The Labour party has won over 400 seats (out of 650) in the 2024 UK General Elections, and Keir Starmer is expected to replace Rishi Sunak as Prime Minister. The Conservatives, in power for the last fourteen years, have suffered a rout, losing over two-thirds of their seats. The SNP has collapsed in Scotland, mostly to Labour, and the Liberal Democrats have gained over sixty seats.
Well, at least the was one election where Nazis didn’t win big.
They didn’t do that bad really, it just wasn’t reflected in the results. A new further right party showed up and split the right wing vote, which is largely why Labour won. If you look at the total votes the righter win parties did pretty well (Tories are really all that right wing but they did get the right wing vote).
Yeah, as much as I hate everything Farage stands for, fair play to him for splitting the Tory voters and delivering a Labour government. I just wish that kind of thing wasn’t necessary.
Mind describing to us what you consider a right, but not far right, political stance is? Examples of both economic and social policies would be welcome.
For me I’d say the one-nation part of the conservative party.
Among smaller parties, the Liberal Democrats have gained over 60 seats, and Reform, the Greens and Plaid Cymru have also gained seats. Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, now contesting as an independent, retained Islington North. Labour lost another three seats to independents who ran against its inaction on Palestine. The SNP and DUP suffered big losses, while Sinn Fein’s fortunes seem to have remained unchanged.
Very impressed with the Greens - four seats is double what was expected. Great result for them.
The Lib Dems have also come out of this really well.
I voted LD because I had to to ensure the Tory candidate didn’t get in, but I had to hold my nose while doing so. Last time I voted for them nationally was 2010, and we all know how that panned out.
To be fair to them though, after the 2015 election they had so few MPs that you could tag them all in a single tweet. So to have 71 now is impressive.
If it makes you feel better I’d have loved to vote lib dem, but had to hold my nose to vote labour.
People will hold their noses just the same for the Tories in 5 years’ time, after them having done way worse things than just not quite holding their coalition partner back a couple of times.
What Clegg conceded was bad, but 14 years might be enough exile and personnel churn for one to give them a new chance.
Small gains 💪
Last I checked ~18:00BST
Party Seats Votes % Lab 412 9,725,117 33.8 Con 121 6,824,610 23.7 Reform 5 4,103,727 14.3 Lib Dem 71 3,501,004 12.2 Green 4 1,941,220 6.8 Indep. 7 841,835 2.9 …I am personally glad that the next government is not going to be stuffed full with bigoted nationalists from Reform. I can’t help but marvel though at how wonky the system of voting is that let the Lib Dem’s get an order of magnitude more seats than Reform with 600k fewer votes. Reform got just under half Labour’s vote share and only slightly over 1% of their seats.
FPP is absolutely awful. You need voting reform ASAP
It’s a stupid system, but I don’t expect the party that got 412 seats on a 34% voteshare to reform it.
An overwhelming majority by seats but only 33% of the popular vote.
36% voted Tory/Reform so voters have not shifted left but split the more right wing vote
We already have the left wing vote split by Labour, Lib Dem and Green.
If you want to claim the 36%, you’ll need to add up the left wing parties together.
Not left wing. Just left.
None of them are left wing (maybe Green has some left wing stuff?)
green is definately left wing, they’re hardly anti immigration and pro-big business, anti environmental regulation, are they?
“no right wing talking points” is hardly left wing.
I have never heard of them be referred to as anything centrist. I don’t know why you think they’re not left wing, but from what I’ve heard from you in this thread, I don’t particularly think learning about the mechanism of your mind is likely to give me any uplifting insights into humanity nor politics.
You know it’s a sliding scale, right?
There’s not just three choices.
There’s Far-side, side-wing, side, side-leaning, center-side for both (plus center).
Then you have fiscal Vs moral lean on both sides.
But that’s better than nothing, right?
And ~54% of the votes went to left(ish) parties, so that’s something
I fear that next election reform is going to do much better.
In the mean time, Labor may not have much of a mandate for progressive policies, they’ll be creeping to the right to quell support for reform party.
Or having them in parliament might expose them as the one trick pony that they are.
