On 4 July 2024, 22 million people in the UK (or thereabouts) voted for change. Only 6.8 million – or 24% of those who voted – expressed support for the Conservative government we have had. Unusually, the Tories got a lower proportion of seats than votes – roughly 19% of the seats in the House of Commons. The punishment inflicted on the Conservative Party was both well-deserved and expressed by our electoral system in the usual way – by kicking the party that is down.
The variety of change
Everyone else voted for parties that promised change, but of course the change that was promised varied radically both in its intent and in its likelihood of being achieved. Parties of change ranged from the Greens, promising to offer safe routes to sanctuary for those fleeing persecution, to “Reform” pledging to leave the European Convention on Human Rights in order to make it easier to deport all immigrants. And the cautiousness of “change” parties’ approaches ranged from Reform’s simultaneous plans to raise the floor for higher-rate tax to £70,000 while claiming to be able to end all hospital waiting lists, to Labour’s increasingly strict focus on affordability.
Of course, what Reform – or the Greens, or the LibDems – were promising in their manifestos had the freedom that comes with the knowledge that they were certain not be in government on their own. Labour will be judged on their ability to fulfil the programme set out in their manifesto, and they knew that when they were writing it. Nonetheless, the differences between the four “change” parties are real ideological differences, and are not simply a function of the fact that one party knows it will be in power and the other three know that they will not.
A single version of change
So we have “change”, but only one version of that change is going to be implemented. We can all be relieved that it is not the version promoted by Reform that has won. To that extent, the result of the election yesterday is good for the country, and good for (almost) everyone in it, including those who voted for Reform. But the way ahead for the new government will be anything but a love-in. Financially, politically, ecologically, emotionally the UK is broken in a way that was not the case in 1997. Tough decisions will have to be taken, and even some of Labour’s modest proposals will turn out to be unattainable. It would have been so much easier to convince the population that the new government’s actions are the right ones if they could also show that they had received the support of a majority of the population in the ballot box – but they haven’t. 34% of the votes cast is only 21% of the actual electorate – not exactly a ringing endorsement.
Why does this matter? Personally, I have no doubt that the new government will be immeasurably preferable to the old one, and although performance may fall well short of what I might hope – will poverty be seriously reduced? Will our rivers be properly cleaned up? Will our younger citizens finally get a realistic chance of having their own home? – the direction of travel is bound to be right. In fact, far more so than in 1997, things can only get better – it is hard to imagine that they could get much worse.
But while I, as a Labour activist, might remain loyal despite some disappointment, there are plenty who won’t. And the real danger comes not from those who identify as Green or LibDem, but who lent Labour their vote to get rid of the Tories – although Labour can ill afford to lose those votes in 2029, and still less so the votes of those who have loyally voted Labour for decades but may now switch to other parties on the left.
The Tea Party parallel
The nightmare scenario is not dissimilar to the drama being played out in the United States, one of the few major developed economies with an even more binary electoral system than our own. When the “Tea Party” started in 2009 it achieved the support of around 10% of the American electorate, and initially the established Republican Party saw it as a useful tool to garner support from voters whose social conservatism – or less politely, whose bigotry – could be used to overcome their dislike of the establishment. It is a very old trick, used by elites throughout human history – think of the demonisation of the Jews in the Middle Ages. They could even persuade people that they were voting against the establishment when in fact they were voting to have their services cut, their wages frozen and their share of the national economy reduced in favour of enriching the already very wealthy.
Trump was a product of that cynicism, and he has now completely taken over the Republican Party. It looks increasingly likely that he will be elected as President this autumn, with a programme that will avowedly undermine what remains of US democracy.
There is nothing genetically or culturally different about the citizens of the UK which would lead them to behave differently. Farage is just as capable of taking over the Conservative Party as Trump was of the Republicans, even though we supposedly do not have a presidential system. Even if Farage is kept out of what remains of the Tories, it is highly likely that his party will be the main challenger to Labour in 2029. His voters voted for change – they will wish to do so again in 2029.
Between the two of them, the Conservatives and Reform achieved 10.9 million votes last Thursday – 1.2 million more than Labour. If they had united, we could have been seeing a right-wing landslide, without losing a single Labour vote.
International comparisons
If the French operated a single-round First-Past-the-Post system as we do in this country, Le Pen would have won 297 of the 577 districts – an overall majority of 17 – on just 34% of the vote – the same percentage that Labour achieved in the UK. If the Netherlands had operated a First-Past-the Post system, Geert Wilders would be undisputed Prime Minister with an overwhelming majority. If Hungary had operated a simple First Past the Post system, Victor Orban would have annihilated the other political parties. It is not at all alarmist to suggest that under our First-Past-the Post system Labour could be wiped out in 2029 in the name of “change”, just as easily as the Tories have been wiped out this year, and with no significant change in the number of people actually voting Labour.
Basing their appeal on “change” rather than on a consistent political programme is deeply dangerous for the long-term existence of the Labour Party. Without the protection in-depth of an electoral system that does not disproportionately reward whichever political party happens to win slightly more votes than any other, there is a real and present danger that we will be opening ourselves up to a hard-right take-over of our country. Unless the new Labour Government moves to change the electoral system, and address the genuine distrust and alienation that our unfair and unhelpful electoral system engenders, they could be leading us inexorably towards a future dominated by Farage, Trump, and other cheerleaders of rightwing extremism.
The ball is in your court Keir – we can’t afford for you to miss it now.
