India, May 12 -- The results of last week's council elections in the UK point to the decline in popularity of the ruling Labour Party across Britain: It lost 1,400 councillors across England, saw its strength diminished in Scotland, and lost power in Wales. The big takeaway from these polls, which saw two-thirds of the electorate vote, is that British electoral politics is no longer a duopoly but a hugely fragmented landscape: The influence of the two traditional biggies, Labour and the chief opposition, the Conservatives, is declining, while the Reform UK and, to a small extent, the Greens are gaining ground. The Liberal Democrats, one pole of the UK's original bipolar polity, are still around, though a shadow of their original centrist self. The present results reveal an electorate that seems alienated from the traditional UK parties that have been in the government and opposition. The increasing acceptance for Reform UK has to be seen against this backdrop. A political startup formed in 2018 around the Brexit agenda, the rise of the Reform UK is revealing, especially considering its espousal of anti-immigration and anti-minority agendas. A wobbling British economy, characterised by high unemployment, and the rise of anti-immigration sentiment, both a part of the same continuum, have contributed to Reform UK's popularity. The results are likely to undermine the position of Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who has lost considerable ground since winning office in 2024. Forty Labour MPs have asked him to step down. His leadership has been under a cloud ever since Peter Mandelson, his appointee to Washington, was forced to quit after revelations in the Epstein Files. Labour may need a reset, just as it did by inventing the idea of New Labour in the wake of the Conservative onslaught in the Thatcherite era....