UK ends Conservative era, gives Labour’s Starmer historic majority

The Labour Party is set to return to power in the United Kingdom after fourteen years in opposition. Its leader, Keir Starmer, was the big winner of Thursday’s elections, achieving a historic parliamentary majority, built largely on the back of the Conservative Party’s resounding collapse.

The exit poll shared by the main British television channels had anticipated this late in the evening. The slow counting of seats throughout the early hours of Friday morning has confirmed it. At six in the morning, Spanish peninsular time, the count of Labour MPs reached the magic number of 326, the majority in a House of Commons of 650 seats. According to the new BBC projection, based on the first real data, Labour could win more than 400 (up to 405) representatives. The Conservatives, with a forecast of 154 seats, would lose more than two hundred representatives compared to those obtained in 2019.

“We did it,” Starmer told his supporters shortly after confirming victory. “Change begins now. It has taken us four and a half years to renew the Labour Party, and it is now ready to serve the country and put the United Kingdom at the service of the working class,” he added.

Labour’s victory is even more comfortable, given the advantage it has over the Conservatives in terms of seats, than the one Tony Blair obtained in 1997. But the overwhelming result does not hide some worrying data. The turnout was almost eight percentage points lower than five years ago. And the United Kingdom has definitely ceased to be a two-party territory. The enormous number of seats obtained by Starmer’s party is more due to an electoral system that heavily rewards the party with the most votes in each constituency than to a significant increase in the percentage of votes obtained.

The Tories The right-wing populists of Nigel Farage and his party, Reform UK, have finally managed to enter the British Parliament. In many constituencies they have managed to be the second largest force in the vote, ahead of the Conservatives. And in many others, the high level of support they have obtained has frustrated the candidate’s aspirations. tory to win the seat in contention. BBC projects up to four deputies for the populist party.

And Ed Davey’s Liberal Democrats, who are hoping to win up to 56 seats, would be able to recover from their historic crisis and become the third force, largely due to the support they have taken from the Conservative Party in the wealthy south of England.

“The British people have delivered a sober verdict tonight. There is much to learn and much to reflect on from the loss of so many good, hard-working Conservative candidates, who have lost their jobs despite enormous effort and dedication to their constituents,” acknowledged Rishi Sunak, who announced the obvious: in the next few hours, he said, he will resign from his post as Prime Minister and inform the King of this.

A Scottish Tragedy

The desire for change expressed by British voters has also been felt in Scotland. The pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP) has paid dearly for its recent financial scandals and constant twists and turns in its strategy to hold a second secession referendum. In 2019, it sent 48 MPs to the Westminster Parliament, but the BBC’s projection now gives it just six. The Labour Party has regained the influence in Scotland it lost two decades ago.

“Citizens are ready for a change”

Starmer has obtained on Thursday what he has insistently demanded during six weeks of campaigning: a majority comfortable enough to be able to push through the “change” promised in the election posters and speeches. A powerful mandate to be able to “roll up his sleeves” immediately and improve the lives of citizens.

“Country first, party second. It is not just a slogan. It is our guiding principle. Everything we do to improve the economy, national security or the protection of our borders must be inspired by it,” announced Starmer, who will be tasked with forming a government this Friday when he meets King Charles III at Buckingham Palace. “British citizens must be able to look us in the eye and see that we serve the general interest,” proclaimed the candidate.

The Labour leader has worked closely all this time with a team of “shadow ministers” (as the opposition spokespersons for each area of ​​government are known), to immediately implement the first measures. Sue Gray, the senior civil servant who drew up the incriminating report on the banned parties in Downing Street during the lockdown, decided more than a year ago to accept Starmer’s offer and be his chief of staff. Professional, rigorous, and highly regarded among the politicians who have dealt with her, Gray has been in charge of ensuring that the machinery of the government transition runs smoothly. Her list of unforeseen events reaches the last detail: from the possibility that civil service staff decide to apply pressure with threats of strike action, to achieve the salary increase that they would most likely expect from a new Labour government, to the negotiation with developers and landowners who will fight the reform designed by Starmer to streamline urban planning methods.

Starmer’s five objectives

The Labour leader has set a very high bar for his promises and ambitions. In recent months, if he comes to power, he has announced a “national renewal” that will completely change the panorama of deterioration and stagnation that has spread throughout the United Kingdom in the last decade.

