On July 8, 2018, the New Zealand Labour Party merged into the National Party. Just hours later, though, it was back, revived by former leader /u/FelineNibbler and /u/TheKirrix, although many suspect that TheKirrix was the real brains behind the revival. Let’s look at how this happened. Shortly after the third general election, Speaker of the House and one of the strongest Labour members /u/alpine- created her own Reform party. The increased activity and status of Reform led to a spike in the polls for Reform and subsequently, a drop in the polls for Labour. On 1 June 2018, Labour leader /u/fartoomuchpressure resigned to take up the position of Governor-General. Combined with the merger of the Māori Party into the Greens a week ago, this lead to a further drop in the polls for Labour. Former Labour MP /u/FelineNibbler was parachuted into fartoomuchpressure’s list seat and coronated as leader on the 2nd of June. Polling conducted shortly after them showed Labour at 8%- a dismal drop from the election result of 21%. A disastrous merger with United Future simply led to a further drop in the polls, and the almost immediate dethroning of United Future leader turned deputy leader of Labour /u/TheOWOTriangle. In the election, Labour did little campaigning, and leader FelineNibbler unexepectedly and surprisingly resigned, making way for Stalinomics, who merged the party into National. Thus began Red Saturday. The merger had apparently occured without consultation of the Labour membership, and Stalinomics seemingly did it for his own personal benefit- he became National Party President and candidate for Southern. Combined with Labour’s appeal and lead there, victory was assured for Stalinomics, or so he thought. Leading a coalition of former Labour members unhappy with the merger, the party was quickly revived. TheKirrix, who was, as mentioned earlier, considered the person who launched the revival, made Labour deputy leader and candidate for Southern. However, the party’s polling continued to fall, down to a disastrous 1 seat. Due to the MMP system which New Zealand holds its election, there was no way of saying who could enter parliament. The race in Southern was razor-close, and if TheKirrix won, he would become Labour’s only MP. But if he lost, FelineNibbler would enter as a list MP. Ultimately, by a margin of 596, TheKirrix pulled it out in Southern. With Labour only polling on 1 seat, FelineNibbler failed to enter parliament. This means that Labour’s deputy is in parliament, while Labour’s leader is not. Yet another schism would be horrific, so FelineNibbler will most likely step down peacefully.
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