Everyone saw it coming but such a humbling loss was not thought of for the Conservatives. The just concluded UK general elections of 2024 has witnessed a tremendous majority for the Labour Party. Labour got 411 seats out of 650 while the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats could only accumulate 121 and 72 seats respectively. Following the results, incumbent Prime Minister Rishi Sunak declared his resignation and the leader of Labour Keir Starmer is set to hold the office.
The Conservatives went through a lot of internal instability and scandals such as Partygate which lead to the resignation of the then Prime Minister Boris Johnson. The two decisive issues were the extreme cost of living crisis due to conservative’s mishandling of the economy and the fact, that another party Reform UK had harsher immigration policies. Several other factors such as crime, deterioration of the NHS, rising wealth inequality, inaction on climate change and incumbent government’s open support to the Israel-led genocide in Gaza have played their part. As per experts, this mix of issues had led to a voter fatigue.
Reform UK, the new avatar of the erstwhile Brexit party and one of the contenders in these elections needs a brief mention. It has great takes, such as “UK should have been neutral against Hitler”; and they have the harshest immigration policies and they even supported deportation. It has secured just four seats but tore into Conservative votes. The nomination of a non-white Prime Minister Rishi Sunak also affected the Conservative vote bank. Most of these votes went to the Reformists.
Now the regime has been replaced, it is more important to look into Labour’s policies, stance and proclaimed intentions. Labour’s campaign slogan was “Change begins now”. Will things change for the better? Or will they change at all?
Although the inception of the Labour was heavily influenced by trade unions and socialists and it included clauses in its constitution calling for the common ownership of the means of production, the party has taken a complete reversal in policies and is now completely indistinguishable from the Labour a hundred years ago. Most of these changes took place under the leadership of Tony Blair, who had unconditionally supported Us war on Iraq.
There still remained a trace of leftism in the Labour couple of months ago when Starmer began the “great purge”. Many MPs and members of Labour had already resigned due to Labour’s support to the genocide. Those who stayed and spoke out were subject to constant abuse and defamation by the media, like Dianne Abbot, the first black female MP, a long standing socialist and anti-zionist. She was suspended from the party. Likewise, Faiza Shaheen, who was once glorified as the future of Labour was disgracefully purged from Labour for her pro-Palestine views.
Even Jeremy Corbyn- the leader of opposition, leader of Labour from 2015 to 2020- who openly identifies as a socialist and still is one of the most popular leaders in the Nation was expelled a few months ago for his leftist views. This was a critical turn in the ideological reversal of Labour. All of these leaders contested independently and caused quite a bit of damage to the party, just not enough.
This ideological reversal was so evident that even former Conservative donor John Caudwell announced that he would be switching from conservative to Labour because they have “taken all the left out of the party and come out with a set of values and principles in complete alignment with my views as a commercial capitalist.”
To cite a few Labour’s policies on geopolitical, economic and socio-economic front, they have announced their unwavering support to Israel; they aim to raise defense spending; commitment to renewing Britain’s nuclear weapon arsenal; further privatization of healthcare (contradicting Starmer’s interview in 2020); and welcomed plans to ban puberty blockers for transgenders. So now they are not much different from the Conservatives and Reformists. They are anti-trade unionism, pro-Israel, support increasing military spending, pro-nuclear weapons, pro-privatization, pro-migrant lockdowns, Islamophobic and do not support rent control to decrease the cost of living crisis.
So, things just seem to get worse. Labour would not make life better for the common people of Britain and the rest of the world. UK electoral results also mark a general trend prevalent in ‘democracies’ around the world that voters do not have contrasting choice. They are limited in their choice to vote for the party that is a 100 percent evil or the one that is 101 percent. The multi-party democracy is now doomed. In the guise of two parties, modern democracies are actually moving towards ‘One Nation, One party, One Leader’, the much sought after goal initiated by the Supremo of China and eagerly aspired by the leader of India too.
