The Labour Party won a landslide victory in the UK general election, held on July 4, 2024, winning 412 seats, with Keir Starmer becoming British Prime Minister. By contrast, the result was a disaster for the Conservative Party, who won just 121 seats, bringing an end to Rishi Sunak's time as PM, and 14 years of tory-led governments. Compared with the last election in 2019, the Labour Party won an additional 211 seats, with the seat total for the Conservatives falling by 250. In terms of overall vote share, however, the Labour Party only won 33.8 percent of the vote, improving their share from 2019 by just 1.6 percent overall. Among smaller parties, the Liberal Democrats also had a very successful election, winning 71 seats, up from just 11 in 2019. Reform UK, meanwhile, won the third-highest vote share across the country, but ultimately won only four seats in Westminster, raising questions about the fairness of the UK's first-past-the-post voting system. In Scotland, the Scottish National Party suffered a tough night, seeing their number of seats fall from 48 to just 9, while in Northern Ireland, Sinn Féin won the most seats of a Northern Irish party in the British parliament for the first time.
The main issues
This Conservative's long period in power comes to an end after a collapse in the polls ,in late 2022, that the party struggled to recover from. Even after Rishi Sunak replaced the ill-fated Liz Truss, he trailed the Labour party leader, Keir Starmer, in polls on who would be the better Prime Minister. The government's approval rating was also in freefall since 2021, while a string of recent by-election losses for the Conservatives reinforced the narrative that they were heading for defeat at the ballot box.
Sunak's decision to call a general election for July took the country by surprise, but may have been calculated to take advantage of the improving economy in the UK, and enable Sunak to argue he has fulfilled promises he made to the electorate shortly after taking office. At the start of 2023, two months after succeeding Liz Truss as Prime Minister, Sunak outlined five key priorities for the new year; halve inflation, grow the economy, reduce national debt, cut NHS waiting times, and stop irregular migration via small boats. These pledges reflected the main issues for many voters suffering through the worst cost of living crisis in a generation, as well as a National Health Service (NHS) struggling to cope with winter demand.
Unfortunately for Sunak, the only pledge that was definitively fulfilled in 2023 was halving inflation. The CPI inflation rate fell from 10.1 percent in January 2023, to four percent by the end of the year, heavily influenced by falling energy prices . Inflation has fallen even further since, and on the day Sunak announced the general election, the most recent inflation figures were released, revealing that inflation had fallen to 2.3 percent. Despite inflation falling in 2023, economic growth proved far harder to achieve, with the UK economy growing by just 0.1 percent in 2023. Even this weak economic growth was mainly due to economic growth at the start of the year. Going into 2024 the UK economy fell into a recession due to two consecutive quarters of negative growth in the third and fourth quarters of 2023. More recent figures have been more positive however, with the UK economy growing by 0.6 percent in the first quarter of 2024, the strongest economic growth since 2021. National debt, which has been high since the COVID-19 pandemic, increased slightly, although is forecast to fall gradually from the mid-2020s. NHS waiting times also did not fall in 2023, while the number of people entering the UK in small boats has fallen compared to 2022, but will likely still be higher than in previous years. The government's plan to deter irregular migration via this route is to send asylum applicants to Rwanda while their claims are being processed, a controversial policy that was even deemed unlawful by the UK supreme court in November. Heading into the election, on all three of the main issues for voters; the economy, the NHS, and immigration, the Conservatives were seen as less competent than the Labour party.
What does the election mean for Brexit?
Although Brexit dominated the previous two general elections in the UK, it played a far smaller role in the 2024 election. Recent surveys suggest Britain leaving the EU has fallen down the list of priorities for most voters, especially in relation to health and the economy. Nevertheless, since Britain left the EU in 2020, a growing majority of voters believe Brexit was the wrong decision. What exactly the UK’s future relationship with the EU should be still divides Britons. Around one third wish to rejoin the EU, while ten percent want to just rejoin the single market. A further 30 percent want closer trading relations with the EU without joining the single market, and nine percent wanted to reduce ties with the EU further. Just ten percent were satisfied with the current state of affairs. While Labour will likely seek to improve ties with the EU and build on the current deal, they are currently against rejoining the EU, Single Market, or Customs Union.
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