Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Jacob]

I really appreciate this thread - thank you for the analysis

[Josquius]

Incidentally on the media criticism front.

Johnson had very low (slightly negative) approval ratings, boosted the Tory vote by 1-2% and won a majority of 80.

Starmer's approval rating is about the same, he's increased the Labour vote by about 2% and won a majority of 160 seats (from a lower starting point).

I think the difference in media reception/analysis of this election is quite instructive. Although you're already seeing a little bit of a shift in how they're being talked about now they're in government - I think we forget from 97-2010, then the shift to the Tories just how hegemonic a British government can be in terms of the media.

As I've been saying for years 2019 was less about people loving Johnson or being hard for Brexit and more paranoia about Corbyn- partially due to an active campaign against him, but that being possible due to the other factor of him being shit, having a history which just doesn't gel with being a senior politician, and being absolutely awful at handling the media.

Starmer, most senior Labour people at the moment even, are incredibly dull and don't exactly build much excitement... But though you won't get many taking to the streets about it I do think this is a key factor in what people want.
As well as letting the Tories fail for him and being careful to avoid doing anything, I do think it was a bit of an active decision from his campaign to paint him as this really boring serious guy who'd just get on with the job- when in actual fact I get the impression he's actually pretty normal and OK as you say.

The share of the vote is the same - the location of the vote is different. They lost votes (and turnout) in safe Labour areas (including Starmer's seat). Nationally the swing is about 11%, but Labour were picking up seats with 20%+ swings. So their vote share isn't great, but the results are in line with their electoral strategy (which is the right one for a FPTP system). Although what you're saying is a point Corbyn has made that they did worse than he did in 2017 and it may be "a landslide of seats but it's not a landslide of votes" which perhaps explains some of his weakness as a leader If we had an electoral system that cared about vote share, Labour would have had a different strategy and voters would have behaved differently.

They do seem to have broadly done a great job with this. Alienating the superfluous voters and appealing more to the centrists just enough. Though for a while I was thinking Starmer's seat could well go.

It is sad to see Debbonaire lose her seat though, even if its to the Greens. Ironically she seemed to be one of the better and more "Green" of Labours MPs.

[Barrister]

So reviews I've read are that Labour vote is almost entirely unchanged from 2019 - to the extent it went up at all it is because of gains in Scotland / decline in SNP.  Instead the result is due to collapse in Tory votes going to Reform, which has allowed Labour to rack up a huge win with only 35% of the vote.

True?  Not true?

True. But I'm not totally sure it's relevant. Obviously we have FPTP and it doesn't reward vote share, so it's not something the parties are trying to maximise. They want breadth not depth of support.

The share of the vote is the same - the location of the vote is different. They lost votes (and turnout) in safe Labour areas (including Starmer's seat). Nationally the swing is about 11%, but Labour were picking up seats with 20%+ swings. So their vote share isn't great, but the results are in line with their electoral strategy (which is the right one for a FPTP system). Although what you're saying is a point Corbyn has made that they did worse than he did in 2017 and it may be "a landslide of seats but it's not a landslide of votes" which perhaps explains some of his weakness as a leader If we had an electoral system that cared about vote share, Labour would have had a different strategy and voters would have behaved differently.

I think Scotland should be a lot more prominent in the coverage of this though given the collapse of the SNP there and the impact that has on the very literal future of the country.

I agree with Stephen Bush that a good way of looking at it is that it's like 2005 but with a worse Tory Party and more volatile voters. So then Labour also won a very strong majority (about 50-60 seats) on 35% despite losing lots of votes in their core constituencies over Iraq. But the Tories are weaker - so in 2005 they won 32% of the vote, while this time they won 24%. Similarly the Lib Dems won 22% in 2005 but about 60 seats while this time they've won 12% of the vote but over 70% (so the Lib Dems now, like Labour, probably would lose seats with PR ). And the electorate is more flighty - so they're going to Reform, to Greens, to the four pro-Gaza independents.

Edit: Separately I think Sunak's concession and resignation speeches were good. Same goes for Starmer - a bit more relaxed to the party on winning and then good at Number 10.

Edit: He said it a lot during the campaign but I do like his line/goal about getting "politics to tread more lightly in your lives".

So...  It is 100% true that you campaign under the system you have, and that if the UK was under a Proportional Representation system Labour would have run a different campaign.

