UK's message in Labour landslide victory is 'Throw the bums out'

In the UK, the Conservatives were crushed by Labour, with Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party winning 13 seats, a first in the party’s history.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the British Labour Party is on track for a landslide victory, according to an exit poll.

Britain’s Labour Party is on course for a landslide election victory, according to an exit poll released Thursday, as voters appear set to give its leader Keir Starmer one of the largest parliamentary majorities in British history and put a centre-left government in Downing Street for the first time in 14 years.

Exit polls predict Labour will win 410 of the 650 seats in parliament. The ruling Conservative Party is on course to win just 131 seats, likely the worst result in its 190-year history and a massive turnaround from its victory in the last election in 2019. A clutch of other smaller parties are also tipped to do well as voters become increasingly disillusioned with traditional politics.

The final results will not be known until Friday morning, but exit polls have proven to be a reliable indicator in recent elections, give or take a few seats for each party. The poll, commissioned by Britain’s major broadcasters, asked 20,000 voters in a sample of 133 polling stations to fill out a replica of the ballot paper they had just cast.

Exit polls also suggest that the new anti-immigration Reform UK party has siphoned off a substantial number of votes from the Conservatives, winning 13 seats. The party, led by Brexit advocate Nigel Farage, is expected to have more seats in parliament than the Scottish National Party, whose vote share appears to have collapsed. Farage said he would use what would be his first-ever seat in parliament to try to attract like-minded lawmakers from the remnants of the Conservative Party and form a new right-wing voting bloc.

Although the Reform Party won far fewer seats than the Conservatives, pre-election polls showed it could win about 15 to 17 per cent of the vote, just a few points behind the Conservatives, who won about 20 per cent. That split the Conservative vote and likely cost the Conservatives dozens of seats, analysts said.

“A lot of the damage done to the Conservative Party tonight is being done by the Reform Party, even though Labour is the beneficiary,” said John Curtice, a professor of politics at the University of Strathclyde who conducted the exit poll.

For the first time since censuses began in 1955, British households are, on average, poorer in inflation terms after a parliamentary term, according to the Resolution Foundation, a London think tank. Brexit, meanwhile, has been a disappointment to many of its supporters. It ended free movement for other Europeans to come to the UK to work, but immigration still rose to record highs in 2022 and 2023 and is only slowly falling.

Unlike some European countries like France and Germany, where far-right parties are on the rise, Britain will lean leftward. But people won’t notice a major shift: Starmer has moved the party sharply toward the center in recent years, shedding its most radical policies and members, and has vowed to continue Britain’s pro-American foreign policy, including continued support for Ukraine and Israel.

“I think the British public is fed up with the lies, the deception, the corruption, the establishment,” said Peter Lee, a 73-year-old from southern England. Lee said he planned to vote for Reform to see if the party could cut immigration, which has reached record levels under the Conservatives despite their promise to cut it. “Whether it’s Brexit, Covid, the war in Ukraine. It’s just lies after lies,” Lee said.

Record victory with low approval

Despite being on course for a record victory, Starmer’s approval ratings are negative in many polls, with trust in politicians at an all-time low. A YouGov poll showed that 48% of those planning to vote Labour said it was to get rid of the Conservatives. The next most popular answer was to make way for change (13%). Only 5% said it was because of Labour’s policies.

Now what?

One of the big challenges for Starmer and Labour is that they will not have much money to spend on improving public services such as the health system and an ageing rail network.

“You’re stuck with a cake that’s not growing, so how do you slice it up to give people more of what they want?” said Tony Travers, a professor of politics at the London School of Economics.

Starmer, who is trying to shake off the image of a party that taxes and spends too much, has proposed only targeted tax increases to improve the country’s public services and has pledged to keep public debt under control. He and the likely next chancellor, Rachel Reeves, plan to cut red tape to build more homes; reduce immigration; create a fund to speed up the construction of green energy infrastructure; and make it easier to get health appointments.

Throw the bums out

The dominant theme in the UK, as we saw in the European Parliament elections and especially in France, is ‘Throw the bums out’.

For a discussion of the European Parliament elections, please see Marine Le Pen set for record win, Macron calls early elections in France

For a discussion of the French elections, please see President Macron’s party eliminated in first round of French legislative elections

I expect a similar event to happen in the US in November, at least for the top spot. If there are any fans, it could become widespread.