Britain Takes a Turn to the Left

WSJ Opinion: Free Expression

Gerard Baker, Editor at Large, The Wall Street Journal

Society & Culture, News

4.6 • 591 Ratings

🗓️ 5 July 2024

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Labour Party secured a major landslide in Britain's elections, resulting in a parliamentary majority not seen since the early days of Tony Blair. The reign of the Conservative Party, who have governed for 14 years, ended in an ignominious rout. But Labour’s victory, led by Keir Starmer, the new prime minister, was achieved with the lowest share of the vote for a winning party in British history. A strong performance by the populist Reform UK party seems to have split the right wing vote. So what does the downfall of the Tories mean for the conservative movement in the U.K. and elsewhere? And what does Britain’s future under Labour look like? On this episode of the Free Expression podcast, political commentator Tim Montgomerie tells Gerry Baker why the United Kingdom may have seen the end of the two-party system, how Keir Starmer will perform on the world stage, and how the Conservative Party can stage a comeback. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Boardrooms love buzzwords. AI, climate, resilience. But what do they actually mean for CFOs and
0:06.1	execs trying to survive the next earnings call? That's where the pre-read comes in. Real experts and
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0:19.3	Journal, this is Free Expression with Jerry Baker.
0:23.6	Hello and welcome to the Free Expression podcast from the Wall Street Journal. I'm Jerry Baker, editor at large of the journal.
0:29.6	If you're not already a subscriber to Free Expression, please sign up wherever you do your podcast listening.
0:34.6	This week, Britain turns left. As President Joe Biden continues to
0:38.9	battle for its political life here in the US, in other Western democracies, incumbent governments
0:43.4	are being routed by their electorates. France goes to the polls on Sunday and will elects a parliament
0:48.6	in which President Emmanuel Macron's governing party is likely to be dwarfed by a combination of
0:53.5	left and right-wing populists.
0:55.0	Meanwhile, in the UK on Thursday, Independence Day over here, of course,
1:00.0	the Conservative Party, which has ruled Britain for 14 years, was trounced by the opposition Labour Party.
1:06.0	Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's Tories suffered the heaviest defeat in their long electoral history,
1:11.6	losing two-thirds of their seats in the House of Commons and seeing their national vote share
1:16.6	slump by almost 20 percentage points to just 24%. Also, it's worst showing.
1:23.6	Under the new Prime Minister Kirstama, who took office on Friday, the left of centre Labour Party won a landslide on a par with Tony Blair's big win in 1997, with a majority of more than 170 seats in the 650-seat Commons Chamber.
1:40.0	But there were plenty of twists in this otherwise widely expected tale.
1:45.0	Labour's share of the popular vote at just 34% was the smallest ever by a party winning an election.
1:51.0	Now, the growth of alternatives to the two main parties means that in a winner-take-all electoral system like the UK's
1:57.0	in which the leading candidate in each district takes the seat, Labour was able to
2:01.8	translate a small overall vote share into a massive over-representation in Parliament. The fragmenting
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