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Labour wins majority in UK General Elections as Tories lose two-thirds of seats

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.

umbrella ,
@umbrella@lemmy.ml avatar

let me guess, they will do nothing and fascism will come back again…

HauntedCupcake , (edited )

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

emergencyfood OP ,

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.

PolandIsAStateOfMind ,
@PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml avatar

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.

zazo ,

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 :)

UnderpantsWeevil ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

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.

geneva_convenience ,

They’ll increase policing and call it a day.

kaffiene ,

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

flango ,

Fuck yeah!

vfreire85 ,

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.

undergroundoverground ,

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.

Oggyb ,

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?

undergroundoverground ,

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.

Oggyb ,

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.

hellequin67 ,

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

Professorozone ,

But that’s better than nothing, right?

HonoraryMancunian ,

And ~54% of the votes went to left(ish) parties, so that’s something

fine_sandy_bottom ,

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.

wewbull ,

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.

fine_sandy_bottom ,

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.

wewbull ,

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.

frazorth ,

We already have the left wing vote split by Labour, Lib Dem and Green.

sunbytes ,

Not left wing. Just left.

None of them are left wing (maybe Green has some left wing stuff?)

Skullgrid ,
@Skullgrid@lemmy.world avatar

green is definately left wing, they’re hardly anti immigration and pro-big business, anti environmental regulation, are they?

sunbytes ,

“no right wing talking points” is hardly left wing.

Skullgrid , (edited )
@Skullgrid@lemmy.world avatar

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.

sunbytes ,

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.

undergroundoverground ,

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.

hellequin67 ,

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.

kaffiene ,

So you’re tallying the right wing and comparing vs one party on the “left”?

then_three_more ,

And socially progressive parties got 56% of the vote. But that’s split between about 4 parties.

jimmy90 ,

i hope this is an omen for what is to happen in the US

atro_city ,

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.

TheBat , (edited )
@TheBat@lemmy.world avatar

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.”

NoneOfUrBusiness ,

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.

ripcord ,
@ripcord@lemmy.world avatar

It is?

lazynooblet ,
@lazynooblet@lazysoci.al avatar

And the trump supporters are like “omg yeah you’re so right, wow, isn’t he clever”

jimmy90 ,

nah he can be a better president than trump from his death bed

tiredofsametab ,

Still voting against trump, even if the alternative is a baked potato with googly eyes glued on it; trump is too dangerous, particularly with the recent Supreme Court rulings.

r00ty Admin ,
r00ty avatar

I think it's important to note that the primary reason the conservative party lost many of their seats is because their vote was split between them, and an even more right wing party led by Nigel Farage. It wasn't because of a huge shift to the left (or at least the centre left position the labour party occupy right now).

In my constituency for example, if you put the conservative + reform votes together, they would have beaten the nearest competitor by a country mile.

jimmy90 ,

i think the primary reason was that the tories were a tragic, worthless mess and the reform racists were there to pick up the protest vote and the lib dems, the others. the low turn out were the tories that couldn’t even be bothered.

i see the republicans in a very similar situation

r00ty Admin ,
r00ty avatar

That's what I originally thought would be the case. But, just statistically (looking at voter share here):

2019: Cons: 43.6% Lab: 32.1% LD: 11.6% SNP: 3.9%
2024: Lab: 33.7% Cons: 23.7% Reform: 14.3% LD: 12.2% (Weirdly, wikipedia has yet to include reform in their share ranking had to use BBC)

Labour picked up less than 2% more of the vote share. Reform took the vast majority of the tory lead away.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad the tories are out. But, it's mostly because reform split the vote and Labour were second place in most constituencies. This is important to bear in mind while the conservatives sort themselves out to decide how they deal with not being right wing enough..

frazorth ,

By that statement though, the LibDems split the left vote and so if your going to compare, you’ll need to add the liberal vote to the Labour as that’s where they would go if LibDems disappeared.

r00ty Admin ,
r00ty avatar

You could be right, but I am not so sure.

In terms of percentage, the lib dems made a smaller gain than labour. I'd also suggest that while maybe some of those votes came from wavering labour voters, I expect that at least a similar number would have also come from the tories. I don't think the lib dems split the vote any more than they normally do.

Reform, while not new, last time round they did not compete against the tories. This time, they did and the result is clear.

frazorth ,

LibDems made smaller gains

I’m not talking about gains, LibDems already split the vote, Reform is just now doing the same to the Tories.

LibDems are not the same as the Tories. However I would concede that if the LibDems folded, the membership could easily move to Green.

emergencyfood OP ,

as that’s where they would go if LibDems disappeared.

