As with any electoral event, it’s difficult to keep track of all the myriad stories interwoven into the broader narrative. The main headline: Sir Keir Starmer is the new Prime Minister, heading a Labour government that has won a landslide of seats. But even that – predictable but still momentous – change only tells a partial story.
Labour’s majority of 174 is second only to Tony Blair’s 1997 landslide in the post-war era. The Conservatives have returned their lowest number of MPs in over a century. The Liberal Democrats got over 70 seats for the first time, comfortably returning to third-party status and beating their record of 62 seats in 2005. The SNP collapsed from (notionally) 47 to nine – back to pre-Indyref levels as Labour regained most of their central belt heartlands.
Nigel Farage became an MP at the eighth attempt, and will be joined by four Reform colleagues, while the Greens quadrupled their representation, adding three gains to their comfortable hold of Brighton Pavilion. Five Independent candidates were elected in England – all at the expense of Labour – with the party’s position on Israel and Palestine thought to be a key factor in each of the cases.
A further Independent was elected in Northern Ireland, which also did not escape the electoral volatility. The abstentionist Sinn Fein have won the most seats in Northern Ireland for the first time after the Democratic Unionist Party lost three of their 2019 seats. In Wales, Labour’s dominance continued – they haven’t lost an election there since the 1920s – with Plaid Cymru (2) and the Lib Dems (1) also gaining seats at the expense of the Conservatives, whose loss of 12 seats meant they were wiped out in Wales for the first time since 1997.
The story in Scotland is somewhat complicated. The seat losses for the SNP are a huge reversal in fortunes, demonstrated by their loss of half a million votes – their first electoral defeat since the 2010 UK General election – but this was achieved on a vote share of 30%, evidence that a significant proportion of Scots still back the party. Scottish Labour’s vote share went up from 18% to 35%, which accounts for their gain of 36(!) seats in Scotland – all at the expense of the SNP.
The Scottish Conservatives held onto their five seats on just 13% of the vote, while the Scottish Liberal Democrats notionally picked up 4 seats to take their total to 6 on an even lower 9% of the vote – and now hold three of the four safest seats in Scotland. It’s very much ‘feast or famine’ for those two parties though – the Lib Dems lost their deposits in 28 seats, while the Conservatives lost 15 (including all six Glasgow seats).
The North-East of Scotland provided some cheer for the Conservatives, despite outgoing leader Douglas Ross failing in his bid for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East, Andrew Bowie held onto West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine while Harriet Cross turned a notional seat into a hold in Gordon and Buchan. It appears that the strong third place finishes for Reform in Aberdeenshire North and for Labour in Aberdeen South helped the SNP to squeeze victories in those seats.
The combined two-party vote for Labour and the Conservatives at UK level is just 58% - the lowest two-party share since the 1800s – by contrast, in 2017, the two parties combined for 84% of the vote. While the Liberal Democrats have held steady at 12% in this election, the remaining 30% of the vote has been scattered around several different parties – Reform (12%) and the Greens (7%) taking the bulk of that, but the SNP, Plaid Cymru, the Northern Irish parties and a host of independent candidates all taking a decent percentage and some seats.
The First-Past-The-Post electoral system rewards parties that can concentrate their vote in particular areas though – and somewhat punishes parties when their vote is spread out. So while Reform in particular will be very pleased with polling 14% of the vote, their vote seats accounts for only 1% of the House of Commons. The Greens won one fewer seat on 7% of the vote. Ironically, the champions of proportional representation, the Liberal Democrats appear to be the masters of concentration – their 72 seats make up 11% of those available, and they won 12% of the vote. The Conservatives only took 18% of the seats on 24% of the vote while Labour’s landslide of 65% of the seats was won on the back of just 34% of the vote.
In 2020, Sir Keir Starmer felt strongly enough about this issue that he told the Electoral Reform Society that "we’ve got to address the fact that millions of people vote in safe seats and they feel their vote doesn’t count. That’s got to be addressed."
Given that very system has delivered a huge Labour majority, it will be interesting to see if his view on this has changed any.
