By Chris Trotter*
The British Labour Party's “landslide victory” is nothing of the sort. As most people understand the term, a landslide election victory is one in which the incumbent government, or its challenger, by the sheer force of its political appeal, sweeps its opponents from the field. Like the victims of a real landslide, the victims of an electoral landslide are buried by the decisive mass and unstoppable momentum of the voters’ mandate.
This is NOT what happened in the United Kingdom on 4 July 2024.
A much better way of describing what happened to the Conservative Government of Rishi Sunak is to utilise that very Kiwi word “slip”. The ground upon which the Tories had erected their political dominance simply slipped away from under them. Undermined by years of economic austerity and ideological polarisation, and jolted by politically irrecoverable corruption and incompetence. One minute the Conservatives were there, and the next minute they were gone, leaving Labour perched precariously on the slip’s edge. Labour may now enjoy a dominant position in Britain’s political landscape, but only by virtue of not being swallowed by it.
The raw numbers say it all. In 2019, the British Labour Party experienced its worst electoral defeat since 1935, attracting just 32.1 percent of the popular vote. At around sunrise on Friday 5 July 2024, when all the votes had been counted, the British Labour Party’s share of the popular vote had risen to 33.7 percent. But, thanks to the extraordinary unfairness of the UK’s First-Past-the-Post (FPP) electoral system, Labour’s one third of the vote had left it in possession of two thirds of the seats in the House of Commons.
Sir Keir Starmer is not the UK’s new Prime Minister because he won a landslide victory, but because the Conservative Party, quite simply, collapsed.
A Labour victory by default does not, however, satisfy the British Establishment’s requirement that UK governments be presented as positive expressions of the voters’ will – rather than a by-product of their bitter disillusionment and disgust. Uniformly, the British media have employed the landslide metaphor to legitimate Labour’s huge parliamentary majority. The British people have been told that they have handed their new government a decisive mandate, and that it is now their duty to let Starmer and his colleagues get on with the job.
Exactly what that job is is difficult to express with any clarity. It is important to bear in mind that the now governing party is not the Labour Party of Clement Attlee, or Harold Wilson, or even the “New Labour Party” of Tony Blair. What the British people have elected, wittingly or unwittingly, is “Changed Labour” – a political party which, according to its leader, is “unburdened by doctrine”. In the light of Starmer’s extraordinary admission, the only job which the Prime Minister and his new “Cabinet of all the talents” will be temperamentally equipped to get on with is the preservation of the status quo – which is a godawful mess.
As he sets out to clean up the mess that is contemporary Britain, Starmer has made it very clear to whatever remains of Labour’s beleaguered socialist factions, and even to the lack-lustre social-democrats of Blair’s New Labour, that he intends to be guided by the principle of “country over party”. This determination to lead a government that is at once non-ideological and unaccountable has raised no discernible hackles. Indeed, when openly enunciated by Starmer on Election Night these sentiments drew loud cheers from his audience of Labour activists. The acclamation of Starmer’s youthful supporters would appear to confirm the party’s full and final surrender to the political logic of technocracy. “Changed Labour” is an understatement.
But can a government of technocratic professionals possibly hope to win the support of the two-thirds of British voters who cast their ballots for other parties? Starmer may be reasonably confident of the Liberal Democrats’ backing in the years to come, ditto the Greens’. Not that he will need it. Not when his majority is greater than the seat tally of the Lib-Dems and Greens combined. It would be advantageous, however, if Starmer could point to a clear “progressive” majority across the UK, one that was broadly supportive of his government’s direction of travel. Fortunately, the combined vote share of the three progressive parties comes to 52 percent – a narrow majority, but a majority nonetheless.
