July 5th: The morning after…

Depressing as it is waking up this morning to confirmation of a Labour landslide and the prospect of a socialist government for the next 5 years, my rationalisation of the result and the reasons behind it that has been the culmination of my observations of events through last night, lead me to surprisingly temper my feelings of disappointment.

This may be because I have had time to adjust to and accept the idea of a large Labour majority, given that the polls have been pointing to one for over a year now. It may also be partly due to the quiet satisfaction in seeing the cretinous Labour shadow paymaster general Jonathan Ashworth, and the smug and condescending shadow secretary of state for Culture Thangam Debbonaire, unexpectedly lose their seats to green and independent candidates respectively.

However, I think the real reason that I find myself this morning stood some way back from the precipice of despair, is because the real narrative of this General Election result is not one of staunch support and unwavering love for Keir Starmer or his party. It is instead a story of a significant and disillusioned right-wing presence across the country raising a collective 2 fingers to a Conservative party that has lost its way and abandoned its core values.

It is a story of apathy, a continuation of a theme obvserved across multiple by-elections over the past 18 months, where traditional Conservatives chose to stay at home rather than vote for another party, leading to the lowest General Election turnout since 2005 (just 54%). It is a story of co-ordinated tactical voting driven by an agenda to “get the Tories out”.

Don’t get me wrong… the result is a huge victory for Labour, on paper at least. Over 400 seats in parliament and a majority more than double that achieved by Boris Johnson in 2019. Starmer and co will paint this as a seismic changing of the tides in British politics, and a loud rejection of divisive right-wing politics. However, his words will offer little more than a thin veil over the cracks that will inevitably show within months of his accession.

Despite the huge majority in terms of seats won, the Labour vote share in this election was no greater than that won by Jeremy Corbyn in 2017. And that is after factoring in the Labour resurgence in Scotland, for which he has the self-inflicted implosion of the SNP solely to thank. In many seats, including Starmer’s own constituency of Holborn and St. Pancras, the Labour vote share was notably reduced compared to the 2019 election.

Starmer’s own majority is down significantly from 22,766 in 2019 to 11,572 last night, and this theme is common across many Labour seats, including traditional Labour strongholds such as Sunderland. In Ilford North, Labour shadow health secretary Wes Streeting only marginally secured his seat by just 528 votes, seeing his majority drop significantly from 5,000 in 2019. And unexpected casualties were experienced by Labour in Leicester South and Bristol Central, as already noted.

In a good number of seats, the vote share won by Reform UK exceeded the gap in vote share between Labour and the Conservatives, pointing markedly to a division in the right-wing vote gifting victories to Labour that they did nothing more to earn than simply to replicate their failed campaigns of 5 years ago.

Despite winning just 4 seats due to the “first past the post” system, Reform UK achieved 14% of the vote share, exceeding that of the Lib Dems (who won 71 seats with just 12% of the vote). Reform UK received over 4million votes in this election, suggesting that support for traditional right-wing policies remains strong amongst the electorate.

It is also fair to suggest that the Lib Dems, who are celebrating their best election result in a century, owe their victories almost entirely to tactical voting in traditional Conservative safe seats and Tory/LD marginals. They have benefitted significantly from a lent vote from Labour supporters in constituencies that Labour had no chance of winning, in much the same way that Boris Johnson’s 2019 majority was enable by lent votes from traditional Labour voters in red wall constituencies. This is again a fragile foundation for success, and in the same way that the red wall seats have quickly reverted back to Labour this time around, I expect many of those newly-won Lib Dem seats to revert back to the Tories in a future election.

So, my conclusion on events overnight is that, whilst it was by any standards a disastrous night for the Tories, with their worst result since 1906, the result masks an underlying fragility in support for the newly-elected Labour government. Voter apathy, tactical voting and a general sense of malaise over what the Conservative party have become has formed the basis for this Labour victory, and none of those elements present a strong and stable foundation for long-term government.

Usually, when a sitting government is ousted in such ignominious fashion, it can take a long time and much soul searching to understand and to address the underlying causes. However, in this instance, disappointment in the result is mitigated because the road to redemption for the Conservative party is already crystal clear. They lost because they lost their traditional right-wing support, and because they have been the incumbent leadership for too long in the eyes of many. “They’ve had their go”, so to speak.

This is not a Labour victory any more than it is a painful self-inflicted lesson learned by the Tories. They ignored the electorate and their members. Too many of their MPs were self-serving Lib Dems who tore the party apart from the inside-out.

By realigning the party with traditional Thatcherite Conservative values, they can re-unite the right, and map a path to win back the votes lost to Reform. They can once again provide a safe haven in the party for the millions of right-wing voters who have found themselves politically homeless in recent times.

Divisions within the Labour party will inevitably begin to show sooner rather than later. Starmer will quickly find himself with a similar problem to the one Boris Johnson faced after 2019… too many MPs with differing views on key policy areas. As his MPs grow restless, and the public get frustrated that the “change” they voted for isn’t materialising, the fragility of this Labour majority will be exposed. It has long been said that support for Starmer is wide but shallow. A united Tory party that unites the right by representing traditional Conservative values is capable of reversing this disastrous result in just a single term of office, provided they get their act together and re-establish their identity quickly.

That is why, despite a Labour landslide always being a bitter pill to swallow, the real narrative behind the election results doing the rounds this morning does at least leave me with some optimism for the future, and that we will not be locked into a socialist government for a generation in the way that the pre-election opinion polls had seemed to suggest.