London.- Voters in Britain handed the Labour Party a lopsided election victory this week, albeit one full of asterisks.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer took office on Friday with a majority in the British Parliament, although in terms of the total number of votes cast, his party won only a third of the votes, less than it won in 2017 when it lost to the Conservatives.
Labour made inroads across the country, although its victories were often overshadowed by Tory defeats, including that of Liz Truss, the unpopular former prime minister who was stripped of her seat.
The stormy voter rebellion could be the biggest message in Britain’s election.
It has ushered in a new era of Labour government, leaving the Conservatives ruing their worst defeat in their history and is also a warning to current incumbents everywhere about the dangers of failing to deliver on their promises.
But Labour’s victory is one of several crosscurrents that have revealed the extraordinary volatility of the modern British electorate: the rise of Reform UK, an insurgent anti-immigration party that won more than four million votes, the plummeting vote share of the major parties, the lowest voter turnout in decades and the war in Gaza as a campaign issue that has dogged Labour candidates, including Starmer.
On one level, Britain’s embrace of a centre-left party departs from the right-wing wave that is rising in Europe and possibly the United States.
When Starmer travels to Washington next week for a NATO summit, he will be a fresh presence amid a depleted group of centrist leaders: President Biden, President Emmanuel Macron of France and Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany.
Although some analysts say the election should not be interpreted as an adoption of leftist policies.
“It’s not a huge shift to the left. Labour has been massively moderate under Keir Starmer,” said Tony Travers, a professor of politics at the London School of Economics.
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