Ranged against Starmer and his allies will be the 38 percent of voters who cast their ballots for the Conservatives (23.7 percent) and the UK Reform Party (14.3 percent). Of the two, it is Reform, Brexiteer Nigel Farage’s latest political vehicle, that constitutes the gravest threat to Starmer and his “changed” Labour Party. In spite of their leader’s claims, not all of Labour’s 411 MPs are unburdened by doctrine. Indeed, a great many of them hold rigidly ideological positions on immigration, gender, race, and the Israel-Gaza War. Farage and his colleagues (all four of them) will highlight the perceived extremism of Labour’s “identity politics” to drive a wedge into those same working-class constituencies that fell to the blandishments of Boris Johnson in 2019. Constituencies in which Reform polled impressively in 2024.
Farage has made no secret of his intention to “come after” Labour voters. He is confident that Starmer’s commitment to unscrambling a chaotic status quo, without upsetting the City of London and/or the Bank of England, can only result in the dangerous disillusionment of those many millions of Britons hopeful of being governed better, and with more compassion, by Labour than they were by the Tories. Though he doesn’t look like a fan of The Who, Farage’s message to the British working-class will be: “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”
And what of the biggest losers, the Tories? Down an astonishing 251 seats, reduced to a diehard rump of 121 MPs, and having lost nearly all their best and brightest leaders (and Liz Truss) in the “slip”. Where does the world’s most successful political party go now? And who will lead it there?
Looking back through the long career of the Conservative Party, it is clear that its remarkable ability to navigate the turbulent seas of British history is attributable largely to a clutch of colourful and proudly unorthodox navigators. Robert Peel, who broke his party to feed his people. Benjamin Disraeli, who, in forging “one nation” Toryism, bequeathed his party an enormously successful electoral formula. Stanley Baldwin, the successful industrialist whose death duties did for a feckless aristocracy more effectively than any cloth-cap socialist’s general strike. Winston Churchill, the narcissistic, grandiloquent turncoat who saved his country from fascism. Margaret Thatcher, who dared to unleash the atavism that lies in Toryism’s dark heart.
That person may not yet be seated in the House of Commons. But if and when the latest saviour of Conservatism finally takes their seat on the Opposition benches, they will be recognizable principally by how fully they embody the sentiments of G.K. Chesterton’s remarkable poem “The Secret People”:
We hear men speaking for us of new laws strong and sweet,
Yet is there no man speaketh as we speak in the street.
It may be we shall rise the last as Frenchmen rose the first,
Our wrath come after Russia’s wrath and our wrath be the worst.
It may be we are meant to mark with our riot and our rest
God’s scorn for all men governing. It may be beer is best.
But we are the people of England; and we have not spoken yet.
Smile at us, pay us, pass us. But do not quite forget.
*Chris Trotter has been writing and commenting professionally about New Zealand politics for more than 30 years. He writes a weekly column for interest.co.nz. His work may also be found at http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com.
47 Comments
Who would have thought that so many votes could be gained on simple immigration, housing and jobs policy list.
As a percentage, our population growth has outstripped the UK's. I wonder if a NZ Party will take time out from the 'important issues' they're working on and join the dots
Would be fascinating to see what a party with a simple program such as this could achieve in NZ under MMP.
I agree that Reform “crushed it” (not in terms of seats but popular vote share).
Unless centre parties start addressing the elephant in the room I can’t see anything but growth for the so-called “far right”.
What you’ve seen in France for example (sworn enemies teaming up) is just trying to hold back the tide at this point unless real steps are taken to neuter the basis of the growth in support for Reform, RN, AfD etc.
Dark clouds on the horizon methinks
100% - TOP had policies to do this, unfortunately they made the policies a bit complicated and also tried to do solve way too much (e.g. Gareth didn't need to go around saying Maori owned the rivers - those votes were already going elsewhere).
It would be very interesting to see what a Reform (NZ) Party could do here. Are you up for it?
