It’s a strange feeling. There I sat at my local count, the future of Ellesmere Port and Bromborough and Chester North and Neston to be decided later that night. In the Ellesmere Port Sports Village hall, a hundred white plastic tables were set out in rows, lined with vote counters in yellow hi-vis vests, awaiting boxes of sacred folded paper to be dumped out in front of them so this round of the age-old democratic process could come to a conclusion.
After waking at 6am that morning to walk around suburbs and housing estates in Bromborough and Eastham, knocking on doors and pushing cards through letterboxes for 12 hours straight, I sat down on the folded bleachers of the sports hall to take the weight off my feet. The work was not yet over, but the outcome was already decided. My fellow activists and colleagues gathered around a phone screen live streaming BBC News, polls across the nation about to close, and the last of the people’s votes being submitted. My watch struck ten, and I stood to look at my colleague’s phone.
410, they said. 410 seats for the Labour Party, my party. A Labour landslide, the exit poll predicted, and the promise, for the first time in my adult life, of some real change. I had let myself be sceptical for the whole campaign, disappointment in how my country has been governed all too familiar to me. After the Brexit referendum, the 2019 election, the pandemic and the defective handling of it, the PPE fast lane, Partygate, the wicked Boris Johnson and the delusional Liz Truss, the weakness of Rishi Sunak, the scandals, the primacy of self-interest, the lies, the lies, the lies, I had to be sceptical. There did not seem to be much point in thinking otherwise. As the polls remained as wide as they had for weeks on end, even as I took my seat at the count in the sports hall, that scepticism still had not left me. Until 10pm.
A stunned smile crept onto my face, my shock unbroken by hugs and handshakes of my fellow activists, it finally fell into place. We had done it. By the end of the night, after Justin and Samantha had made their acceptance speeches and all scattered away for some of the best-earned sleep any of us had known, I leant against the bonnet of my car and looked at the rising sun. Rising into a new day. A more hopeful day.
The final result tallied 412 seats for Labour, 121 for the Tories, 72 for the Liberal Democrats, 9 for SNP, 7 for Sinn Fein, 5 for Reform and the DUP, 4 for Plaid and the Greens, SDLP 2, Alliance, UUP and TUV on 1, and 6 Independents. After a single day in which the British people made their voices heard, 14 years of Conservative Government came, swiftly and brutally, to an end.
The sea of red across the map of the UK is unmistakable, the once-great red wall reinforced into a nationwide bulwark. The North East and the North West, reunited in their rejection of the Conservatives. The last Tory strongholds in central London, wiped away. A new band of crimson has been wrenched across the central belt of Scotland, each major urban centre there united with Labour almost in their entirety. This is one of the most successful election results Labour has won in its history, a mere 7 seats away from the landslide of legend won by Tony Blair in 1997.
For the ex-governing party, nothing less than their worst defeat at a general election. Ever. The most electorally successful party in western history has just received its lowest share of seats in history. The red wall they occupied in 2019 has returned entirely to Labour. They lost 60 seats to the Liberal Democrats throughout England and Wales, but most notably in the South West and South East, where traditional Tory strongholds have been shattered by a new swathe of orange.
This is a catastrophic moment for the Conservatives, one that they have brought entirely on themselves. Keir Starmer ran a good campaign, and presented competent and level-headed leadership as an alternative to their chaos. If they had governed wisely, clamped down on sleaze and corruption in their party swiftly, they may have stood a chance of beating him. I’ve said many times before, Labour’s polling, and now their victory, is mainly built on hatred of the Tories, not love of Labour. They failed to capitalise on this, their campaign just as shoddy and scandal-infested as their 14 years in government, the mindset of their self-serving, immoral representatives unshakable even against their imminent electoral doom. In the end, they never stood a chance.
For the Lib Dems, it was a fantastic night. They achieved their highest seat share ever, more even then their tally for coalition with the Tories in 2010. They won 64 new seats this election, taking 60 from the Tories and 4 from the SNP, but not a single one from Labour. If the British people know how to do one thing, it’s work First Past the Post to their advantage. The fact that Labour and the Lib Dems exchanged no seats between themselves this election is evidence of this. With this performance, they return to their historical place as the third largest party in the House of Commons, hopefully to contribute competent, measured opposition to the new Labour Government.
As for the other parties, two notable performances stand out. Firstly, the SNP, the former third party in Westminster, have been reduced from 48 seats to just 9; an obliteration. Labour held just one seat in Scotland prior to this election. Now they hold 37. The Lib Dems have now become the third power in Scotland also, holding 6 seats, overtaking the Tories on 5. This result is worse than the exit poll predicted, far worse than the SNP had feared. With this defeat, their voice in Westminster has been turned down from a shout to a murmur, and the promise of Scottish independence further away than ever before.
