the Covid lockdown breaches of Johnson’s Downing Street and Liz Truss’s mini-Budget.

Having already lost liberal-minded voters over Brexit, they then lost their new coalition of voters too. But while this explanation makes more sense, the party still needs to heal the split.

Traditionally the Tories would simply move a notch to the right and steal enough of Reform’s clothes to regain their supporters. However, this new opponent will not easily let itself be out-righted. Each move right will also cost votes on the other, more liberal side of the Tory coalition. 

The other problem is that the radical right now has a toehold on Westminster politics and Farage believes he can supersede the Conservatives. Those calling for a new nationalist right argue that there is no point in trying to win back lost liberal Tories.

Reform looks to the success of the radical right in Europe and asks whether it cannot turn into the main voice of the right in the UK. Farage’s ambition will only have been fortified by his modest parliamentary breakthrough and the 98 seats where Reform is currently in second place, almost all of them to Labour. 

Farage argues his party can reach parts of the electorate, notably the white working class and some young men, who backed Johnson but no longer think any of the main parties speaks for them. While the primary damage in this election was to the Tories, he argues that the next time it could be to Labour.

So what next? The UK’s electoral system punishes splits. That means the odds are still in the Conservatives’ favour against Reform. They have more votes, more than twenty times the seats and a historically recognised brand. They will also hope that Reform’s success reflects a temporary disaffection which can be clawed back.

For this to be true, however, the Tories need to find a leader with the confidence to argue for the UK’s economic interests, who can rebuild a broad coalition and speak to the populist vote while not alienating core supporters. This probably means recognising the potency of the immigration issue while finding a way not to put off large sections of liberal and wealth-generating Britain on all other matters. Above all, it means reconnecting with younger voters and families by showing that the party has an economic offer for them.

The challenge is that Farage is one of the most effective communicators in politics. He is rethinking his pitch, softening some of his free-market instincts and looking at how to appeal to younger voters. The Tories are not currently blessed with a similarly stand out figure.

The only other path, unless Farage is gifted the electoral reform he seeks, is some form of unspoken pact with Reform. But this probably requires a few more defeats and stalemates before it could happen.

What is clear is that right-wing politics is now in flux. At its heart is the battle over whether future success lies in a broad coalition built on restored reputation for competence or a radical realignment of the right.

Logic, history and the British electoral system strongly suggests the former. Surrendering to the Faragist path rather than taking it on and defeating it would herald the end of the centre right and a capitulation to unserious politics. But the only guarantee is that as long as the split remains, the right should get used to opposition.

robert.shrimsley@ft.com

CNN
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Attorneys for former President Donald Trump are now seeking to use the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision to help him in his criminal case in Florida over the mishandling of classified documents.

In a new court filing Friday, Trump’s team said they want an updated schedule in the federal classified documents case so they can argue points related to the Supreme Court decision.

The decision “guts the Office’s position that President Trump has ‘no immunity’ and further demonstrates the politically-motivated nature of their contention that the motion is ‘frivolous,’” Trump’s attorneys wrote.

The Supreme Court’s decision directly applies to the federal case over 2020 election subversion efforts in Washington, DC, but it could impact all four of the criminal cases against the former president.

In the filing Friday, Trump’s attorneys also noted Justice Clarence Thomas concurrence to the decision, questioning the validity of special counsel Jack Smith’s appointment. Trump’s attorneys argue the concurrence “adds force” to motions Trump has filed against how Smith was appointed and funded.

CNN previously reported that Trump’s legal team planned to use this week’s Supreme Court opinion to try to get key evidence in the classified documents case tossed out, and Friday’s filing is the first step toward that end.

The move is likely to further elongate an already convoluted and slow road to trial in Judge Aileen Cannon’s courtroom in Fort Pierce, Florida. The judge has yet to decide a number of pretrial matters, including some motions that have been languishing on her docket for months.

Among them is a request from Trump to dismiss most of the charges because Trump’s team says he has presidential immunity for his decision to remove the classified records he held on to in Florida from the White House in the final hours of his presidency.

Cannon has not had a hearing on the matter, but she is likely to take into consideration the Supreme Court’s new ruling, which says the president’s core constitutional powers are immune from prosecution and that courts may need to look more closely at other actions a president takes to see if those may be immune as well.

In the historic opinion released Monday, Thomas wrote about the legality of the special counsel’s office, saying he believed Smith may not be a legitimately appointed prosecutor under the Constitution. That topic hadn’t even been raised by Trump’s team in the DC case, but Trump’s legal team and Smith’s prosecutors argued about the issue at length during a hearing before Cannon last week, with Trump’s team in line with Thomas’ position.

Cannon, a Trump appointee, showed some interest in Trump’s arguments at the hearing but hasn’t yet issued a ruling on that either.

CNN’s Holmes Lybrand contributed to this report.

Sir Keir Starmer has entered Downing Street as Britain’s new prime minister after winning a historic Labour majority of more than 170 seats, declaring: “Our country has voted decisively for change.”

Starmer travelled to Buckingham Palace at midday on Friday and was invited by King Charles to form a government, putting him at the head of the first Labour administration since 2010.

Addressing flag-waving supporters outside Number 10, Starmer said he wanted to rebuild trust between the public and politicians. “This wound, this lack of trust, can only be healed by actions not words,” he said.

