ohThe conventional wisdom in Westminster is that positions don’t win elections. Governments lose. And so the UK election on July 4th saw the ruling Conservative Party suffer a crushing defeat. After 14 years in power marked by Brexit, a pandemic, and astonishing political and financial turmoil that produced three prime ministers in just one year, the world’s most successful political party, in power twice as long as it had been out since 1945, was back in opposition. Instead, the Labour Party stood in its way and won the election in a landslide victory. Its leader, prosecutor-turned-politician Keir Starmer, became the 58th Prime Minister of the UK.
“We did it!” Starmer told supporters in a victory speech early on Friday. “Change starts now.” His party is on track to win 410 seats. Exit polls are projected to give Labour a majority of the 650 seats in the House of Commons, which have proven historically reliable, while the Conservatives are expected to fall to just 131 seats, which would be the party’s worst showing in its nearly 200-year history. If the exit polls are correct, Labour would have a majority of around 170 seats in Parliament, just short of the record it achieved under Tony Blair in 1997.
“People all over the country will wake up to this news and feel a weight lifted, a sense of relief that a burden has finally been lifted from the shoulders of this great nation,” Starmer said, pledging to restore hope to British families. “Hope may not be burning brightly in Britain right now, but we have a mandate to rekindle that fire. That is what this party and this government is about.”
Outgoing Chancellor Rishi Sunak said he had called Mr Starmer to congratulate him on Labour’s victory, telling voters that the British people had delivered a “harsh verdict” and claimed “responsibility for defeat”.
Sunak, who took office in 2022 promising to restore stability to the country after former prime ministers Liz Truss and Boris Johnson eroded public trust and crashed the British economy, is due to formally announce his resignation as prime minister later on Friday. It remains to be seen whether Sunak will remain leader of the Conservative party or whether the Tories, known as the Conservatives, will elect a new leader to serve as opposition leader.
The result was shocking, but not all that surprising. Labour had held a double-digit lead in the polls for over a year before Sunak called an early election, a lead that had barely budged in six weeks of campaigning. It was exacerbated by a series of Conservative gaffes and scandals (most damagingly, the revelation that several Conservative staff had used inside information to gamble on the election date, a potentially criminal offence) and the resurgence of Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage, whose anti-immigration party Reform UK managed to siphon votes from the Conservatives in key constituencies. With a Labour victory expected, the Conservatives warned voters in the final days of the campaign not to hand the so-called “supermajority” to Starmer. Needless to say, the message didn’t get through.
Perhaps the biggest surprise of the night was the strong showing of the Reform Party. Launched in 2021 as a reincarnation of Farage’s Brexit Party, the party could win up to 13 seats, according to exit polls, outperforming established forces such as the Scottish National Party, which could be reduced to 10 seats. Farage, a leading Brexit force and close ally of Donald Trump, secured his seat after seven failed attempts.
Although Labour won by a landslide, it may have received a lower share of the vote than it has received in previous elections. In the UK’s “single-member constituency” system, a party can win seats if its candidate receives the most votes, regardless of whether that number represents a majority of the total votes. Early estimates suggest that voter turnout was lower nationwide compared to the last election in 2019, below 57%. This does not diminish the scale of Labour’s victory, but it may indicate the level of disillusionment many Britons felt going into this election. Despite the scale of the result, the election felt relatively boring and with little policy debate.
With the Conservatives back in opposition, it will be up to Labour to deliver on the reforms it has promised, including articulating a plan to tackle key campaign issues such as reviving Britain’s ailing National Health Service and strengthening ties with European partners. That work could begin as soon as next week, when Starmer travels to Washington, DC, for the NATO 75th anniversary summit.
While some observers would like to proclaim this election result a new dawn for British politics, the reality is that Labour’s governing challenges are just beginning. “A Labour coalition government will be elected on a platform that is incredibly broad, but also incredibly shallow, and doesn’t really address some of the big problems facing the country,” says Anand Menon, UK director at London-based think tank Changing Europe. If there’s such a thing as too much of a good thing, it’s Labour. The party is trying to capture a base that stretches from north to south, urban to rural, poor to rich. Balancing the needs of all those constituencies and sustaining their support will be difficult.
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“Starmer could become very unpopular very quickly,” Menon added. “What really matters is whether they deliver – growth and public services – while saying they won’t raise certain taxes.”
Mr Starmer acknowledged as much in his victory speech, acknowledging that “changing this country is not about flipping a switch; it is hard, patient and determined work.” Some observers say Labour’s reluctance to make big policy announcements during the election may help it manage expectations, at least in the short term.
“They’ve promised so little that they have very little room for error,” Tony Travers, a professor of politics at the London School of Economics, told reporters before the vote. “They’ve promised so little that the bar is set very low.”
Winning by such a large margin may be Starmer’s easiest task. The changes the British people want will come next, but they will undoubtedly be much harder.
“How long will it be before Labor becomes unpopular? Some say as late as Friday, July 5,” Mr Travers said. “Voters just can’t stand it for that long.”