Many of them, yes. But there’s also a significant share who’ll vote Lib Dem or Tory, but not Labour.

frazorth ,

significant share who’ll vote Lib Dem or Tory, but not Labour

Citation required for that.

The Liberal Party, which is now the modern LibDems, was founded as opposition to the Tories. Their values are completely different, which is why most LibDem voters were concerned about the coalition.

Labour was founded to represent workers rights, the Greens for the planets rights, and the LibDems for social rights.

The Tories are toxic for all three of those.

emergencyfood OP ,

The Liberal Democrats are talking a lot about the blue wall.

These are traditional Conservative seats where they hope Tory voters have had enough of the present government, can’t bring themselves to vote Labour - and see the Lib Dems as an acceptable alternative.

Source: www.bbc.com/news/articles/c888523y90mo

frazorth ,

As per the initial comment, those that didn’t vote Tory mostly moved to Reform not to LibDem.

Because LibDem wouldn’t make sense, as a pro-trans, pro-EU, pro-increase tax to pay for public services party they don’t offer anything that Tories want.

That was a wishful thinking comment that some Tories might want to not move far-right, those that find the Tories unpalatable due to their shitty views have already moved.

I would suggest that your more likely to find folks who voted LibDem to move to Green now that they’ve rebranded themselves to something other than crusty hippies. I know my mother moved from voting LibDem to Green.

emergencyfood OP ,

Bold of you to assume voters care about consistency or policies. For many Tory upporters in the Home Counties, southeast, southwest and east London, voting Labour would be a bridge too far. But the Lib Dems might be an acceptable alternative. There’s a reason the main left of centre party in these regions is the Lib Dems, and not Labour.

emergencyfood OP ,

as that’s where they would go if LibDems disappeared.

Many of them, yes. But there’s also a significant share who’ll vote Lib Dem or Tory, but not Labour.

jimmy90 , (edited )

just because numbers didn’t change much doesn’t mean voters didn’t

i think a lot of labour voters in struggling communities went to reform which means labour got voters from elsewhere to keep up their percentage.

who know what the reform voters will do when they realise their vote was wasted in 5 years. also a lot of tactical voting will unwind.

wewbull ,

Which would make the best chance to keep Trump out would be a third candidate that was a “moderate” republican. Somebody that took the more centrist base away from him.

then_three_more ,

I think it’s important to note that the primary reason the conservative party has had many of their seats in the past is because the left/socially progressive vote was split between labour, lib Dems and the greens.

stewie3128 ,

Now watch them do nothing of consequence.

regul ,

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!

stewie3128 ,

Right, forgot about those devastatingly important priorities.

Aradina ,

The least exciting Labor victory in history.

randon31415 ,

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.

emergencyfood OP ,

Labour lost four seats to independents running against its inaction on Gaza.

jsomae ,

and men?

pingveno ,

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.

randon31415 ,

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!”

Veraxus ,

Can we have some of this in the US, please? While we still exist.

regul ,

Leadership that detests trans people and wants to genocide Palestinians? You’re in luck, bud! You get that no matter who wins!

el_abuelo ,

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.

Veraxus ,

Yeah. There is no left wing party here. Decades of right wing propaganda have convinced our populace of the Ingsoc motto. 😭

Zier ,
@Zier@fedia.io avatar

Now kill Brexit!

Sibbo ,

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.

regul ,

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.

BirdyBoogleBop , (edited )

Not going to happen. They even said it’s not going to happen.

frazorth ,

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.

UnfortunateShort ,

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.

kaffiene ,

Yeah, Starmer is milquetoast on Brexit. Well, on everything, really

HobbitFoot ,

Well, at least the was one election where Nazis didn’t win big.

twinnie ,

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).

DJDarren ,

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.

fmstrat ,

New party (Reform) skyrocketed in fact. Had the vote not been split, conservatives would have won many more seats. Next cycle will be… Interesting. Especially with Nigel Farage getting a seat (Trump-like, seeded discontent leading to Brexit, who’s never been elected before).

Nonameuser678 ,
@Nonameuser678@aussie.zone avatar

If the UK had a preferential voting system the Tories would have won a lot more seats

northmaple1984 ,

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.

fmstrat ,

Democrats. Sounds funny, but it’s true. Bernie would be “mostly left”.

northmaple1984 ,

I’m not American so I’m not all that familiar with that frame of reference

rambling_lunatic ,

Where are you from?

northmaple1984 ,

Doesn’t matter, just explain it with actual examples of policies

rambling_lunatic ,

Sure thing, chief.

Neoliberal economics (low corporate taxes, weak regulations, privatization, weak welfare system, government intervention is used to facilitate further market expansion and prop up big businesses).

