The 2024 UK Elections – A long Courtship and Short Honeymoon

An article by Ian Kilbride, published on 12 July 2024.

I have the good fortune to have been in the UK for two transformative elections of the twenty first century. The first was in May 2010, which brought thirteen years of Labour Party rule to an end (though it required a Conservative Liberal Democrat coalition) and the even more transformative July 2024 election which swept Labour back into power under Sir Keir Starmer with an astonishing 412 seats, leaving it with a majority of 291 seats in the 650 seat Parliament.

To place this in perspective, in 2019, Prime Minister Boris Johnson led the Conservatives to victory with 365 seats and an eighty-seat majority. Five years and three leaders later, the Tories sank to just 121 seats, the lowest number achieved by the western world’s most successful political party.

It is widely accepted that Labour’s victory had as much to do with a groundswell of anti-Tory sentiment sweeping the country as much as it did with outright support for Keir Starmer’s changed Labour Party. Due to the peculiarities of the UK’s first past the post (FPTP) electoral system, the magnitude of Starmer’s victory is somewhat misleading. In terms of the popular vote, Labour recorded the lowest percentage of any winning party since 1945. Just 35,2% of the electorate placed a cross next to the Labour Party on the ballot paper, but winning 63% of the seats in Parliament. Indeed, Labour’s share of the popular vote changed little from 2019, leaving it with a wide, but shallow electoral mandate. FPTP punished the Tories who with 23,7% of the popular vote won just 19% of the seats in Parliament.

Drilling down into the results, two smaller parties can take heart from their performance. In securing 71 seats, the Liberal Democrats achieved their biggest share of the House of Commons MPs in over a century. Often disadvantaged by the FPTP system, the Lib Dems are now showing real signs of revival after years in the political wilderness. Talking of political wilderness, many of the Labour gains were achieved in Scotland at the expense of the hapless Scottish National Party. This all but extinguishes the Scottish independence ‘debate’ for the foreseeable future.

The other big winner (and largely at the expense of the Tories) was Nigel Farage’s Reform Party. Though only winning five seats in Parliament (one of which was won by Farage at the eighth attempt), remarkably, Reform secured 14% of the popular vote. In other words, with two percent more votes that the Lib Dems, Reform secured just one percent of the seats compared to the Lib Dem’s 11%. The stunning performance means that with just 350,000 more votes spread across key seats, Reform would have become the official opposition.

Other notable features of the 2024 election saw 242 female MPs elected to office, the highest number on record. A raft of sitting and former Tory Ministers lost their seats with the most notable scalps being that of former Prime Minister Liz Truss and Leader of the House, Penny Mordaunt. Edwardian caricature, Sir Jacob Rees Mogg, had his 15,000 majority overturned with his ‘safe’ Somerset North East seat turning red. I am sure he will be comforted by his Nanny.

So, how should we interpret these results, what issues face Kier Starmer’s premiership and what does the result mean for South Africa?

The honeymoon will be short. Unlike Tony Blair’s 1997 landslide victory, this was less of a vote for a changed Labour party, and as much a protest vote against the 14 years of Tory misrule, chaos, arrogance and entitlement. Brexit hasn’t worked, Covid has left indelible scars on society and the economy, the National Health System is broken, illegal migration is out of control and the cost of living is crippling ordinary working people. Starmer and his new cabinet are facing a daunting task to make meaningful inroads into a raft of urgent challenges, but with precious little economic growth and even less fiscal headroom in which to maneuver. Failure to tackle social challenges effectively will trigger the left within his party. Failure to ignite the economy will harden opposition from all parties.

Starmer also needs to read the social and political tea leaves quickly if he is to survive and flourish. Taking the UK back into Europe is not an option, yet closer ties with the EU are essential for economic growth, so this is a tightrope he will have to walk deftly. Illegal immigration is not just an issue for blue rinse Tories and Reform nationalists, it is of major concern for many, irrespective of political stripe. It is also a defining issue for other countries across Europe and one Starmer is least comfortable dealing with, but deal with it he must.

What of the new Labour government’s relations with South Africa?  Historically relations between Labour governments and post-apartheid South African governments are warmer than those between the Tories and the ANC. This is again likely to be the case given new UK Foreign Minister David Lammey’s politics and ideological leanings. The key issue though is whether friendly and fraternal relations between the Labour government and South Africa’s GNU will produce more mutually beneficial relationships.

The SA UK relationship is important and has enormous potential for growth, but to achieve this requires us to talk turkey rather than just talk nice.