“My government will fight every day until you believe again,” the new prime minister added, promising to run a government that would “tread more lightly on your lives”.

But he cautioned: “This will take a while, but have no doubt that the work of change begins immediately.”

Labour’s massive victory at Westminster saw the centre-left party win 411 seats so far, largely at the expense of Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives, who collapsed to the worst defeat in the party’s history.

Nigel Farage’s Reform UK swallowed up Tory votes, leaving the Conservatives with just 121 seats. Labour was able to win its majority with only 34 per cent of the vote, the lowest-ever winning share.

On Friday afternoon, Starmer named Angela Rayner as deputy prime minister and secretary of state for levelling up, housing and communities.

Rachel Reeves was appointed chancellor of the exchequer, becoming the first woman in 800 years to hold the ancient post. David Lammy was made foreign secretary and Yvette Cooper home secretary.

Speaking from Downing Street earlier on Friday, Sunak announced his resignation as prime minister, adding that he would quit as Tory leader once procedures for choosing his successor were in place.

Sunak said: “To the country, I would like to say first and foremost, I am sorry. I have given this job my all, but you have sent a clear signal that the government of the United Kingdom must change.”

“I have heard your anger and disappointment and I take responsibility for this loss.” In his short resignation speech, he described Starmer as a “decent, public-spirited man who I respect”.

It was a historic Labour victory — the party last won an election in 2005 under Sir Tony Blair — but Starmer will become Britain’s new prime minister knowing that Labour’s public support is shallow.

The party was set to win power with about 34 per cent of the national vote, only 10 points higher than the Conservatives on 24 per cent. Before the election, polls put Labour 20 points ahead. Former leftwing Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn won 40 per cent of the vote in his 2017 election defeat.

But Labour’s performance is a triumph for Starmer, a former chief prosecutor who became his party’s leader in 2020 after its worst postwar election defeat. His victory is similar in scale to Blair’s 1997 Labour landslide.

Starmer’s avowedly pro-business agenda appears to have paid off, with housebuilding companies leading a UK stock market rally on Friday. Labour has pledged to build 1.5mn homes over the next five years.

On Friday afternoon, Barratt Developments, Taylor Wimpey, Persimmon and Vistry were all up more than 2 per cent. The FTSE 250 index of domestically focused mid-cap stocks rose 0.6 per cent.

Labour won scores of seats because of the rise of Reform UK, which split the rightwing vote, punishing the Conservatives under the UK’s first past the post electoral system.

One of the victims was former prime minister Liz Truss, among many big Tory names to lose their seats. Her 49-day premiership, and the economic havoc it spawned, contributed to the Conservative meltdown.

“This looks more like an election the Conservatives have lost than one Labour have won,” pollster Sir John Curtice told the BBC.

On Friday afternoon, Farage was heckled as he spoke following his election as an MP in Clacton at his eighth attempt. “Boring, boring, boring,” said the Reform leader as protesters accused him of bigotry.

The arch-Brexiter promised a fresh start for his populist party after it expelled several candidates facing racism allegations.

“We are going to professionalise the party,” he said. “We are going to democratise the party. And those few bad apples who have crept in will be gone.”

Turnout in the election was on course to be about 60 per cent, close to a record low, suggesting general public dissatisfaction with mainstream politics.

Starmer admitted that he faced an immediate task of reconnecting mainstream politics to voters. “The fight for trust is the battle that defines our age,” he said.

With almost all results in, Labour had secured 34 per cent of the vote, the Conservatives 24 per cent, Reform 14 per cent and the Liberal Democrats 12 per cent. Labour had won 411 seats, the Conservatives 121, the Lib Dems 71 and Reform four.

The centrist Lib Dems’ tally smashed the party’s modern-era 62-seat record in 2005, as it made big gains in the Tory “blue wall” of well-heeled seats in the south of England.

The Scottish National party was behind Labour in Scotland with an expected 10 seats, delivering a hammer blow to the party’s dream of securing independence.

Among the high-profile Conservative casualties on a night of Tory desolation were Grant Shapps, defence secretary; Penny Mordaunt, leader of the Commons; Gillian Keegan, education secretary; Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, former cabinet minister; and Alex Chalk, justice secretary.

Corbyn held his Islington North seat, standing as an independent, while George Galloway, the leftwing pro-Palestinian MP for Rochdale, lost his seat to Labour.

But Labour lost four seats — including one held by shadow cabinet member Jonathan Ashworth — to pro-Palestinian independent candidates, an indication of how Starmer’s position on the Israel-Hamas war has hurt his party among many Muslim voters.

The Green party also won all its four target seats in the general election, quadrupling the number of MPs it will send to Westminster and bringing its total in line with Reform UK.

Labour’s victory bucked international political trends, with far-right parties performing strongly in recent European and French elections, and Donald Trump leading in polls for the US presidential race.

Starmer has become only the seventh Labour prime minister in the party’s history. He will immediately form his cabinet after moving into 10 Downing Street on Friday, with an instruction to ministers to quickly deliver policies to jolt Britain out of its low-growth torpor.

Chancellor-in-waiting Reeves has said she hopes investors will now see the UK as a “safe haven”.

The Conservatives’ total of 121 seats is lower than the party’s worst-ever result of 156 in 1906. Starmer’s expected seat haul is close to the 418 seats won by Blair in his 1997 landslide victory.