Large budgets for the army and the police without much external oversight, while still maintaining some level of restraint on what they can do.

Making it harder to get a visa and even harder to get a citizenship.

Hard-line stance against what are considered vices by the society the conservatives in question inhabit.

A preservation of the monarchy in countries which have them.

Incentives to give birth.

northmaple1984 , (edited )

Not a bad lisy actually, although I heavily disagree with the military and police budgets line… Authoritarian left regimes are known for very high police and military budgets even with heavily states controlled economies.

Edit: police and military spending tends to relate more to the libertarian-authoritarian spectrum rather than the socioeconomic left-right spectrum

rambling_lunatic ,

Conservatism is tends towards some degree of authoritarianism.

There are no policies that are uniquely conservative, or uniquely anything for that matter. When taken together, however, you can see conservativism form before your eyes.

northmaple1984 ,

Eh, so does Western Liberalism and basically every other government for the last hundreds of years, I’d argue that they are even authoritarian to very similar degrees but about different things.

then_three_more ,

For me I’d say the one-nation part of the conservative party.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-nation_conservatism

emergencyfood OP , (edited )

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.

xnx ,

Is jeremy corbyn considered to the left of the Labour party?

Darorad ,

Yeah, starmer kicked him out for not being centrist enough, which is why he ran independent (and beat the labour candidate)

alchemist2023 ,

and now they can kick out Kier and reinstate Jeremy! right!? right?? in my dreams

twinnie ,

Nobody voted for Corbyn, that’s why he isn’t the leader of the Labour Party anymore.

regul ,

Yeah it was just that simple. He wasn’t being smeared as an anti-semite constantly by both the right wing of his own party and the British media. None of that ever happened.

NigelFrobisher ,

All those people have probably been branded as anti-Semites now, too. Love and learn though.

PolandIsAStateOfMind ,
@PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml avatar

Iirc there were some purge in Labour, but nothing major since succdems are by nature opportunist bags and most quickly fell in line.

gnutrino ,

To be fair, more people voted for Corbyn in 2017 and probably even in 2019 (still some votes to be counted at time of writing so that could change but it’ll be close either way) than voted Labour in this election (12.8 million 2017/10.2 million 2019 vs 9.7 million so far in 2024).

It’s just an artifact of FPTP and to some extent overall turnout (which was very low this election) that the results in terms of seats look so different.

kaffiene ,

And Starmer hasn’t been the victim of a BS smear campaign from the media, the RW and the right of his own party

njm1314 ,

He was just elected again.

emergencyfood OP ,

To the left of the current Labour leadership, yes.

BirdyBoogleBop ,

I think it is safe to say he is just left wing. Corbyn also self identifies as a socialist.

Labour hasn’t been left wing atleast since I started living.

Orbituary , (edited )
@Orbituary@lemmy.world avatar

Murikan here. I really like Corbyn. He feels like your version of our Bernie Sanders.

i.imgur.com/44aVA5T.png

regul ,

He’s better than Sanders, especially on foreign policy.

Orbituary ,
@Orbituary@lemmy.world avatar

Wasn’t trying to rate their respective values, just that one reminded me of other. Bernie’s the best we can muster here. I imagine if things were a little bit more reasonable in our country, we might see more like him and Corbyn.

Oggyb ,

He’s a national treasure

kaffiene ,

I’m a New Zealander and I feel the same way. Starmer is like a non geriatric version of Biden: he would fit right in the Tories

intelisense ,

Not to be nit-picky, but I’m pretty sure they kicked him because they thought he was antisemitic, not because he was too left wing.

feedum_sneedson ,

That was the knife they used to stab him in the back with.

kaffiene ,

That was the excuse they made up, yes

i_am_not_a_robot ,
@i_am_not_a_robot@feddit.uk avatar

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.

atro_city ,

Small gains 💪

DJDarren ,

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.

Oggyb ,

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.

then_three_more ,

If it makes you feel better I’d have loved to vote lib dem, but had to hold my nose to vote labour.

underscore_ ,

Last I checked ~18:00BST


<span style="color:#323232;">Party     Seats    Votes       %
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Lab        412   9,725,117   33.8
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Con        121   6,824,610   23.7
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Reform       5   4,103,727   14.3
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Lib Dem     71   3,501,004   12.2
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Green        4   1,941,220    6.8
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Indep.       7     841,835    2.9
</span><span style="color:#323232;">…
</span>

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.

kaffiene ,

FPP is absolutely awful. You need voting reform ASAP

emergencyfood OP ,

It’s a stupid system, but I don’t expect the party that got 412 seats on a 34% voteshare to reform it.

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