There is a lot of comment and a few other diaries about this, but now that the results are almost completely known I thought I’d put a few thoughts down.
Anyone who’s read my comments before will realise that whilst I consider myself mostly progressive in my thinking, and would certainly be a Democratic Party voter were I American, I sit on the Centre-Right from a UK perspective so I don’t necessarily share the fist-pumping enthusiasm for the election result that others may display. However I think there is some value in briefly setting out the key points in the UK.
OVERALL UK RESULT
The UK has a parliamentary system based on constituencies which elect a Member of Parliament via First Past the Post. This means that it is possible to be elected with a comparatively small vote share in any given seat, especially if there are a number of viable opponents splitting the vote.
A major consequence of this is that — if the arithmetic falls in your favour — it is possible to get a huge majority in parliament on a fairly paltry national vote share. This is one of those occasions.
Sir Keir Starmer will be the new PM in a few hours, with the largest majority anyone can remember. On the face of it, this looks like an amazing achievement for him and for Labour. And of course, in purely governance terms it is. They will have at least five years and probably much longer than that during which they will enjoy totally untrammelled power in the UK.
However, it should be noted that this election result isn’t really the result of Labour getting a lot of votes. Their vote share (currently looking to be around 35%) is historically very low. It is only slightly higher than it was when they were beaten to a pulp by Boris Johnson in 2019. It is lower than when they lost to a lacklustre Theresa May in 2017. Labour made up a huge amount of ground in Scotland (I’ll come onto that) and in fact ALL of their vote share increase across the entire UK is down to that increase in Scotland (in other words, in England and Wales, Labour vote share was no higher than the 2019 election that they lost).
The Liberal Democrats had an amazing night in terms of seats. But this in some ways isn’t about their performance in this election, rather it is about the odd ways that the UK system distorts seat counts. Their vote share was only slightly up on 2019, when they got 8 seats. They will now have over 70 seats on a 12% vote share. That is roughly proportionate. The story is that normally smaller parties like the Lib Dems get totally screwed by the system. Getting 8 out of 640 odd GB seats on a 12% share is ridiculous. Getting 71 is perfectly fair and proper. Between tactical voting, and the splitting of the Tory vote, the system allowed the Lib Dems their rightful share of seats for a change. But they didn’t really convince any additional UK voters to support them.
The Greens are similar, but starting from behind even the Lib Dems. They managed a big rise to 7% of the vote share in GB. This took them from one seat to four seats, which is great for them. But on 7% they really should have got ten times that number. They are where the LibDems were in 2019, basically. Represented, but grossly underrepresented.
Reform are in the same boat, but more so. Twice the vote share of the Greens, but the same number of seats. They had a fantastic night in terms of vote share, but the primary impact was to gift additional seats to Labour and the Liberal Democrats.
WALES
Once again, the Tories have been wiped out in Wales. Labour, Liberal Democrats and Plaid Cymru all benefited. This is despite Labour’s vote falling substantially and the LibDems staying level. There are really two stories in Wales.
Firstly, the splitting of the Tory vote between themselves and Reform left neither party with any seats, despite them getting over 35% of the vote between them (reflect on this — 35% of the vote gets you no seats in Wales, 35% of the vote gets you 2/3rds of the seats in the UK..) Reform are actually stronger in Wales than they are UK wide. But the consequence of voting Reform is to elect Labour MPs.
Secondly, Plaid Cymru genuinely had a good night. They significantly increased their vote share, and now hold pretty much all of “Welsh Wales” (the predominantly rural parts of West Wales where Welsh is the first language). I suspect this reflects the fact that Labour are in government in Wales and haven’t been all that successful/popular. Anyone thinking that an increase in Plaid Cymru support means Welsh independence is on the cards is sorely mistaken. Support for the Union still retains a 2:1 advantage over independence in opinion polls.
Even though Plaid Cymru had a good night, their seat count is still largely down to the concentration of vote. They came fourth in vote share, behind Labour, Conservative and Reform. But their vote is heavily concentrated in certain areas which is what small parties need to get seats.
SCOTLAND
Other than the general Tory collapse caused by Reform and anti-Tory tactical voting, Scotland is really the big story of the night. First Past the Post causes a dynamic where (as mentioned with Wales) small parties suffer from having evenly spread support and benefit from having geographically concentrated support. However, there is a tipping point. A party with evenly spread support of 20% gets no seats. A party with evenly spread support of 50% gets ALL the seats.
This is what happened to the SNP in 2015. They went from seat counts in single figures, to essentially taking every seat in Scotland, because their vote share went up across the board. And what happened last night was basically an unwinding of that. SNP vote share is still pretty high, but it has fallen back below the threshold needed to win seats. So they are back to being second in a lot of places rather than first. The reasons for the SNP’s decline aren’t really anything to do with their core mission of independence, Contrary to what outsiders might think, party choice and views on independence don’t always correlate all that well. Lots of Labour voters support independence. Quite a few SNP voters don’t. The SNP have suffered from traditional political problems like corruption scandals, internal squabbles and a long period of incumbency.
