Ukraine faces decisive months ahead as key allies gear up for crunch elections. While early presidential campaigning in the US and a looming general election in Poland will grab the international headlines, a snap election in Slovakia on 30 September may prove every bit as consequential. 

With Robert Fico — Slovakia’s former prime minister and one of the West’s most outspoken critics of the Ukrainian war effort — poised to win the vote, a change of government in Bratislava could have a profound effect on EU policymaking. Fico has promised that if his party makes it into government “we will not send a single bullet to Ukraine,” proudly proclaiming that “I allow myself to have a different opinion to that of the United States” on the war.  

Fico has also claimed on the campaign trail that “war always comes from the West and peace from the East,” and that “what is happening today is unnecessary killing, it is the emptying of warehouses to force countries to buy more American weapons.” Such statements have resulted in him being blacklisted by Kyiv as a spreader of Russian propaganda.  

Yet the former prime minister spearheads a new brand of Left-wing, anti-American populism that has become a powerful force in Central Europe since the war began. Perceptions that “the Americans occupy us” — as one MP in Fico’s Smer party evocatively put it — are shared with a similar groundswell of anti-Western opinion in the neighbouring Czech Republic.  

Yet Smer has been handed a chance to gain power thanks to the chaos which has engulfed Slovakia’s pro-EU, pro-Western forces. Personal grievances coupled with serious policy errors tore apart a four-party coalition formed after elections in 2020, leaving Fico to capitalise on heightened mistrust in establishment politics. Smer is expected to become the nation’s largest party after this month’s election, with an anticipated 20% of the vote.  

Whatever the specific makeup of the new government, if Smer is the largest party it will likely pursue a foreign policy similar to that of Viktor Orbán’s government in Hungary. A halt to until-now generous Slovak arms shipments to Ukraine is Fico’s central electoral pledge, while the arrival on the scene of another Orbán-style government prepared to obstruct EU aid efforts for Ukraine would create a serious headache. That is particularly the case as Brussels struggles to win support for both short and long-term war funding commitments. 

Victory for Fico would also amplify Orbán’s scepticism about the overall Western narrative on Ukraine — a scepticism which the Hungarian Prime Minister recently conveyed to Western conservatives during an interview with Tucker Carlson. Orbán portrayed Ukraine’s attempts to win back the territories taken by Russia as ultimately hopeless and claimed that Donald Trump’s promise to end the war quickly makes him “the man who can save the Western world”. 

Like Trump in America and Orbán in Europe, Fico is hated with a passion by establishment forces. But in Slovakia, the pro-Western establishment itself has become so mistrusted that power may soon pass to a man intent on shattering what’s left of European unity on Ukraine. 

Despite another denial from Downing Street, speculation that a snap election is imminent isn’t going away. It’s no wonder. This week’s Budget is a policy vacuum that begs to be filled — by, say, a manifesto. Also, take a look at the Office for Budget Responsibility’s predictions for the economy. The decline of housebuilding, for instance, or the spending cuts implied by the Government’s borrowing plans. Does 2029 seem an auspicious time for a general election? No.

Then there’s Andy Burnham’s loose talk about rejoining the European Union in some way. But he can’t sit on the issue for too long, because his colleagues are already causing problems by floating their own ideas. And yet the Prime Minister won’t regain control of the debate he started unless he departs from Keir Starmer’s status quo. By Burnham’s own admission, however, that can’t happen in this parliament.

Of course, calling an early election would mean facing a new parliament. And yet that tactic doesn’t always work. In 2019, Boris Johnson gambled and won. In 2017, Theresa May gambled and lost. In 2007, Gordon Brown almost went for it then lost his nerve. Three precedents, three different outcomes.

But for the most relevant precedent, we need to look back more than a hundred years. In 1923, the prime minister was Stanley Baldwin. He was a Tory, but like Burnham he was sitting on a Commons majority and had plenty of time before he had to call an election. So what possessed him to go to the country so soon?

Crucially, Baldwin — like Burnham — was a replacement prime minister (his predecessor, Andrew Bonar Law, had stepped down due to ill health). That meant the Tory majority wasn’t Baldwin’s majority, which mattered because he wanted to make major changes to Government policy. Specifically, his plan was to tackle rising unemployment by raising trade barriers. However, this would have gone against a promise by the Conservatives at the 1922 general election — hence the need for a fresh mandate.

Burnham finds himself in a remarkably similar position. Though he’d argue that he wants to liberalise trade, rejoining the single market and/or customs union would subject the UK to the EU’s common external trade barriers with the rest of the world. And in any case, Starmer fought the 2024 general election on an explicit commitment — the “red lines” — not to do either of those things.

If that parallel isn’t close enough, consider the fact that Baldwin was emboldened by a seemingly divided opposition. In the early Twenties, the Labour Party was on the rise and the Liberal Party was split between the Asquith and Lloyd George factions. Today, the great schism is between the Conservatives and Reform UK, which will encourage Burnham to fight an election.

But here comes the twist. By fighting the 1923 election on a protectionist platform, Baldwin’s strategy backfired, inspiring the Liberals to reunite around the cause of free trade. The Tories lost 86 seats and their majority. The Liberals did well enough to enable Ramsay MacDonald to form a Labour minority government.

And so the question for Burnham is this: can he be sure that fighting a snap election on a promise to drag Britain back into Europe won’t rally and reunite the Right-of-centre opposition? After his spectacular miscalculation, Baldwin was allowed to remain as Tory leader. Burnham may not be so readily forgiven.

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Peter Franklin is Associate Editor of UnHerd. He was previously a policy advisor and speechwriter on environmental and social issues.

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