But I also know that while I love love love the "in the weeds" of running a campaign constituency by constituency - really a good organization in a constituency versus a bad organization is only a difference of a few percentage points at most - the national campaign is what largely drives votes.  I know I've mentioned it before, but I'll mention it again - I was the Campaign Manager twice in a constituency - once in 1997 Federal election and in 1999 Manitoba provincial election.

So Labour can't just say "well we have a very efficient vote" as if it's some great strategic move of theirs, as opposed to just being lucky.

It's just - Keir Starmer is the legitimately elected PM of the UK.  Good on him.  And in Westminster systems you pretty much never get governments elected with 50% of the vote.  But just that 33.8% of the vote is an incredibly narrow vote total for a majority government - that means almost twice as many people voted against you as voted for you.  In Canada at least you typically need to start hitting 40% to get into majority territory.  As I understand it Starmer also didn't run on much of a robust platform.  That's probably good politics, as it was the Tories election to lose - and they did.

But it's hard to say Labour has much of a mandate to do, well, anything.

Anyways - as someone who loves politics - I'll keep watching eagerly.  It's also nice to watch an election where you're not worried about the fate of the world either.

[Josquius]

I'm not so sure it's fair to say people voted against Labour when they didn't vote for them in a multi party setup.
Perfectly imaginable they were lots of people's second choice.
It was very much the tories they voted against.

[Barrister]

I'm not so sure it's fair to say people voted against Labour when they didn't vote for them in a multi party setup.
Perfectly imaginable they were lots of people's second choice.
It was very much the tories they voted against.

Perfectly imaginable - but were they in fact second choice for a lot of people?  Is there polling on that fact?  Plus, as pointed out, that's not the voting system you guys use.

If you want to instead say "almost twice as many people voted for someone other than Labour as they did for Labour" then go ahead - but I think the point still stands.

Look - I don't want this to come across as some kind of conspiracy/"truther" post.  Labour won the election fair and square.  I'm just legitimately shocked at how small their total vote percentage was.

[OttoVonBismarck]

But it's hard to say Labour has much of a mandate to do, well, anything.

This is wrong, they have over 400 seats in Parliament, they have the mandate to largely do whatever the fuck they want.

Voters get to decide in ~5 years if they agree with what they choose to do.

[PJL]

But it's hard to say Labour has much of a mandate to do, well, anything.

This is wrong, they have over 400 seats in Parliament, they have the mandate to largely do whatever the fuck they want.

Voters get to decide in ~5 years if they agree with what they choose to do.

True in theory, but unlike in 1997 the majorities in many of those seats are narrower than they would have been, due to their lower vote share. So any small shifts in public opinion will have a larger effect on number of seats than before. Hence Labour will need to be more careful than in 1997 (though if anything Blair was way too cautious in his first term).

[OttoVonBismarck]

The United Kingdom doesn't have a system which rewards popular vote nationwide, it uses FPTP. Trying to read too many tea leaves from the popular vote isn't tremendously useful.

Particularly in an election with the lowest turnout in many years--that is likely due to a number of factors, chief among them the widespread and pervasive understanding Labour was going to win going back months ago and that absolutely will decrease turnout in any election.

A more competitive election will have higher turnout, which also means a different electorate, it is not wise to invest too much into the 2024 electorate, that electorate has voted. It does not get to vote again--because the electorate the next time there is an election will be different, and likely even different issues will emerge that could be important as well.

[Sheilbh]

So...  It is 100% true that you campaign under the system you have, and that if the UK was under a Proportional Representation system Labour would have run a different campaign.

But I also know that while I love love love the "in the weeds" of running a campaign constituency by constituency - really a good organization in a constituency versus a bad organization is only a difference of a few percentage points at most - the national campaign is what largely drives votes.  I know I've mentioned it before, but I'll mention it again - I was the Campaign Manager twice in a constituency - once in 1997 Federal election and in 1999 Manitoba provincial election.

So Labour can't just say "well we have a very efficient vote" as if it's some great strategic move of theirs, as opposed to just being lucky.

