This article originally appeared in our Elevenses newsletter.
It has been less than two weeks since the Conservative Party suffered a historic defeat at the hands of Labour in the general election, and already the landscape looks remarkably different. As we detailed in last week’s despatch, Sir Keir Starmer has opted for dialogue over ideologue to solve the many challenges his party has inherited, meeting with devolved leaders, metro mayors and international partners to build consensus and bring meaningful solutions. The King’s speech is expected to include more than 35 Bills which Labour says will act as a “down payment” on the change they are seeking to deliver in government. It is a far sight from the picture at Conservative HQ, where leadership candidates fight like cats in a sack to replace Rishi Sunak and reshape the party in their image.
Labour’s positive start should be commended, but as Starmer’s predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn, has noted, the election numbers suggest the foundations might not be as solid as they could be. In his view, Labour was elected on the back of a “loveless landslide” delivered by tactical voting and a highly efficient share of the vote. And he has a point. Research by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) shows just 52 per cent of UK adults voted in the 2024 general election, making it the lowest turnout by share of population since universal suffrage. If non-voting was a party, it would have the largest share of support by far in the election, with Labour achieving a lower share of the vote than it did in 2019, when it lost by a landslide. As The Times data editor Tom Calver puts it, they achieved an election win that is simultaneously euphoric and a little bit “meh”.
And it most certainly felt that way, too. In 1997, when Tony Blair won a smaller Commons majority, D:Ream provided the soundtrack to what was a general mood of euphoria. This time, it was pure relief. YouGov research put out to coincide with the vote found that only five per cent of Labour voters sided with them because they agree with their policies. The overarching reasons they won support were to get the Tories out and because the country ‘needs a change’, two factors the party are keenly aware of, albeit not comforted by.
But the aspect of the IPPR research that concerns me the most has little to do with the nature of the Labour landslide and a lot to do with the growing gap between the political haves and have-nots. The report found that seats where a larger share of the population were older people, wealthy homeowners and white had much higher turnout rates than constituencies where a smaller share of people came from those demographics. It means that those who stand to benefit most from democratic policymaking are the same people with the weakest voices in the room in what constitutes, as the Economist notes, a “new frontline” in British politics, one where the “left behind” have been replaced by the “well ahead” in terms of political significance.
Evidence of this can be found in the Liberal Democrats’ good results, which were the outcome of “hurling activists” at any town outside London that had a Gail’s, the upmarket bakery whose presence in a neighbourhood is as sure a sign of an area’s gentrification as the arrival of a Waitrose. Claims that Labour applied the same logic to towns with a Greggs is also misplaced. Starmer did more to flatten the class gradient in his party’s support than even Blair in ‘97, and by some margin. The party won its lowest share of the vote in deprived areas and the highest in affluent ones. As Nesrine Malik notes, the results suggest that our political system is becoming increasingly built on disfranchisement, with those who are affected by policies such as the two-child benefit cap, have no hope of getting on the housing ladder, have no pension, savings, or the capacity to take on huge loans for training or higher education, seeing their future cancelled while politicians bank on a sense of futility to keep them away from the ballot box.
Sign up to Elevenses for free here: www.thelondoneconomic.com/newsletter
