Will we now build Jerusalem? Boy, is that a recontextualised reference these days. Labour has won a landslide result in the UK election. Paradoxically, it may be a disappointing one. The exit poll released at 10pm UK time (7am on the east coast here) has Labour winning 410 seats, with the Tories on 131, the Lib Dems at about 60, the Scottish National Party (SNP) collapsing to 10 seats, and “upstart” Reform taking 13.
That appears to be accurate. At noon here, 3am London time, Labour was on track for well above 400, and the Tories, well, they’ve lost four of their five seats declared. About 100 seats will be declared as I file.
So it’s the worst result in the modern history of the Conservative Party (let’s not go back to 1832 and the Reform Act). It’s a real dumper. Labour is in command, and the centre of Labour is in command of Labour. What remained of the left has been purged and there is a left-centre-left that will use the freedom of the backbench (there’s an idea, ALP!) to dissent and cross.
Update: 4pm east coast, 3:30pm Adelaide, 1957 Perth.
With 610 of 650 seats declared, Labour has won 400 seats and the Tories 106. Looks like Labour will get 420 or so, the Tories 115. The Lib Dems have done better than polled, getting 70 seats, a result of a great deal of tactical voting, which probably took 10 seats off Tories and Labour alike. The Greens have quadrupled their holding from one to four, in a country where hyphenated names aren’t academics’ children, they own Shropshire. Reform also got four seats, down from the 13 or so expected, but getting a lot more news coverage than the Greens.
Plaid Cymru doubled their holdings from two to four in Wales. The biggest loser party-wise was the SNP, destroyed as a force, down to seven our eight seats from 48. Sinn Fein is the clear force in the Six Counties/Northern Ireland, with the DUP losing at least three down from seven. Three or four seats were taken from Labour by British Asian i.e. Muslim community candidates, protesting Gaza.
The individual losers? Where do we start? The biggest loss, in terms of possible future leaders is Penny Mordaunt, who held the sword while dressed as an Air Macedonia stewie in the coronation. Grant Shapps, a real estate agent type has gone. Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Toad Hall Tory with a nannie, has gone, And my God, former PM Liz Truss went too. She was a spent force anyway, but my God…
But all that said, it may not become the result Labour — and quite a lot to the left of Labour — was hoping for. Leaving aside silly outlier polls predicting the Tories going down to 10 or being wiped out, there was a real hope that they could be driven below 100 seats.
Double figures would have been a huge blow to the Tories, taking them into the scrum with the minor parties. Had it come down to the 70s or 80s — and in first-past-the-post voting that would be a matter of a 2% or 3% shift — the Lib Dems, SNP and Greens could have formed a parliamentary alliance and petitioned to be the official opposition.
Okay, it was unlikely to happen. The Tories remain the opposition. Everyone who was associated with them will now leave, in a series of by-elections, several of which they will lose — and a new leadership, if it is smart, will do what Keir Starmer did, and pour one bucket of manure after another on the former leadership, mercilessly. It will do what it didn’t do in 1997, recognise that the world has changed and reorient its politics. Whether any leader can do that, and whether the party would respond, is another question.
Nevertheless, and though they won’t say it, some in Labour, towards the centre, will be relieved that the Tories didn’t collapse entirely, because many of their deeper losses would have been taken by Reform UK, the third iteration of UKIP/the Brexit Party. It is on track for 10-15 seats, a curiosity, and below the level it could really build from. Had it gained 30-40, its neo-Thatcherism would have constituted an edgy pseudo-opposition, and moved the country to the right.
Some Tories might take some comfort in the idea that you can have too large a majority — as Boris Johnson’s 80-seat win turned out to be. But by that time, the Tories were a coalition of princelings. The collapse of unity in the Brexit period had prepared for a period of decadence. Having won Brexit, the Tories didn’t want to actually run the new polity they’d created, even though they’d said that was exactly what Brexit was for.
Starmer Labour doesn’t have that problem. This is a united party, coming from a common idea of what politics is, even if the policy settings vary somewhat. It is now a European-style technocratic social democratic/social market party (and how often has the German SPD dreamed of first-past-the-post!). It is well to the left of Albanese Labor, but it is still after the same thing: to become the reliable party of capital, the one that major corporations would prefer to have in power. There are major dangers ahead for that approach, but no-one can doubt its desire to reconstruct the country. The question is what it wants to make it into.
What about the minor minors? The Lib Dems are likely back to the strength they gained in 2010, before the coalition with the Conservatives destroyed them. What they become is another question. Their social-liberal faction’s politics have been taken by Labour, while Reform has a toothier agenda than their free-market faction. They have a major role to play in protecting and re-extending civil liberties, and new ideas about social process and foreign policy. But will they take it? Part of their base is now Tory shires that couldn’t bring themselves to vote for the Blue rabble.
The SNP has lost, absolutely. Total dominance in Scotland was always going to fray. But modish cultural politics, internal splits and corruption utterly discredited it. Gorgeous George Galloway has lost Rochdale, which he snatched a few months ago. And just heard that Jeremy Corbyn has retained his seat as an independent in Islington North by 7,000 votes!
