Thoughts on Labour Drubbing Tories in U.K. Election

While the Fourth of July is synonymous with American independence from Britain, on this Fourth of July U.K. voters declared their independence from the Tories after 14 years in power giving the Labour Party a massive majority government with Keir Starmer soon to replace Rishi Sunak as Prime Minister.

As of this writing, with only about half a dozen seats left to be determined, Labour has won 410 seats with the Tories reduced to 119 seats - a loss of nearly 250 seats. A dozen Tory cabinet ministers lost their seats including former Prime Minister Liz Truss who served only 45 days at Number 10 Downing before being succeeded by Sunak.

This result was widely expected. Although Labour's victory is monumental, their percentage of the popular vote only increased by 2% from their disastrous 2019 election. However, in the first past the post parliamentary system vote percentages don't always translate into seats.

For instance, the far-right Reform U.K. won 14% of the vote while the Greens won 7% of the vote yet both ended up with four seats apiece including one for the notorious Nigel Farage.

On the other end of the political spectrum, former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn won a seat as an independent as did four other anti-Israel independent candidates. Of course, it was Starmer who cleaned up the mess Corbyn made of Labour with his toxic brand of anti-Semitism. 

Labour wasn't the only party who had a good night. The Liberal Democrats had their best showing in over a century earning 71 seats. 

Conversely, the Tories had some company with their misery with the Scottish National Party (SNP) losing 38 seats almost exclusively to the benefit of Labour and now rendered as a rump of 9 MPs following their recent troubles following Humza Yousaf's resignation as Scotland's First Minister back in April. 

In the grand scheme of things, this election was less an endorsement of Labour than it was a rebuke of the Tories who saw five Prime Ministers in 14 years and voters wanted something different.

I suspect we will have a similar dynamic in Canada with voters tossing out the Liberals to the benefit of the Tories after being tired of nearly ten years of Trudeau the younger. The Tories have enjoyed double digit leads in the polls throughout nearly all of 2024 and it is Pierre Poilievre's to lose just as the U.K. election was Keir Starmer's to lose. 

I will offer a bit of praise for the U.K. Tories. They were unhesitating in conceding defeat. When soon to be outgoing Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt narrowly retained his seat, he praised Starmer as a decent person and paraphrased President Biden in saying that one cannot be for democracy only when you win and that it was the obligation of the Tories to regain the trust of the people. This matters because these are words which shall never be uttered by defeated, former President Donald Trump and his GOP cult as they embrace authoritarianism. 

Still, even if U.K. voters wanted to rebuke the Tories, they still had to pick someone to succeed them and with that in mind they have given Keir Starmer and Labour a chance. I can only hope they make the most of their opportunity.