Election Reflections

The post-election analysis is now well underway by people better informed than me, but here are a few thoughts from an amateur observer about what we have just been through.

Calling a snap election was a disastrous decision for the Tories

I don't have any inside information on this, but it seems clear from multiple news sources that Rishi Sunak's decision to go for an election on July 4 took nearly everyone by surprise - including many of his own party. The only rationale that makes any sense is that he thought things might be even worse in the autumn, and he might take his opponents unawares. Unfortunately for him, it appears to have wrong-footed his own party at least as much as anyone else. 

Labour won decisively.

I have seen some rather grudging posts online about the votes cast for Labour - especially comparing to their performance under Jeremy Corbyn. Of course, the overall turnout was lower this time around so absolute vote numbers are likely to be down, and tactical voting certainly seems to have played a part.  However, we cannot ignore the fact that this time Labour managed to gain and/or retain votes where they needed to win new seats, rather than consolidating their core vote in safe Labour territory. Winning seats in Wales, despite being the party in power in the Welsh Assembly, and big gains in Scotland also played an important role.

UK general elections are decided by seats won, and recovering from a substantial defeat to an outright win in under 5 years has to be acknowledged as an extraordinary result, whatever our political persuasions. 

Speaking of Scotland

A big story north of the border will be the collapse of the SNP vote. It looks like many Scots were more keen to get rid of the UK Conservative government by voting Labour than voting SNP. Support for independence still seems quite strong, but the SNP can no longer rely on that being decisive in the way people vote for the Westminster government. Recent scandals and the fact the SNP have been in power in Holyrood for a long time probably also played into this. That result looks like putting any further moves to another independence referendum on hold for the foreseeable future.

Canny campaigning

The demise of the Conservative vote was not just down to Labour. The Liberal Democrats were careful in their campaigning to focus most of their resources on winnable seats - the majority of which were where they were polling second to a Conservative candidate. A result of 71 (and probably later today 72) seats must have seemed beyond their wildest dreams at the start of the campaign. Ed Davey's combination of comedy moments and very serious engagement with health and social care certainly seems to have struck a chord. 

On a smaller scale the Green Party succeeded in capturing all 4 seats they regarded as winnable and came second in quite a lot more. Small parties can struggle to depict themselves as electable, so this may help the Greens to establish a more significant presence in parliament

which brings us on to...

Reform and Farage

I am usually reluctant to discuss Farage - after all I believe Oscar Wilde said the only thing worse than being talked about was not being talked about. He certainly managed his public profile deftly - initially saying he wasn't standing, due to a more important election on the other side of the Atlantic, and then stepping in as candidate for Clacton and suddenly becoming leader of Reform. Presumably leadership elections aren't needed for Reform as a limited company. 

It is too simplistic to assume all Reform voters are ex-Tories (many seem to be white working class people who would have been expected to vote Labour at one time), but they clearly had an impact on the Conservative vote. 

Despite Reform candidates using racist and homophobic language and criticising Winston Churchill for fighting the Nazis, the campaign generated some momentum. There is a lot of heat in some part of the media that Reform only got 5 seats from their 4.1 million votes and came second in 98 seats. Will we now see the Daily Express suddenly acquiring an enthusiasm for a proportional voting system? 

It's probably worth noting that UKIP got 3.8 million votes, came second in 120 seats, and won 1 seat (ex-Tory Douglas Carswell in Clacton) in 2015. That would suggest that whilst there is a section of our society voting in that direction, the growth in the support is rather more limited than some headlines would imply. My own amateur hunch is that loss of trust in the system, and a feeling of being left behind or overlooked still motivates a lot of Reform votes.

With the majority they hold, I think Labour would be wise to get on with their agenda, trusting that if peoples lives improve their vote will consolidate. However, the Conservative Party might take a further lurch to the right in an attempt to woo Reform voters, which I suspect will simply deliver them into Farage's hands. That may not serve the long-term interest of democracy