I think Labour have to have a real effect on things in the next 5 years to show that the system can work. That will take the wind out of the right’s sails more than anything. Most of the reform vote is people feeling ignored, trod upon, thrown away. Labour has to make the people feel supported.
Perhaps.
I’m less optimistic. The world over voters seem to be drawn towards these populist assholes, and I think it’s important to note that the UK is not an exception, despite the labour victory.
Starmers first few speeches in power actually make me optimistic, and I didn’t vote for him. If he can truly deliver on being “country before party”, and making “personal gain the politics of the past”. It’s only a words right now, but the cabinet appointments (especially the 3 from outside the party) look good.
It’s all down to results.
And socially progressive parties got 56% of the vote. But that’s split between about 4 parties.
Its missleading to bass too much on that analysis. The parties don’t compete for the popular vote but to concentrate votes within seats they feel they can win.
No one was aiming to win the popular vote. I agree that’s a problem but we can’t really read to much into the split imo.
Let’s hope my doomongering is just that, with other countries in Europe starting to swing that way I hope it’s not sign of the future.
So you’re tallying the right wing and comparing vs one party on the “left”?
i hope this is an omen for what is to happen in the US
The US is going to have Trump. Biden is too senile to be president again and people know it. That last debate probably demotivated many people to even go vote and they won’t be voting for alternative candidates.
Maybe that’ll teach people to vote for independents and the DNC to stop propping up geriatrics.
Have you heard Trump?
“Look, having nuclear — my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart — you know, if you’re a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I’m one of the smartest people anywhere in the world — it’s true! — but when you’re a conservative Republican they try — oh, do they do a number — that’s why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune — you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we’re a little disadvantaged — but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me — it would have been so easy, and it’s not as important as these lives are — nuclear is so powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what’s going to happen and he was right, who would have thought? — but when you look at what’s going on with the four prisoners — now it used to be three, now it’s four — but when it was three and even now, I would have said it’s all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don’t, they haven’t figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it’s gonna take them about another 150 years — but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us, this is horrible.”
The people considering voting or considering voting for Biden are a completely different demographic from the people voting for Trump, so this comparison is meaningless.
It is?
nah he can be a better president than trump from his death bed
There was an anti-genocide independent running against Starmer (the new PM) and they came in second. Image if they had won: biggest Labor majority in generations, you are all set to become PM and you loose your seat because you were vague about whether you support or oppose killing innocent women and children.
Labour lost four seats to independents running against its inaction on Gaza.
and men?
Yeah, it always kinda weirds me out that “killing women and children” is the rallying cry in most conflicts. Civilians. Killing civilians. That’s what’s bad.
Reminds me of an orville quote I can’t find now - something about firing on all the innocent families of a colony, and the navigator chimes in “yes, and all the single people as well!”
I get what a lot of you guys are saying about Starmer and the Labour government not being as left wing as Corbyn. I would also like someone who would use this majority to implement some really hardcore leftist policies.
But please can we just take a step back and look at what he wants to do:
-
Massive amounts of NHS funding
-
Nationalised green energy
-
Tax private schools
-
Allow regulators to hit company executives with criminal charges
-
Nationalise the railways
-
Increase the minimum wage to a living wage
-
Free school meals
I don’t know about you, but that seems at the very least, left of center. Sure, he’s not making drastic sweeping changes right off the bat. But this country needs an era of stability, whilst we make small but consistent steps in the right direction, and that’s what Starmer will give us
Still let’s not forget the right-wing policies from their manifesto:
-
Increasing military spending by 13 billion
-
Increase police funding
-
More border security force to “stop the boats”
-
Build more prisons
-
Pour money into polluting industries (car gigafactories, steel production, “carbon capture”)
-
Keep oil and gas production in the North Sea for decades, with the only focus on jobs and none on environmental issues.
So yeah I guess it’s better to have an authoritarian social-ish democratic state than an outright fascist one but that’s not a very high bar and will only work until the climate crisis boils us all alive :)
-
That’s a great wish list, but I’m not sure how many of those will happen. Increased NHS funding is sadly unlikely given your economy and xenophobia against immigrants. I’m hoping you get increased support for green energy, free school meals and rail nationalisation, and at least a modest raise in the minimum wage. Cheap, clean energy, educated and healthy children, and an affordable and reliable transport system can do so much for the economy.