I get that - and I think there is something of this isn't a wave of enthusiasm for Labour. But looking at this from the FT, I think that's an incredibly effective, targeted FPTP campaign - and a very strongly motivated "kick the Tories" electorate who went with whoever was best placed to win in their area:


It's also why I'm not sure about the "unite the right" stuff - certainly not on the basis of this election. If you just apply the national swing at this election Labour don't even get a majority. The swing was higher where it needed to be and not where it didn't - which is why I think if it was a PR campaign and share mattered there'd be a far higher Labour vote. For Starmer specifically, Labour had their worst result since 1935 in 2019. It's absolutely an anti-Tory vote - I'm certain Corbyn's Labour wouldn't have benefited from it and I think it's to Starmer's credit that he's positioned Labour so that the opposition wins when the government loses.

It's just - Keir Starmer is the legitimately elected PM of the UK.  Good on him.  And in Westminster systems you pretty much never get governments elected with 50% of the vote.  But just that 33.8% of the vote is an incredibly narrow vote total for a majority government - that means almost twice as many people voted against you as voted for you.  In Canada at least you typically need to start hitting 40% to get into majority territory.  As I understand it Starmer also didn't run on much of a robust platform.  That's probably good politics, as it was the Tories election to lose - and they did.

But it's hard to say Labour has much of a mandate to do, well, anything.

Anyways - as someone who loves politics - I'll keep watching eagerly.  It's also nice to watch an election where you're not worried about the fate of the world either.

Yeah it's not unprecedented here. He's done better than Blair in 2005 - which I think is a similar election. I think it is the reason we probably need electoral reform (but, like St Augustine - not yet ). People rejected it at the last referendum we had on it and there needs to be a campaign for it. It might be a little ironic but I actually think Farage may be the route to that as he turns electoral reform from an eccentric hobby horse of the Lib Dems into a broader issue - and he's good at forcing single issues up the agenda.

The bigger issue I think is less the government mandate and more that we are an increasingly multi-party with a system that almost by design favours two-party. I think last night was a good example of voters still being able to get their message across (absolutely smash the Tories, change the government but let's not get overexcited - which I think is the national mood). I think voters are very sophisticated. But in 1992 the three main parties won 96% of the vote (John Major is still the greatest votewinner in British history ) - it's been on basically a straight decline since then except for the two Brexit elections which were different. Last night the three main parties got 70% of the vote. That's starting to get challenging and I think voter choice banging up against the system is ultimately a problem that will need fixing.

On his manifesto I'm not sure what you mean by robust. It's very timid. But I think Starmer is a very cautious, step-by-step (you might say lawyerly) politician. The Labour argument is that trust in British politics is at an all time low because people have been made grandiose promises that have not been delivered - so what is in their manifesto is all (with the baffling exception of energy transition) stuff they are confident that they can do, fully costed etc etc. It's always positioned as these are our first steps. So there's sometimes a lot of detail and it does seem believable. It's not a great hope and change platform though.

The other side of that is that they haven't really set out what they'd like to do long term, what the vision is - what follows the first steps? So I don't think they'll necessarily have a real mandate for that stuff.

And I'm not sure on the approach to be honest. I totally get their argument and I agree that basically everything they commit to in a manifesto should be deliverable. I think it is a little timid and a shift from recent Labour manifestos


But I think they could and probably should have been bolder (but I acknowledge we're now in a higher/normal interest world which we haven't been for the 2010s) - I also think they probably should have sketched out the vision. They'd argue they are through this "mission driven government" with six missions, but I'm not sure they really do work for answering what they would want to do after those "first steps".

[Barrister]

But it's hard to say Labour has much of a mandate to do, well, anything.

This is wrong, they have over 400 seats in Parliament, they have the mandate to largely do whatever the fuck they want.

Voters get to decide in ~5 years if they agree with what they choose to do.

See, I 100% disagree with this mindset.

There's two aspects to having a "mandate" - (which of course is more of a question of legitimacy, rather than law).

First aspect - total votes.  Think back to 2000.  George W Bush won the election - but Al Gore got more votes.  Bush was the legitimate President - but at least until 9/11 threw everything up in the air his administration was very aware they didn't have much of a mandate and he was definitely trying to govern more to the centre.

Second aspect - platform.  I'm going Canadian here.  The 1988 Federal Election was held on the issue of Free Trade with the US.  There was no question that was the PCs platform.  That's what the debates were about, that's what most election ads were about.  So even though the Pcs won with only 43% of the vote, compared to the Liberals and NDP, who both ran against Free Trade and got a total of 32% + 20%) - there was no question the PCs had a mandate to implament free trade.