But at this moment of joy/relief/grudging respect for and by leftists, well, I hate to play the Grim Reaper… actually I love to play the Grim Reaper. I went to a party in Hackney (London not Adelaide) in 1998 as such and had to be led through the dark streets by a friend holding the sleeve of my hessian robe (actually, the now very distinguished novelist Sandra Newman, who was dressed as a genetic engineering accident, in green slime and a mannequin head on her shoulder. Innocent times? No, we knew things were on the way down even then). We got to a shabby off-licence/corner shop and went in to stock up. “I am death, shatterer of worlds,” I announced, among the pork scratchings and lard and grease-flavoured crisps, to the half dozen people also there, getting six-packs of Thug lager and Moldovan Phwuickk two quid red wine. “Get in the queue,” someone said. Ladies and gentlemen, Great Britain.
…anyway, I hate to be the Grim Reaper, but firstly, this was won off a low turn out. Labour got 35% of the vote, 5% short of Corbyn’s 2017 victory. Overall turn out may be in the high 50s. That is substantial disengagement. But it won’t be won back by the Left left. The combination of comprehensive socialism and liberal-radical social values on immigration, borders, sexuality, etc. Gone beyond gone folks, and unless you’re hoping that this is some dialectical less-than-zero moment, from which all will spring forth, a rethinking is required.
It’s true that Corbyn Labour almost got there in 2017. But it did so as a pro-Brexit “respect the result” party. Trying to combine economic leftism and cosmopolitan social values in 2019, they got, well, phwuickk is the word. Those who want to organise workers, the excluded, the poor, the beaten-down, better get in the queue. As a knight of the realm journeys to a palace to seek to form a government at the pleasure of the king, in England’s green and pleasant land.
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Well, the best news in that report, as far as I am concerned is that Jeremy Corbyn has retained his seat as an independent in Islington North by 7,000 votes. I am very pleased to hear that.
Guy describes the Keir Starmer-led Labour Party as being “well to the left of Albanese Labor”. Well, god, that wouldn’t be hard to do!!
The British Labour Party, just like the Australian (so-called) “Labor Party” is in thrall to the capitalist class. They only seek to modify the capitalist system rather than make urgently necessary and revolutionary changes.
It’s annoying, isn’t it? I’m naturally a Corbynite but have to accept Corbyn in the end he gave Johnson a thumping majority. I wish it were otherwise.
Or in thrall to ageing middle class virtue signaling boomers who hold much wealth through property, both left and right.
The Tories are utterly discredited, as shown by their collapse; it’s hard to understand why anybody at all voted for them after the last 14 years. But despite Labour’s majority, it too has gone backwards, with less support than it had under Corbyn. The UK’s voters are angry, frustrated and disillusioned. Labour would need a miracle to retain and build on this result, and there will be no miracle. Labour’s extremely cautious policy manifesto gives it no madate to do anything significant. It has tied its hands to ensure it fails, believing that was a necessary condition of winning this election. The UK is in such dreadful shape it would have been very challenging to achieve much, but Labour has made sure from the start it can do almost nothing except give some relief from the unadulterated lunacy of the Tory years. It is not only on areas where money is necessary (the NHS, education and so on) that Labour has little to offer, it has shied away from any policies that could be implemented at almost no financial cost, such as political reforms. At the next election the fringe crazies will be stronger than ever, and the volatility of the electorate, plus the potential for extreme shifts provided by FPTP voting once the two major parties do not command the bulk of the votes, means, as the old curse puts it, interesting times ahead.
Correction: delete ‘madate’, insert ‘mandate’. (A madate would be more suitable for a Tory government.)
BTW there’s a fascinating guest essay by Oliver Eagleton about Keir Starmer in the NYT, ‘Britain’s Next Prime Minister Has Shown Us Who He Is, and It’s Not Good’. It’s a handy reminder of Starmer’s record before he became Labour leader, his illiberal authoritarian intolerance, and his enthusiasm for crushing dissent. He earned that knighthood by ruthlessly backing state authority. He has a general lack of interest in any other policy, though at least Starmer is comparitively honest.
which Guy appears to approve of-
Starmer got Labour in. Corbyn got Johnson in. I don’t like it either but a step at a time.
The hope for the fact there is a society and that Neoliberalism Austerity has failed is France. Their choice is stark. The French to avoid the far right in power have to ignore the Financial Times narrative and vote for the left. Macron’s line of the far right and the hard left are the same has failed. The capitalists will try and pretend you either have to be capitalists to be mainstream or you are radical but their narrative is risking enabling the far right in France. The nuance we had in our election that has retained the left here is absent from that Macron/Financial Times view that the old divisions of left and right are over. Thats Labours challenge. To rule for all they have to deliver public services, They cannot embrace austerity so beloved by the Financial Times.types. Starmer cannot eliminate the left and be a centrist any more than the Tories could not elinminate the right and be centrist despite Cameron’s best attempt with the Brexit referendum to destroy UKIP,
Or to put it simply. Tax and spend. Bill Shorten’s campaign failed in execution but was on the right track.
