Fourteen years of a Tory government in the UK have finally been brought to an end by Keir Starmer and the Labour Party. In the end, the Conservative Party went out with a whimper, winning around 120 seats out of the 650 up for grabs. In terms of seats, this is the worst electoral performance by the Conservative Party ever. This meant a landslide victory for Labour, which took a hefty 412 seats. This is more than enough to secure the majority in the British parliament and make Keir Starmer the next prime minister of the UK. In the aftermath of the crushing loss, outgoing PM Rishi Sunak said he took responsibility for his party’s abysmal performance. Abysmal would also be an apt description of the over-decade-long Conservative rule in the UK. During a period that saw four different prime ministers, the Conservative Party’s total inability to govern their country sensibly remained constant. From the Brexit debacle to the migrant scandal and the inability to revive a stagnant economy, by the time ex-PM Sunak’s reign was ending there was hardly anyone left for the party to alienate. Conservative leaders constantly found themselves caught between far-right backbenchers and outsiders like Nigel Farage and more pragmatic centrists and failed to navigate the divide. They will hand over to Labour a country weaker and more dysfunctional in almost every way than the one they inherited
This was a period that saw Britain’s shortest-serving PM ever, in Lizz Truss’ seven or so weeks in power, and its first non-white, immigrant background prime minister in Rishi Sunak. One might think Lizz Truss was the biggest disaster, with the IMF rebuking her economic plans, which is the sort of treatment reserved for developing countries. But Sunak brought public policy to a nadir in a different way. People saw him as a man from an immigrant background who had to overcome racism siding with racists to keep poor migrants out of Britain – migrants like his own parents once were. However, Sunak’s attempts to pander to the extreme right wing of British conservatism did not win him any friends and he failed to arrest the decline in his party’s popularity.
So, will the Starmer-led Labour Party be the antidote to 14 years of poor governance? The jury may be out on that one but the signs – at least those during the campaigning – have so far been frightening for old-school Labour supporters who have seen a Starmer-led party veer dangerously to the right. Labour has an unenviable task ahead. Arresting Britain’s long-term decline is a daunting enough task on its own but Starmer also faces a more fractured political scene than most of his predecessors. Surviving will require treading the thinnest of tight ropes. Not only will he have to deal with a resurgent far right, with its standard-bearer Nigel Farage all set to become an MP, but he will have to avoid dissension within his own ranks. This is mostly due to Starmer’s own path to power: as someone who has been seen as having risen on the back of the sidelining of previous leader Jeremy Corbyn. The progressive Corbyn was a candidate who inspired far more enthusiasm among the party’s activist base, young people, British minorities and the more progressive members of the left. Predictably, it was decided that Corbyn was too antisemitic (read: anti-Zionist) and had cost Labour elections with his ‘radical’ policies like promising to fully fund the healthcare system. Many continue to see his downfall as Labour compromising on what it is all about and the charges of antisemitism as punishment for calling out Israel and its Zionist allies. Starmer can be said to be from the wing that brought about the downfall of Corbyn and he would be mistaken to think his position is secure. Labour’s massive seat count masks the fact that the votes were pretty tight across all constituencies and that his coalition is not as cohesive as it is large – in fact, in the mess that is the first-past-the-post system Labour has won 65 per cent of the seats on about 35 per cent of the votes. Forget reform or revival, Starmer may just have his hands full trying to stick around.