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Notes -
The UK general election has largely completed
Labour wins, Sir Keir Starmer is the new British PM
Results as of 8am, 6 seats undeclared:
LAB: 410, CON: 119, Lib Dem: 71, SNP: 9, Reform: 4, Green: 4, Plaid Cymru: 4, Independents: 5
I've left off Northern Irish parties
In many ways, there are few surprises, with Labour taking a hefty majority as everyone predicted and the Tories suffering their worst result in seat count in their history. There are a few bigger themes:
Labour wins by default
Despite their hefty seat count, Labour's share of the vote amounted to only 34%. To put that into perspective, Corbyn's (one of the independent seats, FYI) 2019 campaign picked up 32% of the vote. Up against one of the least popular Tory governments in history, Starmer barely managed to beat the divisive former leader. Predictions of 40% vote shares and a complete Tory wipeout didn't come to pass.
A poll taken just a few days before the vote highlights the problem for Labour: the main reason for people to vote for them was to get rid of the Tories. There was no enthusiasm for Starmer or his policies. They now have a hefty majority and 5 years in which to change that, but there's no sign in any of their policies that they will actually be radical enough, nor do they have much freedom to move. The Tories left behind a historically high tax take while the level of government services was only seen to decline. Raising taxes further is never a popular move, but without more cash Labour's traditional approach of pumping money into the NHS or education has no possibility. Starmer could be bold on areas related to productivity, housing, pensions, or immigration, but there's just zero sign he'll do so. Labour's vote is brittle and the remaining Tories are already looking to 2029 as a good chance to regain power.
Zero Seats fails to materialize
On the Tory side, things are looking pretty good. Which is to say, it's a terrible result for them but far less damaging than some polls indicated. Talks of not even being the official opposition or being taken over by Reform look like pure fantasy now. It's a blow for right wingers, who had hoped to expel the more moderate elements, and there's a good chance the next leader will be another neoliberal.
4 seats for Reform is not a terrible result under First Past the Post, but with initial exit polls giving them as many as 13 it will look disappointing in the morning light. Farage is in parliament at the 7th time of asking, but the rules of the commons can be quite effective at muzzling troublesome voices - if you don't get called upon by the speaker, then you cannot participate unless you are the official opposition.
FPTP looks increasingly ill-suited
Reform's 4 seats came from 14% of the vote. This is double the vote share of the Green's but both ended with the same number of seats. The Lib Dems received only 12% but ended with 65 more seats than either. The major parties had little enthusiasm but still managed to shut out the smaller guys, but the distribution of seats looks increasingly ridiculous as more third parties start to gather support.
With the left expelled from Labour and the Tory party avoiding a Reform merge, the hope now for left and right wingers is that 2029 might spell the end for FPTP in a hung parliament situation.
Scottish nationalism crumbles, but rises for Welsh and Irish republicans
The best result of the night surely goes to Scotland, who were able to mostly expel the utterly atrocious SNP. For a long time, the Scottish nationalists coasted along on independence sentiment and being "not the Tories". This masked the fact that on practically every devolved measure, they underperformed even the disastrous UK government. Labour's weakness does offer them a glimmer of hope, but with independence sidelined it's hard to see a way back to their previous strengths for a generation.
Wales saw the reverse, with their nationalist party, Plaid Cymru, gaining 2 more seats. Welsh nationalism and independence are far less popular than the Scottish varieties ever were, but the SNP came to the fore by slowly building up support, and perhaps the same will work for Plaid?
Northern Ireland remains a basket case. The republican party, Sinn Fein, has become the largest in their government, but not through gaining seats. Instead the main unionist party, the DUP, lost seats to other challengers. You'll probably see some xitter users proclaiming that results show a rise in republicanism due to Sinn Fein being the largest party, but the reality is a lot of the results appear to be down to petty squabbles related to power sharing and other administration-related issues.
All that's left now is to see what Labour can do. Given the US and right wing slants of the Motte, I doubt we have more than 1 or 2 Labour voters here, but if any are out there it will be interesting to hear their thoughts
I voted SDP. Though they are the literally who party, and the various minor joke parties all came ahead of them where I live, it was the only time where I've ever voted and experienced zero hesitation when putting an "x" on the ballot.
Labour's victory was invetiable, given the electorate's love of the colours red and blue. For their performance over the past 2 years, the tories won far too many seats. This is probably to be expected, given the demographic makeup of the country and the top heavy age pyramid. More worryingly is the rise of the green party and a number of Members for Gaza, who are functionally a proxy for political islamism in Britain that neither of the big two have really got a handle on.
I do not expect things to improve in meaningfully in any way, given that Labour is 99% the pensions ponzi scheme party that the tories are. I at least take solace in that Farage won his seat and that the SNP have been utterly blown out, all over their chosen star buying an illegal camper van and her replacement shitting the bed at every possible opportunity.
Ah yes, the continuity SDP, the most pathetic political party in the UK. By my account they got fewer votes than the Official Monster Raving Loony Party in both seats where both parties were on the ballot (Brighton Pavilion and Louth and Horncastle), and the only reason why they didn't lose to more Loonies is that most of the declared Loony candidates didn't manage to file their nomination papers on time. They should have stayed disbanded after losing to a Loony in the 1990 Bootle by-election.
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To put the SDP in some perspective for outsiders to UK politics: they are the descendents of a centre-left breakaway from the Labour party in 1981, who largely dissolved in the late 1980s. Somehow, they managed to survive through a nuclear winter and have remerged a little as a party for people who like Brexit/social conservativism, but who are more economically centrist/left wing than the Tories or Reform. They are one of the tardigrade parties in the UK: no matter the hostility of the environment and their tiny size within it, they seem to just survive.
The 1st SDP didn't dissolve - it merged with the Liberals in 1988 to form the Liberal Democrats. The merger was supported by a majority of the SDP members in accordance with the SDP rulebook, so the Liberal Democrats are the legal successors of the original SDP.
The minority of the SDP who opposed the merger included David Owen (who had been leader until he resigned in 1987 after it became clear that the membership supported merger in principle, to allow someone who supported the merger to handle negotiations) and 3 of the 5 SDP MPs. They set up what was legally a new party, but claimed to be the spiritual successor of the 1st SDP and used the same name and logo. (In those days the UK had no laws about the misuse of party names and logos). But the 2nd SDP didn't have enough grassroots members to run effective campaigns, and consistently did worse than the Liberal Democrats in by-elections. David Owen and the executive committee disbanded the 2nd SDP after they got fewer votes than the Official Monster Raving Loony Party (which is as silly as it sounds) in the 1990 Bootle by-election. (The three SDP MPs sat as independents until the 1992 election, when Owen went into the House of Lords and the other two MPs narrowly failed to be re-elected as independents.)
The tiny number of SDP grassroots members who objected to this set up a 3rd SDP (also using the name and logo, despite being a legally unconnected organisation), which is the tardigrade party that suddenly started getting headlines again over Brexit. Because they were using it when registration of political parties came in in 1998, this group now control the SDP name and logo, which means that people who don't know better think they are the legitimate successor.
Since 1990, Lord Owen has consistently taken a position on Britain's relationship with the EU which is at the Eurosceptic end of the Overton window (for example, he was prominent in the cross-party campaign against the UK joining the Euro), only coming out in favour of Brexit after the referendum was called. He has nothing whatsoever to do with the 3rd SDP.
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