Yes a shame TOP missed the mark ultimately. I don’t say this to be rude to TOP supporters but I think the party (and I imagine its donors / key supporters) has been too focused on academically “pure” and complex solutions.
for example the land tax policy might appeal to those who are interested in the most “correct” form of tax system modification but as I saw last election once people plugged their own property into the calculator and saw they’d be paying extra tax just because some quango or algorithm reckons their property is worth X (without having sold it) it loses appeal.
Morgan was also not a good figurehead as you say. Tedious chap who seemed to take the viewpoint that as he was loaded and loud we all had to listen to him.
the brand is now damaged goods and probably can’t be resurrected.
I think had they focused solely on taxing capital gains and other unearned REALISED income, sensible immigration policy tied to infrastructure and public service considerations and rational transition to cleaner energy/economy they could have smashed it out of the park.
Your conclusion may well prove correct on TOP, even as a member I've found it hard to pinpoint what they stand for. The 5% threshold is unnecessarily brutal for anyone starting out.
On the land tax, I still think that is where we should be as it has many benefits over a capital gains tax (although I can see you arguing the one benefit it doesn't have is people being inclined to vote for it lol).
Unfortunately, TOP's tax calculator included raising income taxes to pay for other spending (unnecessary to campaign on in my view) and that meant more people came out worse off. They could have afforded to offend landlords (eg tenant friendly policies like $2k for moving costs to accompany any no cause eviction) and been the only party credibly campaigning on lower immigration (but instead dropped that policy completely). How do you get more affordable housing and rents while pumping up the population? Didn't and still doesn't make sense to me.
Looking at how FPP pans out, I'm never gonna complain about MMP again lol. What a dumb system (even if it's just comparatively dumb).
Also finding it amusing the number of people who were previously in favour of some form of PR in the UK, who now suddenly think FPP is the single greatest system and shouldn't be changed. Wonder why?
Good article.
I think a hybrid MMP / STV system , those that don't make 5% , their votes are transferred to their alternative choice.
It is not fair that say someone voting for a far rgiht party , has part of their vote transferred to the far left , if they don't make 5 % . and V.V.
Agree, STV would free up people to vote for whom they liked most. It would be my preference, I just think lowering the threshold would make MMP better, not perfect.
As someone that usually 'wastes' my vote on a party that doesn't get into parliament, it does kind of annoy me that in I end up effectively voting for all the other parties that do get across the line in proportion to the overall vote when I have clear preferences between them.
Nice little analysis CT. But in recent times in changing a government it has invariably been the incumbents losing rather than the other side winning.
My view of Starmer's party being "unburdened by doctrine" as potentially a positive rather than the certainty of dire outcomes. Certainly it opens the door to innovative changes.
On the radio though yesterday I heard a woman being interviewed (didn't catch her name but possibly the potential next Chancellor or the Exchequer?) who did talk about representing Britain's working people. That, I felt, was a commitment.
Sort of looks like Labour are going to run back out onto the playing field wearing the shirts of their just defeated opponents doesn’t it. Said that because cannot for the life of me see what novel or energetic new policy they have being promoting. For instance immigration, thought to be a prime motivator for Brexit, is still a prime problem.
They didn't promote any policy - this was a loss by the Conservatives, as Trotter says.
But Starmer has zero - and I'm very sure of this; zero - chance of 'turning the UK economy around'. That door has closed behind them. Whether they're smart enough to acknowledge that, and explain their triage, is what I'm waiting to see. But I ain't holding any breath...
I'm not sure it is zero, but certainly pretty close to it. he'd have to educate them away from growth, and that alone will cause an uproar. Then he'd have to start talking about population control, while reallocating resources away from imports to recreate industry. He'd need to frame it all around the current existential crisis. I think if he understood all that we would have already had at least glimpses of it. But we haven't. So yes pretty close to zero.
Starmer and Labour only have one policy tax and more tax, whihc is guarenteed to de4motivate an already pessimistic population, may be worht while if the electors voting regret early in Starmers following in arderns footsteps. The best thing the Torys should do is install Nigel Farage as leader and listen to his predictions including the sucessful ones (most) he made about the Evil Union.
