Part 3 of my series on the latest United Kingdom election.
- Part 1 details Prime Minister Keir Starmer‘s politics and how he fits into Labour’s coalition.
- Part 2 details current Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner‘s ideology and why I believe she will succeed Starmer.
Now, I will go through some historical analysis of this election and why Labour won last night.
The election is over, and Keir Starmer is Prime Minister.
Turnout dropped over 7 points versus the 2024 election.
This is Labour’s first victory since the 2005 election and the third-largest Labour majority in history by pure number of seats.
The Conservatives won the lowest number of seats since electoral reform in 1832.
This was the best performance for the Liberal Democrats/Whigs since 1923.
Labour did not win this election because they had a strong platform and a leader who inspired the United Kingdom. Quite the opposite. Labour won this election because the Tories lost 4 million votes to Reform, who feel that Brexit didn’t go far enough. This did not happen in 2019 because the Reform Party (then known as the Brexit Party) refused to run directly against sitting Conservative MPs, postponing the spoiler effect and ensuring maximum Brexit. The big issue now was opposing lockdowns during the COVID pandemic and a spattering of right-wing policies, each one crazier than the last. By moving towards the far right, the far right has only become more emboldened, as always happens in history.
To understand this election, you need to understand Reform.
Response to David Cameron
When David Cameron saw a small group of right-wing crazies in the 2010s, the appropriate thing to do would be to ignore and work with his LibDem coalition to create a stable and moderate government. However, David Cameron is sly, and we know that he agrees with Brexit/Reform on many issues. David Cameron is not the only reason the UK has Brexit. Liberal Democrat leadership gave him legitimacy as PM, and Jeremy Corbyn is himself a Euroskeptic, similar to Reform, and that perfect storm led Britain to the mess they are in now.
David Cameron and Jeremy Corbyn’s ideological movement towards the politicians who would later form the Brexit party significantly moved the Overton Window in the United Kingdom to the right.
David Cameron and Jeremy Corbyn are weak leaders, and the Liberal Democrats were widely discredited for forming a coalition with David Cameron. No major party leader had both the moral fiber and enough political capital to respond appropriately to Brexit. It was the perfect storm.
Now, if a country like St. Kitts elected a right-wing government that left CARICOM, you probably would not even know about it since it is a small country with a small economy and under a million people. CARICOM is primarily made up of small countries and does not have global influence. It would not reverberate across the world.
However, the United Kingdom has the ninth-largest economy in the world, is a UN Security Council member, a G7 member, a NATO member, and has a significant military in its own right. It is the second-largest economy in Europe, behind only Germany (excluding Russia), has a highly advanced economy, the 21st largest population (3rd highest in Europe, excluding Russia), and has global cultural influence. What happens in Britain does not stay in Britain.
I expect the increasing isolationism in the United Kingdom is probably a major cause of the global move towards isolationism, with more tariffs and visa restrictions popping up worldwide.
Brexit impacts everyone on Earth.
This election is not so much a victory for Labour but a direct effect of the Conservative Party’s failure to contain its fringe element, which has now become a major political force in the United Kingdom because, at the core, they are cowards.
Voter apathy in Britain is up. This “victory” is the smallest number of votes Labour has received since 2015.
This is way older than Brexit
Honestly, why wouldn’t they be apathetic? There have been 33 elections now since 1900, inclusive. The Tories have only won a majority of the vote three times since the beginning of the 20th century, in 1900, 1931, and 1955. That should have given them control of government for only 14 years. But the Tories have formed a government for 72 of the last 124 years.
Without proportional representation, as they continue to elect absolute clowns like Arthur Balfour, Neville Chamberlain, Anthony Eden, Alec Douglas-Home, John Major, David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, and Rishi Sunak, one would be concerned for their mental health if they did not feel disillusioned by their political system.
Not to say all British Prime Ministers have been utter shit, though many of them have been. Campbell-Bannerman, Asquith, and George were fantastic Liberal prime ministers in the early 20th century. Stanley Baldwin and Winston Churchill were good Prime Ministers for their era. Clement Attlee created the modern British economy. Harold Macmillan was a liberal prime minister despite being a Tory. He led Britain through economic prosperity in the late fifties and early sixties and supported decolonization. Gordon Brown correctly responded to the recession with counter-cyclical policies.
There have been good times, but there have also been prime ministers who have significantly damaged the United Kingdom.
This was the stage Britain entered into this election. Most Tory prime ministers have been bad for Britain, and the people know it, but since the Labour and Liberal Democratic parties have not merged, getting even a centrist government in the United Kingdom remains elusive under their first-past-the-post election system.
Solution
The solution to this quagmire is simple. Britain needs proportional representation, and the Tories will finally have to earn the vote of Britons instead of relying on a spoiler effect between the Liberal Democrats and Labour.
It’s fitting however, before the Labour Party, there were only four spoilt elections in British history. Since the Labour Party became a major political force in World War I, all but two conservative victories have been spoilt.
Most Labour Party voters support proportional representation.
But Keir Starmer does not.
Labour voters need to switch to the Liberal Democrats, the only left-wing party in England.
If Labour does not fix Britain’s inherently broken election system, the United Kingdom will likely have another Conservative government in 5 or 10 years.
References:
https://labourlist.org/2024/06/first-past-the-post-labour-proportional-representation/
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