There are five priority objectives that the electoral programme has set out as a matter of urgency: returning the country to the path of economic growth; reforming the National Health Service (NHS), which has waiting lists of nearly eight million people; introducing improvements to the police and penal system, so that the streets of the main cities are safer; achieving more affordable ‘green’ energy for citizens through a new public company, Great British Energy; and a general improvement in life opportunities for all citizens.

Starmer wants five inter-ministerial commissions to get to work urgently, from day one, to develop a strategy for each of these objectives as soon as possible.

The new Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, however, will have few days of respite. The majority of voters’ support for the Labour Party is due more to the desire to destroy the conservative legacy as quickly as possible than to enthusiasm for Starmer’s proposals. His charisma is not that of Tony Blair. His arrival in power is not accompanied by the same wave of enthusiasm as in 1997.

And yet, the new government will probably enjoy the support and goodwill of business and the markets in its first days. The memory of the disastrous forty-five days of former Prime Minister Liz Truss’s government and the way in which it sank the international economic credibility of the United Kingdom, paradoxically plays in favour of Starmer and his team.

The ToriesThe party that the British have most trusted to manage the country’s finances throughout its history suddenly lost that aura of seriousness and rigour during the Brexit years. Sunak’s efforts to recover it were in vain.

Instead, Starmer and his shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves have managed to convey to business and the markets an image of seriousness and fiscal responsibility. Their announcements of future tax increases were very measured, with more of a symbolic character than potential revenue-raising: the elimination of the privileged tax regime for multi
millionaires who live in the United Kingdom but maintain tax residency in their countries of origin; an increase, yet to be determined, in the tax on capital gains; a temporary tax on the extraordinary profits of energy companies (something already imposed by the last Conservative government) and VAT (the British VAT) for private school fees.

Starmer and Reeves have pledged not to touch either income tax or corporation tax, at least in their first term. That is why many experts have expressed scepticism about all of Labour’s promises – thousands of new additions to the healthcare workforce, or thousands of new teachers – as it is unclear where the necessary funding for all these improvements will come from.

The commitment to growth

Economic growth. That is the new prime minister’s obsession. Growth so that wealth is redistributed and reaches everyone’s pockets. An idea that may sound voluntaristic, but which is accompanied by a series of proposals for structural reforms that aim to facilitate the United Kingdom’s exit from a stagnation that has dragged on for almost a decade and a half.

For example, a new urban planning system that would speed up the process of expropriation and curtail the rights of many property owners, who have so far managed to prolong, increase the cost of and even paralyse essential projects such as the high-speed line to the north of England.

Or a reform of labour legislation that improves the rights of UK workers, making job changes more attractive and the market more agile and productive.

But the main challenge for the incoming government in the first days of the English summer will be the same crisis that Sunak has made his personal obsession: the wave of illegal immigrants who continue to arrive on the shores of the United Kingdom. Official forecasts suggest that this year’s figure could be very high again: up to 40,000 new asylum seekers. Starmer has promised to scrap plans to deport people to Rwanda, as ineffective, and to concentrate on setting up a new Joint Border Control Command, which will hit hard at the mafias that transport immigrants.

A new relationship with Europe

With Brexit shelved and no possibility of reversing the situation, the new Prime Minister has promised an improvement in relations with the EU, starting with strengthening cooperation in the areas of Security and Defence. This is the way, he has predicted, to achieve other necessary improvements, such as a more fluid commercial relationship with the Community internal market.

On 10 July, the new prime minister will attend the NATO summit in Washington, where Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the war between Israel and Hamas will continue to attract the attention of world leaders. On 18 July, Starmer will host the Fourth Summit of the European Political Community at Blenheim Palace in Woodstock, where he will be able to demonstrate his desire to reach an understanding with his EU colleagues.

The day before, on the 17th, the King’s Speech will take place in the Westminster Parliament. Charles III will read out to both Houses the legislative agenda of His Majesty’s new Government, which, fourteen years later, will once again have a social democratic flavour.

In the opposition benches, the deputies of the Conservative Party – those who have managed to survive the electoral massacre – will be more concerned with their immediate future than with the Government’s plans. Tories They will soon have to decide whether they continue down the slope of right-wing populism or want to become a party with the will to govern again.

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