The problems in Britain are largely structural so the incoming government will be seriously constrained by, well, reality. That won't stop them pretending to fix things with their mad ideas of course.
Some genius moves all ready, I think we know how well this will work:
“Sir Keir Starmer is expected to authorise emergency measures this week to automatically release criminals less than halfway through their sentence in an attempt to tackle the prisons crisis.”
Is this the quote from Farage you're referring to (It’s Nigel Farage’s praise of Putin we should decry | Nigel Farage | The Guardian) :
I said I disliked him as a person, but I admired him as a political operator because he’s managed to take control of running Russia.
I admired Helen Clark as an operator but couldn't stand her policies - that wouldn't make me a hugger of her, just someone who gives credit where credit is due. I'd say the same for Trump, awful person, but I admire his ability to get elected (as he will again shortly) - I'm no hugger of his either. We can agree to disagree about the definition of a hugger if that was the quote you've based your assessment on.
Leaving Putin aside, did you find any of Farage's policies that he campaigned on obnoxious?
A lot to unpack with the UK election results
Labour trounce everyone but actually had 3% less votes then when they were thrashed in 2019....The rise of Islamic block voting. Gaza was the number 1 issue in a number of seats and at least 4 sitting Labour MP's lost their seats to Islamic independents (independents because an Islamic party is not permited as it does not meet the requirement to serve all constituents). There is an Islamic election Council that lobby's voters however.
By mid 2030's Islamic block voting will likely decide UK elections.
It wouldn't if they had the same economic opportunities.
Pays to be careful identifying driven and driver.
The west is coming to the end of it's ability to dominate/colonize; it chose stratification, and these are the consequences (for the west).
Ironically, though, it's against a backdrop of global de-growth. Some from the lower decks have invaded the upper decks, to the point where they have influence there.
But the ship is sinking..... so the upper deck is no refuge.
For once I tend to agree with you.... mass immigration is the easier path to nominal gdp growth over increased productivity. It benefits a select few and disadvantages many, so the only way to facilitate it is to demonise anyone who questions it. But yes, maybe the UK has reached it's growth limits??
Do you think Enoch Powell may have been a little bit on the nail with his speeches in the late 60's?
England today has possibly changed more than any other developed country since the 1960's with mass immigration. France is a viable contender for 2nd place.
Disclaimer-I'm English and an immigrant who is grateful for the opportunity afforded to me by living here.
The rivers of blood speech? Not sure, it was pretty questionable at the time because it was aimed at black Commonwealth immigration and that really never turned out to be anything like what he predicted. The issue has been much larger families and more recent Islamic immigration out of Middle East, North Africa, Afganistan and Pakistan reaching sufficient scale into a voting block. Look at Sadiq Khan in London as another example of the future.
Yes kind of amusing to see that now in many seats one of Labour’s preferred voting blocs is now in a position to do away with them and elect their own independent candidates instead. Maybe they should have focused on the traditional working class instead.
re your last comment, my money is on this all ending in terrible violence in countries like UK and France (the left, centre and “economic right” have laid the groundwork for the emergence of more extreme far right movements by ignoring growing sentiment re immigration - and once many realise that changing demographics have effectively stacked the deck politically it’s not unreasonable to envisage the rise of movements that won’t be so happy to operate in the confines of the democratic process)
good job for all the architects of this, eg your likes of Blair, Brown, Cameron etc in UK that they will either be dead and buried or shuffling around the rest home as the fruits of their “vision” come to bear.
I agree, it has the potential to absolutely explode at some point. How can Gaza be the primary campaign issue for a UK constituency?
The UK is a very tolerant country but I believe they will live to regret allowing such a homogenous, well co-ordinated religious group to reach such scale so quickly. You could argue this is payback for Britain colonising the world, or it's role in recent Middle East conflict. It's reached the point where the UK barely celebrate the traditional Christian events anymore.