There's this very dangerous notion in politics these days - that if you can just gerrymander or otherwise scheme your way into a win, that is all that matters, and questions of legitimacy or mandate don't factor into it.  I very much dislike this notion.

[Sheilbh]

And totally get your point and that you're not going down a truther rabbithole.

But here the discourse is very much "did the party that won over 200 new seats actually do well?" And I basically think they did and because of their strategy not just dumb luck.

[OttoVonBismarck]

In a FPTP system, I tend to agree the national campaign is normally determinative as BB said; and the overall popular vote can be a proxy for how well that campaign went.

At the same time though, actually winning a national FPTP election (such as the U.S. Electoral College, for example) requires a national message that is broadly acceptable in a large number of constituencies or FPTP districts.

Looking to America as a comparison, I would argue the Democrats since 1992 have usually ran campaigns that do very well with that national vote piece, and if you do well enough in the national vote, you will often at least be competitive in the electoral college. No Democrat has lost in anything close to a wipeout since 1988 in the EC. (Let's informally define "wipeout" as getting less than 200 EVs.) Republicans have had a few wipeouts in the EC since '88--'92, '96, '08--Romney came basically 1 state away from the same fate in '12.

However that span covers 8 elections, which Dems have only actually won 5/8, just over half. I posit a significant reason for that is that Republican candidates, campaigns, and the party itself, have built both a messaging apparatus and a body of voters that are more effectively able to compete on a per-voter basis for our FPTP districts in America.

I would posit there is evidence that is precisely what Starmer did here, it wasn't, imo, an accident.

I do think due to general national dislike and fatigue of the Tories, this was always Labour's election to lose, but I think the reason Labour has won such a commanding majority is Starmer found a way to be broadly appealing in lots of places, while tamping down the worst niches of Labour politics that have seemed to drive down their support in some constituencies in prior failed elections. Labour was going to win this regardless, but I do think they had a real strategy here and that is why they ended up with over 400 seats instead of say 350 or whatever.

Edit: I also think Starmer was smart to largely let the "Gaza rebels" do their thing and not try to make a big shift in messaging to appease them. They cost Labour a few seats, but I think appeasement of them would have cost Labour more seats than it gained.

[Sheilbh]

Second aspect - platform.  I'm going Canadian here.  The 1988 Federal Election was held on the issue of Free Trade with the US.  There was no question that was the PCs platform.  That's what the debates were about, that's what most election ads were about.  So even though the Pcs won with only 43% of the vote, compared to the Liberals and NDP, who both ran against Free Trade and got a total of 32% + 20%) - there was no question the PCs had a mandate to implament free trade.

There's this very dangerous notion in politics these days - that if you can just gerrymander or otherwise scheme your way into a win, that is all that matters, and questions of legitimacy or mandate don't factor into it.  I very much dislike this notion.

Totally agree on this point and in the UK it's not been tested recently because they don't want to push it, but that's the theory of when and how the Lords can block legislation.

Basically if it's in the manifesto then they have to give way to the representative, democratic chamber. They can amend and slow it down but fundamentally they as an unelected body do not have the legitimacy to block a policy put to the people in an election by the winning party. If it wasn't in the manifesto (and again they haven't pushed this recently) then they feel in a far stronger position to block it because it didn't go to the people and the government have no more mandate to force it through than the undemocratic chamber has to block it.

And ultimately I'm broadly a supporter of a political constitution which is largely about legitimacy (I'd argue that ultimately all constitutions are).

[Sheilbh]

Edit: I also think Starmer was smart to largely let the "Gaza rebels" do their thing and not try to make a big shift in messaging to appease them. They cost Labour a few seats, but I think appeasement of them would have cost Labour more seats than it gained.

Given that Starmer said his first priority as leader was to heal the relationship between the party and the Jewish community and have zero tolerance for anti-semitism, I think he will have been very pleased to have won the three most Jewish constituencies in the country from the Tories (including Maggie Thatcher's old seat). And I think he'd certainly have been willing to lose Islington North to Jeremy Corbyn for that.

