A risky revolution, spreading?

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Lots of odd things are happening in British politics. Reform UK, which was only founded four years ago, is leaving the established parties in the dust. The Green Party has more members than the Tory Party. The Labour government, which was elected with a massive majority 16 months ago, is slipping further and further in the opinion polls. But the oddest of the lot is that British politics is becoming less British and more foreign.

This is strange for two big reasons. The British have traditionally prided themselves on the uniqueness of their political system; an aristocratic arrangement that evolved peacefully into a democratic one and a hard-headed regime that nevertheless gave people a chance to dress up in odd clothes and engage in weird rituals. Some 35 other countries have adopted the Westminster model; one American president, Woodrow Wilson, wrote a learned book on why the British system is better than the US one.

Yet today the pride has gone and the distinctiveness is disappearing. British politics is becoming simultaneously more American and more European. To add further complexity: The mainland is importing features of the most troubled corner of the British Isles, Ulster.

The Americanization of British politics is the most established and most deliberate trend. Prime ministers have acted increasingly like presidents, amassing ever larger staffs, concentrating power in Downing Street, particularly over foreign policy.

Tony Blair embraced the US version of the British division of powers by creating a supreme court and devolving power to Scotland and Wales. David Cameron supported the devolution of power to American-style mayors. Both parties imported all sorts of features of the US political process, such as consultants and focus groups. In 2014, Ed Miliband employed one of Barack Obama's leading advisors, David Axelrod, ahead of the following year's election.

Nigel Farage has taken Americanization to a new level by importing Trumpism whole cloth. Reform is a facsimile of Donald Trump's remodeled Republican Party: A one-man band that focuses on immigration and wokery and flirts cleverly with extremism. Farage models himself on every detail of his much-heralded friend in the White House, from the carefully choreographed rallies to the semi-jocular style to the habit of giving rivals nicknames - "two-tier Keir" (Starmer) and "Robert Generic" (Jenrick, an aspiring Tory leader). GB News, a channel on which Farage has a show, is a British version of Fox News.

The left is responding with Americanization of its own; Zack Polanski, the new head of the Green Party, models himself on Zohran Mamdani, the leading candidate for the mayoralty of New York, down to his exuberant style and far-fetched promises.

Britain's fraught withdrawal from the European Union coincided with (and partly precipitated) the Europeanization of UK politics. In 1882, Gilbert and Sullivan captured one of the basic features of the political system with the quip that every newborn Briton was "either a little Liberal or else a little Conservative."

Today, the two-party system is fragmenting, with five or even six different groups competing for votes. The days when Brits woke up on the morning after an election to see who had "won" may be ending; instead, we may have to endure the continental ritual of prolonged bargaining as the parties struggle to form coalitions - Reform plus the Conservatives versus Labour plus the Liberal Democrats and the Greens.

Then there's the strange inversion of politics in the British Isles: The British center importing distinctive symbols of Ulster life, including the flags of rival communities fluttering from lampposts and crowds of young men marching through the streets over military conflicts that either took place a long time ago, as in Ulster, or are unfolding in the Middle East. Masked protestors in Canary Wharf carried a "no surrender" flag in conscious imitation of Ulster unionists.

Such symbolism reflects the fact that the politics of the mainland is being reshaped by the same forces that shape Ulster: Ethnic loyalties (and hostilities) that are so instinctual that they override material considerations. In Ulster, Catholics vote for Catholics, Protestants for Protestants, and politicians are primarily ethnic bosses rather than technocrats. In Muslim-dominated areas of England, Muslims are increasingly voting for Muslim leaders based on their position on the Gaza War.

Britain has four independent MPs elected in Muslim-majority areas based on their stance on Gaza - when Shockat Adam defeated Labour in Leicester South, he held up a keffiyeh and declared "this is for the people of Gaza." Dozens of Labour MPs worry that they will suffer a similar fate in the next election. Jess Phillips, for example, won her Yardley seat with a greatly reduced majority of 693, thanks to a strong challenge from the pro-Palestinian Workers Party.

The British left sees its future in harnessing Muslim ethnic politics: Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is forming a new party with Zarah Sultana, a Labour MP who left the party over Gaza.

The rise of Muslim politics is taking place against a broader landscape of ethnic voting. The Scottish Nationalist Party continues to dominate Scottish politics, despite a dismal recent performance characterized by political scandals and the deteriorating quality of the welfare state. Plaid Cymru, the Welsh national party, recently won a thumping victory in Caerphilly, ousting Labour for the first time in a century.

Britain's old-style pride in its peculiar traditions may have been a little overwrought; the two-party system meant that minorities often felt squeezed out, and the ceremonial side of British politics could sometimes feel a little Ruritanian. Yet, overall, the country did a remarkable job in balancing change with continuity and embracing minority rights. The Blairite modernization of British politics has left the technocratic elite even more disconnected from the tradition-loving British people. And the communalization of British politics is quickly replacing consensus-making with conflict.

The ongoing political revolution gives us more to worry about than to celebrate.

Adrian Wooldridge is the global business columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. He was previously a writer at the Economist. His latest book is "The Aristocracy of Talent: How Meritocracy Made the Modern World."