Britain’s center-left party, Labour, has won the country’s elections with a landslide after clinching about 410 seats in the House of Commons, with the party’s leader Keir Starmer set to become the new prime minister.
- The Conservative Party has only won 120 seats, followed by the Centrist Lib-Dems who have won about 71 seats.
- The crushing defeat of the Tories has seen some of its greatest titans lose their parliamentary seats including Liz Truss, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Simon Hart, Mark Harper, and Lucy Frazer.
- In late May, the incumbent prime minister Rishi Sunak called for an election in July, which he was expected to lose because his party was trailing behind the Labour party in the polls.
The 14-year leadership of the Tory government has seen its own fair share of challenges, the latest being UK’s slow ascent from this year’s economic recession. Britain’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic has been more difficult than those of other leading economies like the United States and Germany.
According to Reuters, the country’s poverty has fallen by a smaller margin of 3.4% as inflation rose after the pandemic. Moreover, due to the sanctions on Russia’s oil and gas in the wake of the war with Ukraine, Britain suffered a major energy crisis for the most part of the previous year. The crisis had informed the nation’s leadership that its reliance on Russian energy sources was a mistake and it needed to change tact.
The country’s departure from the European Union eight years ago dented the economy due to restricted movement of EU nationals as well as expulsion from the advantages of the common market. The country’s social services have also fallen into disrepair with the National Health Service waiting lists growing by the day due to unavailable equipment and staff.
Labour’s Promises
In his victory speech, Keir Starmer has said that his government will seek to restore the dignity of the British working class and revive the economy by ending tax breaks and cracking down on enterprises fond of tax avoidance. He estimates that this strategy would recover 1.7 billion pounds that would restore fiscal stability.
Contrary to the Tories’ line that ‘Labour would raise taxes to finance social programs’, Starmer has pledged not to tinker with any taxes including the income tax and the VAT. This is going to be an interesting thing to watch considering that he has promised to raise revenue to 8.6 billion pounds. These revenues will be pertinent in funding 1.5 million homes the party has promised to build in the next five years, as well as the employment of 6,500 teachers in UK’s schools.
Another crucial focus of the new premiership will be immigration. The Labour Party condemned Rishi Sunak’s plan to deport migrants to Rwanda, signalling greater toleration for immigration. It is not clear how well this policy will turn out considering the rising discontent over illegal immigration in the country as well as in continental Europe which is notably shifting to the right.
While it is easy for the labour party to embrace optimism in undoing the errors of the Tories, the task at hand could easily dismantle the electorate’s confidence if no swift changes are witnessed. Among the G7 countries, Britain has the second-weakest economy with little prospects of an upward swing in sight. Labour faces the risk of their predecessors, the Tories, whose unsuccessful economic experiments saw a quick succession of prime ministers.
Some portions of the Labour Party have been skeptical of Starmer’s leadership, regarding him as another ‘Tory in a red tie’. This is especially because of the spat between him and former Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn. If anything, Labour’s win is a result of discontent with the Tories rather than authentic passion for them.