This is what it's really about.... 685,000 extra people to feed and house in 2023 alone
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-48785695
But, thanks to the extraordinary unfairness of the UK’s First-Past-the-Post (FPP) electoral system, Labour’s one third of the vote had left it in possession of two thirds of the seats in the House of Commons.
Sounds similar to our 5% threshold when we have enough MP's to take it down to under 1% (1/120).
Alternatively, give us STV so voters can manage their 'wasted vote' into their second and third choice.
I agree with your assessment of who would benefit.
I disagree that would be a bad thing for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, I fundamentally think parliament should try to be as representative of the voters as possible - even though I might not agree with them as it gives the system credibility (maximum fairness).
Second, if we had lots of minor parties in parliament it would give major parties more co-operation options (less tail wagging the dog outcomes as both left and right have experienced). If the crazies insist on being unreasonable, they will be there, but unable to effect change so encourage reasonableness on their part over time. Lowering the threshold would dilute Labour/National votes which is why they don't want it. However, I don't see a problem with them (Nat/Lab) co-operating to pass legislation if all the minors are uncooperative - imagine a parliament making the best rules it can for the average man on the street instead of playing a tribal game...
All that said, 2% would be a big improvement on 5% too - so I'll take while it's on offer!
Under MMP, it only needs to apply to the party vote, for those parties that don't make 5%. As you can't assume which parties make the threshold in advance , everyone would get a 2nd STV party vote. That would be transferred to that party, for all votes for parties that didn't make the 5 % threshold. For parties that make 5% , their STV vote is not used.
I guess you could use it for the electoral vote as well, and invoke it if no candidate makes 50 % . You would transfer from the lowest candidate up , till someone gets 50 %.
Right. Sounds good to me. Knowing that one's vote wouldn't be wasted might make it more likely that one would vote for a minor party (like TOP for instance). Given that I was thinking of voting for them but didn't because it looked like being a wasted vote, I'd be in favour.
To a great extent, FPP entrenches the establishment. To get elected, at least in my lifetime, a Labour party has had to please the right-wing press and business establishment. I.e. has had to become 'New Labour' or 'Changed Labour'. It has involved currying favour with Rupert Murdoch in particular. Which is inevitably toxic. I feel that Starmer has done that to a much lesser extent than Blair (and hasn't had to). Lukewarm press opposition has turned to lukewarm support for this Labour party, compared to the huge press opposition turning to strong support for Blair's iteration. I guess the Tories were hard to support this time, even for its own media. And the Murdoch press isn't as powerful as it was, now that people get their more personalised propaganda online.
On the face of it FPP makes votes for minor parties generally meaningless (wasted) because they don't get converted to seats. I favour MMP for that reason (votes for minor parties count, so you can to some extent get what you vote for). But, it's not as simple as that. As Reform have shown, if you threaten enough of the seats of a party, then they will move in your direction politically to try to avoid that. Hence the Tories adopting policies like sending asylum seekers to Rwanda. So in that sense, minor parties can have a major impact on policy - just not be involved in government.
The other thing to understand is that FPP enables a clear change of government, when a government needs to be thrown out. It's usually the Tories who have overstayed their welcome and in such circumstances the electorate votes for the most likely non-Tory candidate in each electorate...hence their seats are eviscerated. That is what has just happened. It is comparable to (but not the same as) yesterday's anti-fascist voting alliance in France, where the people held their noses and voted for the non-fascist party most likely to win each ballot yesterday, not necessarily the party they wanted to vote for; just as they did in France to avoid Fascist government when Fascism was first sweeping across Europe...about 100 years ago.
He's basically come out and said his policies are whatever the WEF tell him they want them to be.
https://www.thecanary.co/uk/analysis/2024/06/18/starmer-davos-interview/
You have to choose now between Davos or Westminster?
Starmer replied:
Davos
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