The Tories didn’t do too badly in Scotland compared to elsewhere. They lost a lot of votes (although less than England or Wales) but still held several seats. Reform are less of a factor in Scotland than elsewhere. I am English not Scottish so may not have the greatest grasp on the dynamic, but I would assume that “Ethnic Nationalism” in Scotland may be divided between "Scottish Nationalism” and “British Nationalism”, diluting the supply of anti-foreigner votes available for Reform.
NORTHERN IRELAND
I have very little expertise on Nothern Ireland so I won’t dwell too much. Sinn Fein are now the largest party by seats, but this is slightly illusory as they were joint largest before and the pole position merely reflects some rearranging of the deck chairs on the Unionist side (DUP losing a couple of seats to other Unionists). Vote shares have been essentially static in Northern Ireland. Views on Irish Reunification are also fairly static (a big increase around the time of Brexit, nothing much since).
THE GAZA VOTE
Buried in the vast Labour majority are some interesting results arising from dissension over Gaza policy. Several contituencies rejected Labour MPs due to there being a large Muslim population who turned out for more overtly Pro-Palestinian candidates. Jeremy Corbyn also did suprisingly well as an independent in Islington North (I always thought he’d win) and that is probably partly due to Gaza although there are a lot of other factors at play there. In one truly perverse result, the Tories actually GAINED a seat in Leicester due to the Muslim vote splitting between two candidates. Don’t expect any of this to exert any real pressure on the new government though. One consequence of a colossal majority is that you can just wave away dissenters with a snort.
My personal fear is that a "ghettoisation” of Muslim voters in certain areas could result, increasing the already strong sense of alienation. Some Muslim migrant populations have an understandable tendency to flock together. I don’t want the UK to go down the French path of having entire ghettos where the views and politics are incomprehensible to the wider population.
A VERY LEFT WING PARLIAMENT
One very clear consequence of all of the above factors is that this is the most left-leaning parliament the UK has had, probably in history. On top of Labour holding 2/3rds of the seats, we have SNP seats, Green seats, left-wing Independent seats, Sinn Fein seats (although they don’t sit in them). Even if you count the LibDems as “centre” and not “left”, the left vastly, vastly outnumbers the combined total of right-leaning MPs. If you throw in the LibDems then the left has, basically, almost all of the seats. I personally am a little uncomfortable with this level of imbalance, but then as I said at the start I am centre-right so I would say that.
Of course, Labour have been very careful not to make that many promises and seem to be looking to govern largely from the centre.
THE FUTURE OF THE CONSERVATIVES
The Conservative result is truly awful for them, but it is actually a lot better than it looked like it might be a few weeks ago. Labour’s vote share is lower than in any of the opinion polls. The Tory share is at the very top end of the range of opinion polls.
There was a point when I was concerned that the Tories might be so devastated that they ceased to function at all. That might have led to a takeoever of the right by extremists like we’ve seen in the US, Canada, Italy, France (OK basically everywhere). As it turns out, the Tories are so clearly ahead of Reform, and the “vote Reform get Labour” dynamic is so crystal clear that I think the Tories are safe in their position as the “main opposition”. This might not seem to matter, if you hate the Tories and want Labour to rule a one-party state for eternity, but the truth is that politics is cyclical and the worm will eventually turn. One day, in 10, 15 or 20 years, voters will turf out Labour and replace them with whoever is the main opposition. I think it would a terrible thing if that main opposition was Reform. After yesterday I think that is unlikely.
There is obviously some chatter from the right wing of the Tory party that they should go even further right and do a deal with Reform. I don’t think that will be the main view though. Reform’s predecessors have had high water marks before and have always receded again. I think they will this time. The relatively better Tory performance vs Reform (compared to opinion polls) makes that more likely.
The other question for the Tories is “who do we make leader?” Sunak clearly can’t stay in charge after such a historic failure, particularly as some of it can be personally laid at his door (the timing of the election, the D-Day gaffe fiasco, generally limp campaigning etc).
More than half of the current cabinet have lost their seats, along with a lot of other “bigwigs” (bye bye Liz Truss, don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out). This has affected all wings of the party. The biggest beast remaining is Jeremy Hunt who surprised everyone by just clinging on to his seat. He is relatively “moderate” in Conservative terms, although he has some enemies (on the right because he campaigned for Remain, on the left because of his hardline approach to running Health services). Also a surviving moderate is Tom Tugendhat who has stood for leader before with a respectable showing. He is not without issues, though, both being fervently pro-Israel, and prone to committing driving offences.
On the right, Kemi Badenoch is the obvious candidate, although Esther McVey might also fancy a shot. Interesting that we are talking about two women, one of them black. The British right isn’t the US right…
I think there is a very good chance that someone relatively unknown will come through the middle like David Cameron did in the 2000s. There aren’t that many MPs left, and those that are will have a chance to get into the spotlight (not least because news and current affairs journalism generally insists on a sort of "one from each side” contribution). After a catastrophic failure, being a new face is likely to be a significant advantage. Watch out for people like Laura Trott (a surviving cabinet member, but new and young) and Alicia Kearns.