Indeed – Starmer’s first move should be to tax the money-laundering assistants working in the City, and their customers. Read Oliver Bullough’s “Moneyland” and “Butler to the World”.
With that money, he can start work on the NHS and Education.
What he could also do, if he works up the courage, would be to re-apply for EU membership, and all the benefits that would flow.
Scotland will want that, My guess is Europe more important than Independence for those voters.in this election. Unites SNP and Labour voters.
Starmer and Labour got Johnson in by backstabbing Corbyn.
A step would be welcome. Starmer has not taken a step and is not going to. He’s committed instead to standing still, at least until the next election, and we can see from earlier examples of such election victories that Starmer is most likely to conclude he won this time by promising to do nearly nothing, so next time he will simply promise to do even less. Blair made his party into New Labour; Starmer’s party, in effect if not name, is the New Conservatives.
And there are plenty of others who carry more responsibility than Corbyn for inflicting the disaster known as Johnson on the UK.
Echoes of Albanese’s small target strategy after Shorten’s big policy platform.
Surely one of the problems for ‘Smarter Labour’ of “a zero-policy platform” is that any initiative you are forced to offer through changing circumstance is subject to a News Corp claim that it is “a policy which has not been mandated by the people.” It might seem easier to defend from the opposition benches when vying for government, but by Toad Hall, its jolly harder to govern from it.
Simple solution: break up News Corpse.
Ha ha
When a devoted Greens pal admitted she was opting for the Reform candidate this time it was evident there was an anti-left Left mood in the UK. Her choice was based on Farage’s immigration obsession, the same reason her demographic supported Brexit.
Trump doesn’t need any other policy: xenophobia, an easily transmitted condition, may carry him back to the White House. Especially after that debate.
It’s people who label any disquiet about huge (and often unregulated) levels of immigration as ‘xenophobia’ that drive some voters to Brexit, Reform, and Trump.
Nah, they’re led there by people who stir up xenophobia. If it wasn’t immigrants it’d be Reds under the bed or whatever pseudo-threat was at hand.
Read Isabel Wilkerson’s excellent and erudite ‘Caste’. It is framed for the American condition, but I could recognize Australia, NZ and Britain clearly there too. Caste dreaming is a fire behind so much of the mad politics in each of the democracies of the world.
Not very devoted
I’ve known some to hide their antipathy towards ‘other types’ amongst the Greens, to present as ‘right on’, but avoid being described as RWNJs or lunatic left
What is it with the rest of the media clowns in this country and the UK, talking up Reform like they’re going to be the opposition!
My god they’re predicted to be 13 seats out of 650. FFS why are they getting so much attention? Is our Murdoch, Nine, Seven and ABC devoid of any intellectual rigour?
The fact that Farage claims the silent majority support Reform with, at best, 2% representation has to be one of the most innumerate vacuous claim ever; and our media lap it up.
God helps us and thank God for the likes of Crikey.
The significance of Farage in this election has turned out to be that his Reform mob has taken votes from the Tories in many electorates. The first past the post system means that the leakage of right wing votes to Reform has helped wipe out the conservatives and deliver a stonking Labour victory. Onya Nige.
BTW apparently, in the UK, “Nigel” has some currency as a slang term for someone with no friends.
Yes
The only prediction of 13 seats for Reform came from the exit poll, which clearly failed to cope with an election unlike any other. All other polls suggested something like 3 seats, and Reform did better than that. More to the point Reform has over 14% of the national vote, which makes it the third most popular party, ahead of the Lib Dems. In this election Reform had two voters for every three Tories. So like it or not, Reform is very significant.
Higher share of vote than Lib Dems.
They came second in 90 seats won by Labour.
They are unproven in terms of competence (strictly speaking, like Labour) but offer a simple solution – find people to define as “other” and blame them for everything.
Plus the … thing that nobody talks about. Rundle covered it a bit under D Day.
Thrown together collections of odds and sods like Reform tend to end up disintegrating pdq – think of the history of PHON or Palmer’s mob over here in the colonies. They don’t cohere at all well and often have skeletons in their closets which may force them from office. I wouldn’t bet on them sticking together as a disciplined party in parliament operating as Farages puppets through a 5 year parliamentary term.
Farage seems to have many irons in the fire and supposedly only decided to actually stand a few weeks ago – clearly he must have forgone some other opportunities which were uppermost in his mind until very recently if his account it true. In the event of another Trump term he might fancy something less pedestrian than a seat on the UK cross benches.
He has run for parliament four times I believe so not a passing fancy. Pehaps the media attention he can garner in the UK while the Tories flounder will be enough to keep him focussed on this Reform caper.
A couple of upsides for the House of Commons – Liz Truss and the awful Jacob Rees-Mogg will have to hunt around for positions on boards .