The UK election exit polls are predicting a Labour landslide, ending 14 years of Conservative government rule. A Monash expert is available to talk about what this election result means for the UK and the rest of Europe, as well as the rising popularity in Nigel Farage’s far right political party Reform.
Monash-Warwick Alliance PhD Candidate Tom Howe, Politics and International Relations
Contact details: +61 403 184 356 or thomas.howe@monash.edu
The following can be attributed to PhD Candidate Tom Howe:
“While not as big as the most outlandish polls, Labour nevertheless looks set for a sizable majority of around 170. Presuming the exit poll holds – and there are a lot of three-way marginals that may undermine it – then this would be a slightly smaller majority than the one secured by Tony Blair in 1997. Considering the size of the 2019 majority that Sir Keir Starmer had to overturn, the victory is still one of historic proportions.
“It will go under-reported, but one significant feature of the last week of the campaign was a significant drop off in support for Labour. In fact, Labour look set to romp home with a landslide majority on a vote share lower than that which was achieved by Jeremy Corbyn in 2017. This, along with Jeremy Corbyn’s increasingly likely re-election, will give sucker to the left, which is nonetheless set to enter parliament in an historically weak position. The voters who seem to have deserted Labour in the final days of the campaign look like they went for Reform, who have been returned as the second party in several of the early declaring northern seats. Labour may have won back the red wall, but its foundations are shallow.
“The other big winners of the night look like the Liberal Democrats and the Reform – the parties responsible for splitting the Tory vote across the country. The Lib Dems look to have finally recovered from their time in coalition, and are hoping to just about equal their previous 2005 high. If the Lib Dems have pushed the Tories in the blue wall, then Reform have contributed to their collapse in the red wall. How the Tory Party responds to these dual pressures will be one of the defining issues of the new parliament.
“Provided the exit poll holds, the Tories look to have avoided the worst case scenario. There is, however, no escaping the fact that the 2024 election looks set to be their worst performance ever. It will be interesting to see how the upcoming leadership contest plays out; the Tories will almost certainly shift right, but how closely they associate themselves with Reform will depend on the leader.
“The SNP looked to have performed terribly. The nationalist party – which has been the dominant Scottish force in Westminster for nearly a decade – faced similar challenges to the Tories, with leadership that failed to deliver and which was mired in allegations of corruption. Whether the SNP are a spent electoral force will, in part, depend on the new Prime Minister’s ability to rebuild the country. If he fails to deliver, then the SNP will have a case to claim that both of the main Westminster parties do not work in Scotland’s interests.”
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