Labour Party leader Keir Starmer is the new British Prime Minister after the Tories suffered their worst defeat in the July 4 general election.
“We did it! Change begins now,” Starmer said in his victory speech after the Labour landslide ending 14 years of Tory rule.
The outgoing Conservative prime minister, Rishi Sunak, conceded the election hours before all the results were announced. Sunak, who retained his north Yorkshire seat of Richmond and Northallerton with 47.5 per cent of the vote, said: “The British people have delivered a sobering verdict tonight, there is much to learn… and I take responsibility for the loss.”
Labour’s crushing victory
The media are drawing parallels with the 1997 general election when Tony Blair led Labour to a landslide victory. Under him, Labour won 418 seats in the House of Commons, gaining a 179-seat majority and reducing the Conservatives to only 165 seats.
Labour won an equally crushing victory this year.
With 648 of the 650 seats declared, Labour has won 412, Conservatives 121, Liberal Democrats 71, Scottish National Party nine, Sinn Feinn seven, Independents six, Democratic Unionist Party five, Reform UK four, Green four, Plaid Cymru four, Social Democratic & Labour Party two, Alliance one, UUP one, and Traditional Unionist Voice one.
But a closer look reveals telling differences.
Labour won the 1997 election with 43.2 per cent of the votes cast.
Labour’s low vote share
The Guardian, on the other hand, shows Labour has so far won only 33.8 per cent of the votes cast this time for the 648 seats declared so far.
This is a slight improvement from the last election, in 2019, when Labour under Jeremy Corbyn won only 32.1 per cent of the vote.
But it’s far less than the 40 percent Labour won under Corbyn in 2017, when it still lost the election, recalls the Telegraph.
Starmer’s own numbers are down. He retained his Holborn and St Pancras seat in London, but his majority was almost halved from 22,766 in 2019 to 11,572 this year.
Labour won the election because the Conservative vote split.
The Conservatives won 23.7 per cent of the vote and the far right Reform Party 14.3 per cent, according to the Guardian.
Their combined vote share, therefore, is greater than Labour’s.
However, the two parties did not form a united front. Reform, an anti-immigration new party founded by Nigel Farage, ate into Conservative votes, luring away voters unhappy about various problems from the housing crisis to National Health Service woes.
The “main reason for the Conservatives’ significant drop in support – and Labour’s subsequent seat gains – was Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party”, says the Guardian.
Besides winning four seats, Reform came in second place in a further 103 constituencies.
“Fears of a split in the right-wing vote were realised, with Reform’s vote share potentially costing the Conservatives in 180 seats: in other words had all Reform votes gone to the Conservatives in these seats, they would have won them,” the Guardian adds.
‘Loveless landslide’
Some are calling the Labour victory a “loveless landslide”.
“Turnout at the general election is on track to be the lowest for more than 20 years,” the Independent reported. “After 630 of 650 results had been declared, the turnout figure stood at 59.8%.”
Several high-profile Conservatives lost their seats, including former prime minister Liz Truss, former home secretary Suella Braverman, former defence secretary Grant Schapps, former education secretary Gillian Keegan, and Penny Mordaunt, who stood against Rishi Sunak to be Conservative leader.
“It was more of an anti-Conservative vote, than a pro-Labour one,” says the Guardian.
“Scotland’s independence movement took a body blow,” it added, noting the Scottish National Party losses. It lost 36 seats to Labour.
The Economist said: “If anyone concludes that Britain is back to normal, however, they should think again. The electorate has become extraordinarily volatile… Voters have handed an enormous win to a party that appears to arouse little excitement. It is a resounding stamp of approval that manages to feel like a shrug.”