If you would get to know just one, single thing about blairites, that one thing would be to know that regardless what they promise, they do austerity and neoliberalism.
Starmer and the Labour government not being as left wing as Corbyn
It goes a lot farther than that. From the Cass Report to the HS2 to the genocidal approach towards migrant refugees (deliberate sinking of boats in the Mediterranean), Starmer’s Labour party has demonstrated very little interest in reversing Tory policy.
They campaigned as moderate administrators of Tory extremist platforms and they are positioning themselves to continue to looting of the UK with a liberal demeanor.
They’ll increase policing and call it a day.
-
Now kill Brexit!
Not going to happen. They even said it’s not going to happen.
I heard that they probably won’t, because they are afraid that they would lose support from the large amount of Brexit supporters that now voted labour.
lol and his soft stance on Brexit was part of why pundits said Corbyn lost. Talking out both sides of their mouths. Party full of fuckin’ snakes.
How do you convince the EU to let us back in?
We’ll need a couple of Labour terms before they’ll answer the phone.
EU demands are the easy part. It’s rather obvious what they would be. Something along the lines of: ‘The UK can rejoin at any time, but without all the special treatment it has been receiving.’
Try to convince the people that’s good. Will another referendum still be in favour of rejoining, if you have to accept the Euro, new immigration laws, maybe the metric system and other standards?
I have some doubts there.
Yeah, Starmer is milquetoast on Brexit. Well, on everything, really
Can we have some of this in the US, please? While we still exist.
Pretty sure our right wing is left of your left wing. So no you can’t have it because you don’t have a system that supports anything other than the right-wing hellscape you got now.
Yeah. There is no left wing party here. Decades of right wing propaganda have convinced our populace of the Ingsoc motto. 😭
Leadership that detests trans people and wants to genocide Palestinians? You’re in luck, bud! You get that no matter who wins!
Good that the Tories are out. Starmer is the most middle of the road centrist thou. Would be nice if the elected a left wing party
let me guess, they will do nothing and fascism will come back again…
watching from abroad it seems that keir has got no incentive or menace to make him go more to the left, which means he won’t do it and sees this victory as a reward to his positions. meanwhile tory tactics of incorporating farage’s discourse has finally broke down, and the votes they made out of it have returned to their rightful (pun intended) owner. libdems did their homework. sad for the snp and well deserved for the dup.
The problem is presuming someone needs incentive or malice to do that. The guy was soft-left and known to be so for years, right up until the very second he ran in the leadership election against corbyns heir Rebecca Long Bailey. At that exact moment, as if by magic, he became a neoliberal.
Its almost as if people made it up.
Not sure what you mean. He’s well known for having one stance under Corbyn and another when leader. The first being quite radical and socially progressive, the second being essentially Tory but a bit better. Which bit did they make up: the before or after?
Well known by who? Where are these people? Are they in the room with us right now?
There isn’t anything to corroborate that he was ever either one of those, let alone switched. The people who didn’t want him to win the leadership simply declared it to be thus and such. Despite their claims, that not the same thing as it being true.
The “he switch after he won the leadership” is the part they made up. You have to realise that the label of neoliberal was given to him not only by his enemies within the party but by people who also don’t actually know anything at all about neoclassical economics and simply use the term as a slur to throw at anyone right of the socialist campaign group that they dont like. In fact, the term has all but lost its meaning due to them.
You’d have thought that there was something in-between being a socialist and a neoliberal but, Apparently, were to beleive thats not the case.
Well known by… his policies? The jury’s still out because he only just got into power. He could go back to more Corbynite policies by stealth.
Na, his policies were nothing close to definitive on any positions. Honestly, that part of the left has been fighting the far right so long that they’ve lost track of where the lines are supposed to be and just lie as policy.
Now watch them do nothing of consequence.
Oh I’m sure they can privatize the NHS some more. Maybe make some more arms sales to Israel. Cut off healthcare for trans people.
They’ll do all sorts of stuff!
Right, forgot about those devastatingly important priorities.
The least exciting Labor victory in history.