Secondly, and most worryingly, Reform UK (or Reform PLC), a new party on the scene in Westminster, won 5 seats from the Conservatives across the East of England, including the long-sought election of the company’s leader, Nigel Farage. Whether Reform’s success is due to their presentation of a right-wing alternative to a historically unpopular Conservative Party, or the beginning of a new wave of dangerous right-wing populism in the UK, as of yet I am unsure. I hope for the former, that their seat count will reduce at the next election after a brief stint in the Commons, like UKIP before it. But, if the Tories implode in opposition during this Parliament, if they tear themselves apart into factions and merge with Reform, or if Farage manages to insert himself into the party as an idol of saviour and gain leadership, these five seats may well grow in number at the next election.
Plaid Cymru doubled their share of seats this election, taking 4 in total, 2 from the Conservatives. With Labour taking 9 Welsh seats from the Tories, and a Lib Dem victory in Brecon, the Conservatives have been wiped out completely in Wales. Whilst out of the 32 seats in Wales, Labour have 27, it was a successful night for the Party of Wales, the entire western coast turning Plaid Cymru green as they enjoyed success in Wales’s rural, wild west. I’m not disheartened by their success; they’re better than the Tories, although I’d have preferred to see these seats turn red. Plaid echoes much of Labour’s policy, and I expect will vote with the Government on most issues. Also, as a Welshman, I can’t help but feel the slightest flutter of rebellious pride at a Welsh party enjoying a little success.
The Greens as well had a good night, increasing their seat share from just 1 in Brighton Pavilion to 4, including the Bristol Central seat of Labour’s would-be Culture Secretary, Thangam Debbonaire. They will be able to raise their voices louder than before on pressing issues like the climate and nature crises, ensuring the Government does not lose sight of acting on these important issues, and like Plaid, I expect will vote with Labour on most important issues.
And in Northern Ireland, we have seen a slight splintering of the DUP majority in this corner of the UK, with the abstentionist Sinn Fein now the largest party in Northern Ireland, despite not increasing their seat share. This is also the first time a Nationalist Irish party has been largest Westminster party in NI. Whether they take their seats or not, this may herald a shift in the direction of politics in NI, with Sinn Fein also enjoying a majority in Stormont after scandal rocked the DUP. They lost 3 seats, 1 each to the Ulster Unionist Party, the hard-right Traditional Unionist Voice, and the non-aligned Alliance Party (although Alliance also lost a seat to a DUP-backed independent candidate in North Down, keeping Alliance’s seat share level). The Social Democratic and Labour Party kept their share steady with 2 seats, the only official Nationalist voice in the House of Commons, but with the spectre of the ideology looming large over the scattered Unionists. With this, the Unionist cause in Westminster has become fractured, and the promise of a united Ireland, whilst still unattainably distant, become a fraction closer.
Another phenomenon unique to this election are the 5 independent MPs that have been elected in England (and also 1 in Northern Ireland with DUP backing, unrelated to the English independents). These independents, who all defeated Labour incumbents, all ran on a pro-Gaza and pro-Palestine platform, heavily criticising Labour’s initially indecisive stance on the war in Gaza. These were all seats with large Muslim minorities, indicating that Israel-Palestine will likely be more of a thorn in the side of Keir Starmer than he would like it to be. One of these independent MP was the former Labour leader and veteran left-wing MP, Jeremy Corbyn, who won his Islington North seat despite losing the Labour whip some years ago. The loyalty of his constituents, and their dissatisfaction with Keir Starmer’s leadership of what was once Corbyn’s party, has put him back into the Commons to cause trouble for Starmer’s Government, and potentially rally more radical left-wingers against him in the course of this Parliament.
Labour faces not only challenges in Parliament, from the right and from the left, but most crucially, in the nation at large. The situation we have inherited from the Conservatives is nothing short of dire, and without swift and noticeable change, the public mood will shift very easily. This election has proven how volatile British voters can be; from serving Labour its worst defeat in living memory 5 years ago to a historic landslide is a feat none expected of Keir Starmer, but to his immense credit, he did it.
Now there will be a true test. This won’t be like 1997 when Blair came in on high levels of personal approval. Starmer does not have this same luxury. Voters voted to kick out the Tories because they weren’t delivering. A spent force, obsessed with itself and not the welfare of the people. Even as the share of seats has tilted redder than decades before, the vote share hasn’t. This was tactical voting by the British people at its most brutal, to eradicate the Tories. A commentator has described this as a “loveless landslide”, and I have to say I agree. That love is not yet earned, but it will have to be if Labour are to stay in power. Labour and Sir Keir are now required to deliver, not just for Labour’s longevity, but for the good of the country that has chosen them.
Talking about “the Government” in positive terms is so alien to me. Ever since I started paying attention, I’ve always had a mindset of opposition, of pessimism towards how the Government will perform, having been accustomed to it after so many years. Politics had bittered me, and if I’m honest, anything less than a Labour landslide wouldn’t have made me much sweeter. But it happened. The land slid, the Tories are out. The change won’t come quickly, or easily, or cheap, but it will come. I’m confident in that. For the first time, I’m optimistic about the future of my country. It’s a strange feeling.
stay safe
/e