I think the strength of the pro-Gaza independents was a surprise. Also saying (which will shock no-one) Galloway's party ran some of the nastiest, most thuggish campaigns in a few seats. He didn't turn up at the count to lose his seat but they had to have the police on site because of his thugs. And there'd been a lot of intimidation in Birmingham Yardley which Jess Philips (just) held on to - including constant disruption when she was trying to give her speech:
https://x.com/Channel4/status/1809092974438940817

[Barrister]

It's also why I'm not sure about the "unite the right" stuff - certainly not on the basis of this election. If you just apply the national swing at this election Labour don't even get a majority. The swing was higher where it needed to be and not where it didn't - which is why I think if it was a PR campaign and share mattered there'd be a far higher Labour vote. For Starmer specifically, Labour had their worst result since 1935 in 2019. It's absolutely an anti-Tory vote - I'm certain Corbyn's Labour wouldn't have benefited from it and I think it's to Starmer's credit that he's positioned Labour so that the opposition wins when the government loses.

SO I've lived through "unite the right" twice now.  First federally in Canada - a split between the PCs and Reform/Canadian Alliance allowed the Liberals to win several times.  Once the parties merged, at first it meant a now-reduced minority Liberal government in 2004, and then a minority Conservative government in 2006.

Similarly in Alberta - in a province that had been "right wing" for pretty much 100 years (although under different party names - United Farmers, Social Credit, Progressive Conservative) - a split in the right wing parties led to the left-wing NDP winning in 2015.  It was difficult but the two right-wing parties then merged to form the United Conservatives, who promptly won again.

So it'll be curious to see what happens in UK politics.  Reform might very much be a flash-in-the-pan driven by frustration with the Tories - much like UKIP was before them.  But if they have some staying power it's going to cause the Tories to be almost completely unable to form government in the future.

Yeah it's not unprecedented here. He's done better than Blair in 2005 - which I think is a similar election. I think it is the reason we probably need electoral reform (but, like St Augustine - not yet ). People rejected it at the last referendum we had on it and there needs to be a campaign for it. It might be a little ironic but I actually think Farage may be the route to that as he turns electoral reform from an eccentric hobby horse of the Lib Dems into a broader issue - and he's good at forcing single issues up the agenda.

The bigger issue I think is less the government mandate and more that we are an increasingly multi-party with a system that almost by design favours two-party. I think last night was a good example of voters still being able to get their message across (absolutely smash the Tories, change the government but let's not get overexcited - which I think is the national mood). I think voters are very sophisticated. But in 1992 the three main parties won 96% of the vote (John Major is still the greatest votewinner in British history ) - it's been on basically a straight decline since then except for the two Brexit elections which were different. Last night the three main parties got 70% of the vote. That's starting to get challenging and I think voter choice banging up against the system is ultimately a problem that will need fixing.

Electoral reform is the perennial call of the loser.  Once a party manages to figure out how to win in a FPTP system - it's amazing how they no longer see the need for electoral reform...

On his manifesto I'm not sure what you mean by robust. It's very timid. But I think Starmer is a very cautious, step-by-step (you might say lawyerly) politician. The Labour argument is that trust in British politics is at an all time low because people have been made grandiose promises that have not been delivered - so what is in their manifesto is all (with the baffling exception of energy transition) stuff they are confident that they can do, fully costed etc etc. It's always positioned as these are our first steps. So there's sometimes a lot of detail and it does seem believable. It's not a great hope and change platform though.

I think you do get me - "not robust" is the same as "timid".  They didn't put forward a strong and ambitious platform.  Which on the one hand is smart politics in terms of winning.  But in terms of governing makes it harder because your opponents can rightly say you didn't campaign on any ambitious policy agenda if you try to implement it.

I'll go back to Alberta (because everyone cares about Alberta politics).  Danielle Smith in her leadership campaign for the UCP talked about some extremely "ambitious" policies - like the formation of a provincial police force, or the forming of a provincial pension fund.  These are both things that are possible (Ontario and Quebec have provincial police forces, Quebec has its own pension fund) - but both would be hugely expensive and disruptive at least at first.  When it came time for the general election however neither was anywhere to be seen.  Sicne Smith won both have been floated as ideas - but the lack of legitimacy for not running on either policy has really hurt her, and it seems unlikely either will be brought into policy any time soon.