So, it’s been around 13 hours since the polls closed last night, and we have a new Prime Minister in Sir Keir Starmer. Obviously, as a Labour Party member, I’m delighted that Labour have won the election, and with a sizeable majority too.
This is a quick, stream-of-consciousness blog post reacting to the results, and what I think it means for each party. I’ll be referring to these statistics from the BBC throughout.
Labour
Obviously this is, for the most part, a fantastic result for Labour. Having had a dire outcome in the last General Election in 2019, to come back and win a sizeable majority of seats is an impressive turnaround.
It’s not a perfect result; some polls in the run-up to the election suggested an even bigger win, and Labour has only gained 1.6% of the total votes compared to last time. And some seats have been lost, notably two in Leicester and one in the new Batley and Dewsbury constituency (which covers part of the old constituency of Batley and Spen where Jo Cox was assassinated in 2016). These both have large Muslim populations who have not approved of Labour’s stance in relation to the war in Gaza.
The limited swing in the popular vote suggests that people have not voted enthusiastically for Labour, but are voting against the Conservatives. Whilst it could be 2029 before we have another election, Labour may need to do more to convince people to stick with them next time. I believe Labour’s strategy has deliberately been vague and uncontroversial to get elected, and marks a break from the Jeremy Corbyn era (who incidentally retained his seat as an independent candidate). Now that they’re in power, with a healthy majority, I hope that they will pursue a more progressive agenda. Labour could definitely do more to reward those on the left who have backed them, especially around LGBTQ+ issues. Kier Starmer wrote an op-ed piece for Attitude magazine, to which its editor has had to add clarification based on Starmer’s comments about Trans* people in recent weeks.
Conservatives
The Tories have taken a deserved battering. After winning a majority last time, we’ve had two changes of Prime Minister, and a government that has looked increasingly out of ideas. Big issues like the state of the NHS, failing school buildings, universities approaching bankruptcy, and thousands of refugees fleeing conflict risking their lives on small boats in the English Channel, have not been tackled. Instead, we’ve had ‘culture wars’ and inaction.
No wonder this became the worst defeat in the party’s history for what it calls itself ‘the natural party of government‘. It wasn’t as bad as some polls suggested – one had the Tories in third place behind the Liberal Democrats. But they have less than 1/5th of the seats in the Commons now, with a net loss of 250 – more than two-thirds of the seats they were defending. And whilst Rishi Sunak retained his seat, many of his government colleagues did not – nor did previous Prime Minister Liz Truss. It’s also notable that Wales now has no Tory MPs anymore.
Liberal Democrats
As mentioned, some pre-election polls predicted that the LibDems would win more seats than the Tories, making them the official opposition. It would be very funny if that had happened, with both the government and main opposition formed of centre-left parties. This didn’t come to pass – the Tories didn’t quite as terribly – but with 71 seats, the LibDems have more than they did in 2010 when they entered a coalition with the Tories.
Whilst Ed Davey has some skeletons in his closet from his time as a minister with responsibility for the Post Office during the Horizon scandal, he ran an entertaining and well-targeted campaign. His various stunts brightened up the pre-election period, and by focussing their campaign on a number of core target seats, they’ve pulled off a great result.
Reform UK
Urgh. If I have to say the phrase ‘The Right Honourable Nigel Farage MP’, it’ll be through gritted teeth. On his eighth attempt, he has finally become an MP, representing Clacton-on-sea in Essex. Reform’s popularity surged throughout the pre-election period, and even last night’s exit poll predicted that they would win 17 seats. Despite more than 4 million people voting for them (urgh again), they only picked up 4 seats – three of which are seaside constituencies: the aforementioned Clacton, along with Great Yarmouth and Boston & Skegness.
If we had some form of proportional representation, then Reform would have won more seats than the LibDems and become the third-largest party. As it is, by fielding a candidate in just about every constituency, arguably they spread themselves too thinly. At best, they split the right-wing vote and helped Labour into power.
Green Party/ies
The Green Party of England and Wales have held a single seat in Brighton for a few years, but never managed to capitalise on this elsewhere. Until now, having won 4 MPs this time, and almost 2 million votes. That puts them on a par with Reform, so, theoretically they should receive the same amount of airtime. This is a really good result for them.
Workers Party GB
George Galloway’s latest vehicle has run into a siding, again. Having won a by-election in Rochdale just four months ago, Galloway managed to lose his seat, and none of their other candidates did any better. Nationally, they picked up over 200,000 votes, which is more than Plaid Cymru achieved in Wales. No doubt Galloway will pop up again in another constituency by-election in time.
A new Prime Minister
So, we have our sixth Prime Minister since our eight-year-old was born in 2015. I’m hoping for a period of relative stability – for context, I was 32 when my sixth Prime Minister, Theresa May, took up the post in 2016. Keir Starmer has promised ‘change’ – let’s hope it’ll be effective change for the better.
As for the rest of the world? I hope that Britain’s ability to move on from having a right-wing populist government will give some hope to those in the USA and France, who have imminent elections.