Labour’s Lacklustre Landslide

One could be forgiven for thinking that Keir Starmer’s election as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom last week provides a ray of hope to progressives across Europe. After all, in the wake of the far-right surge in Germany and with Trump widely expected to take back the White House this fall, the UK seems like one of the few holdouts against the rise of extremism in the Global North.

But look below the surface and the picture is a little less rosy. In fact, what the UK’s majoritarian electoral system has done what it does best: create unity out of discord.

Every UK election effectively consists of 650 mini-elections in constituencies across the country. Each of the main parties runs in each constituency, and the winner of each race takes the seat. The result is a system that rewards the two big political parties and those with strong regional support.  

Over the last several years, politics in the UK has been highly polarized between Labour and the Conservatives. After adopting a social democratic manifesto in 2017, Labour swept up votes from across the Left, coming close to winning power. Meanwhile, by becoming the defenders of Brexit in 2019, the Conservatives were able to unify the Right.

Five years later, however, British politics has become much more fractured, and the result of this election is one of the least proportionate in the history of the United Kingdom.

A Recipe for Reviving the Far Right?

The Labour Party won 412 seats alongside 121 for the Conservatives and 71 for the Liberal Democrats. Overall, Labour managed to secure a 170-seat majority, but won just 33.8 percent of the popular vote — a mere 1.6-percent increase on Labour’s share in 2019, which many political commentators described at the time as one of the most disastrous results in history .

Furthermore, the increase in Labour’s share is entirely attributable to a 17-percent increase in its support in Scotland, where the ruling Scottish National Party (SNP) has collapsed after scandals and mismanagement. In England, in fact, the Party’s support was exactly the same as in 2019.

In total, Labour secured two thirds of the seats in the UK Parliament with just one third of the vote. What’s more, turnout at this election was just 59.9 percent — the lowest since World War II.

Turnout measures the percentage of registered voters who show up at the polling booth — millions more are simply not registered to vote. To put it another way, there are about 50 million adults living in the UK. Just 9.6 million of them voted Labour.

Those who did vote Labour did not do so out of any particular enthusiasm for Keir Starmer’s personality or politics. Nearly 50 percent of people believe Starmer is untrustworthy, while 73 percent believe that he was only elected to get the Conservatives out. This means that Starmer is heading into government without a resounding mandate from the British people. He leads a divided country, disillusioned with politics and angry at elites.

Labour’s manifesto was timid and bland, and even before Labour entered office, Starmer caved to pressure from big business groups like the Confederation of Business Industry to water down pledges on workers’ rights and green investment.

Nowhere is this anger clearer than in the rise of Nigel Farage’s Reform Party. Reform managed to secure five seats — including one for Farage himself — and 14 percent of the vote. Clearly, the UK is not immune to the rise of the far right.

German and French far-right parties were able to take advantage of the failings of Olaf Scholz and Emmanuel Macron to build popular support (even if the threat from the far right in France was ultimately neutralized by a united Left). The kind of centrist, technocratic politics practiced by these men is anathema to the millions of people who feel angry and disillusioned with politics.

There should be absolutely no doubt that Starmer will govern in exactly the same way. Labour’s manifesto was timid and bland, and even before Labour entered office, Starmer caved to pressure from big business groups like the Confederation of Business Industry to water down pledges on workers’ rights and green investment. Now his party is in office, this pressure is only going to increase.

Labour promised the country change, and yet it is likely to deliver a continuation of the status quo. The person to benefit most from Labour’s timidity will be Nigel Farage. Politicians like Farage do an excellent job of converting people’s resentment of neoliberal policies into a politics that represents absolutely zero threat to the status quo.

When Reform voters are asked precisely why they want to punish or deport migrants, they tend to point to problems like expensive housing or poorly functioning public services. But Farage’s neoliberal manifesto mixed culture wars with standard neoliberal economic policy — the exact same policies that gave rise to the housing crisis and the crisis in the NHS.

Building Hope from Below

The job of the Left is to show people that there is another way. But this message cannot come from politicians sitting comfortably in Westminster. It has to come from within the community.

One of the most exciting stories of this election was the groundswell of support for independent pro-Palestine candidates. Five independent pro-Palestine candidates — including former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn — were elected across the UK. To put things in perspective, before this election only two independent candidates had been elected at a general election since 1950. These candidates were elected thanks to the passion and commitment of thousands of community organizers working in their local areas without access to data, money, or media contacts.

One of the clearest lessons for the Left from this election is that incredible things can be achieved through effective community organizing.

Another ray of hope was the rise of the Greens, who also owe their success to extremely effective local campaigns that mobilized thousands of passionate volunteers. Up to now, the Greens have only been able to maintain one MP in Parliament — the brilliant Caroline Lucas. But Lucas stepped down this election, paving the way for an incredible group of four progressive, Green MPs who have promised to hold the Labour Party to account on everything from Gaza, to climate breakdown, to taxation and spending.

One of the clearest lessons for the Left from this election is that incredible things can be achieved through effective community organizing. This grassroots work has to be the Left’s focus for the next five years. We need to combine national-level campaigns designed to force the hand of politicians with local-level community organizing designed to build a mass base for progressive politics.

It’s hard work, and not particularly glamorous. But the results achieved by the Left in the UK this election show that it is the only way forward.