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

The Labour Party is set to return to power in the United Kingdom after 14 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 resounding collapse of the Conservative Party.

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, a 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 200 representatives compared to those obtained in 2019.

“We did it,” Starmer told supporters on Friday 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.

Farage enters Parliament

The ToriesThe UK has suffered losses on both sides. The right-wing populism of Nigel Farage and his party, Reform UK, has finally managed to enter the British Parliament, with four MPs. 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. toryto win the seat in contention. The populist party has won four seats.

And Ed Davey’s Liberal Democrats, who have won 62 seats, have managed 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 the constant twists and turns in its strategy to hold a second secession referendum. If in 2019 they sent up to 48 MPs to the Westminster Parliament, the BBC projection now gives them just six. The Labour Party has regained in Scotland the prevalence it lost two decades ago, and the extra support gained there has been fundamental to consolidating its parliamentary majority.

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 put the first measures into effect. 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, with a high prestige 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, to achieve the salary increase that they would most likely expect from a new Labour government, to the negotiation with the developers and landowners who will fight the reform designed by Starmer to speed up urban planning methods.

Starmer’s five goals

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 his electoral programme has established 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 in the police and penal system, so that the streets of the main cities are safer; achieving a more efficient energy system; green more affordable 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 45 days of former Prime Minister Liz Truss, and the way in which she 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 her shadow finance ministerRachel Reeves, have managed to convey to businessmen and to 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: elimination of the privileged tax regime for multimillionaires 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 extraordinary profits of energy companies (something already imposed by the last Conservative Government) and VAT (the British VAT) for private school registration 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 health 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 security and defence matters. This is the way, he predicted, to achieve other necessary improvements, such as a more fluid trade 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 Parliament of Westminster will have held the King’s Speech. Carlos III will read before both Chambers the legislative agenda of His Majesty’s new Government which, 14 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. ToriesThey 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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