05 Jul ‘Sunlight of hope’ or a pyrrhic victory?
A volatile electorate has delivered a truly historic victory for the Labour Party.
With the final results dribbling in this morning, Labour is on course for a majority of 176 seats. Rishi Sunak admitted defeat at his count in the middle of the night, noting that he “took responsibility” and had already called the Labour leader to concede defeat. In total, 44 Conservative Ministers – and some high-profile Cabinet Ministers, such as Grant Shapps, Penny Mordaunt, Johnny Mercer, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Greg Hands – lost their seats as the Conservative Party was reduced to its lowest number of seats in its 200-year history.
The top-line results appeared to confirm that Labour’s “time for change” message had struck a chord with voters after years of chaos and division under the Conservatives, including with Brexit and its fallout, the handling of the Covid pandemic, the Partygate scandal and Liz Truss’ ill-fated and short premiership.
However, the rise of Reform, whose leader, Nigel Farage, finally became a Member of Parliament at his eighth attempt last night, split the right-wing vote and the insurgent party supplanted itself in second place to Labour in much of the north of England. Labour was the principal beneficiary of the division amongst the right as it drove deep into traditional Tory heartlands, including, remarkably, gaining the seat of former prime minister Liz Truss in rural Norfolk.
In the southwest, Midlands and London environs, the Liberal Democrats returned as the third party of British politics as it gained an incredible 63 seats on its near-wipe out performance of 2019. This included Stratford-on-Avon, the historic town of Shakespeare, turning vast swathes of the southwest of England yellow on the electoral map as it gained seats in its former heartlands, as a singing Ed Davey this morning lauded his party winning its highest number of seats since 1923.
For Labour, as the Shadow Education Secretary, Bridget Phillipson, noted this morning to the BBC, the gains were beyond even the party’s own internal estimate. It did, however, on an otherwise landmark night, lose a string of seats to predominantly pro-Palestine independent candidates in seats of high ethnic minority population, including the Shadow Cabinet Office Minister, Jonathan Ashworth, in Leicester. The former party leader, and now foe, Jeremy Corbyn was comfortably returned in his north London redoubt and Labour suffered a series of seismic falls in votes in its traditionally safe urban seats.
The incoming Health and Care Social Secretary, Wes Streeting, clung on to his east London seat, Ilford North, by the barest of margins – some 500 votes – against an independent candidate.
As the first high-profile Conservative casualty of the evening, Grant Shapps remarked that: “What is crystal clear to me tonight is not so much that Labour won this election, but rather that the Conservatives have lost it”. Whilst such analysis is subjective due to our duopoly electoral system, what is clear, even as the Labour Party enters it first day of government in 14-years, is that the country is horribly divided. Last night’s results were delivered with the lowest turnout since WWI, with the lowest share of the vote for the two main parties in British electoral history, a lower total of votes for the Labour Party on its 2017 result, and only 2 per cent increase on its disastrous 2019 result.
The new Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, has said that “the work of change would begin immediately” and, after four general election defeats, the rise of the right in France, with a fierce populist battle pending in the US later this year, Labour’s victory may well be a progressive global beacon. The transfer of power, or the “magic of democracy” as Jeremy Hunt put it late last night, will commence later this morning. Rishi Sunak is expected to travel to Buckingham Palace at 10:30 to formally offer his resignation, with Starmer addressing the nation from the steps of Downing Street by 12:30.
Focus will soon turn to the incoming Labour government’s legislative agenda, and OVID Health already understands that the Kings Speech, to be held on 17 July, will include two new health bills. Wes Streeting was said to be emotional as the exit poll, predicting a Labour landslide, dropped last night. It is expected that he will press ahead with the smoking cessation ban and reform of mental health legislation to tackle the growing number of people being sectioned.
Sir Keir Starmer will appoint his Cabinet throughout the day, and it will meet, for the first time, tomorrow. In a conscious echo of Tony Blair in 1997, and the similar majorities they have both achieved, he told voters: “We ran as a changed Labour Party and we will govern as a changed Labour Party.”