July 4 UK election may be era-defining
AS THE United Kingdom heads to the polls on Thursday (Jul 4), the word “historic” is increasingly being used about Election 2024.
Commonly, the importance of the election is defined around the size of the probable Labour victory that opinion polls forecast. However, there may be an ever bigger long-term reason why the election turns out to be genuinely historic. That is, it looks likely that the UK will experience back-to-back landslides, in opposite directions – in 2019 (which saw a big Conservative win) and 2024 (forecast to be a huge Labour victory). The last time this happened was more than a century ago in 1900 (which saw a Conservative landslide) and 1906 (a stonking Liberal win).
The huge victory for the Liberals in 1906 helped catalyse an era-defining realignment that led to the modern UK electoral system. Indeed, the 1906 win was the last time that the Liberals won an absolute majority in the House of Commons, and also was the last general election in which neither Labour nor the Conservatives won the popular vote.
Almost 120 years on from 1906, the media headlines are largely focused on polling indicating that Labour could win its biggest-ever majority, larger than even in 1945 and 1997. Historic, however, as this would be, there are some signs of deeper-seated disequilibrium in the political system.
For one, despite Labour generally polling above 40 per cent, the collective share of the vote won by the party and the Conservatives could be just over 60 per cent. This would be the lowest share for the two main parties since the Labour-Conservative two-party system emerged after the First World War, replacing that of the Liberals and Conservatives.
A second indication of potential disequilibrium in the system is the parlous state of the Conservatives which, a small number of polls suggest, may receive a lesser share of the popular vote than the upstart, populist Reform party. Some pundits have even indicated that the 2024 election could be an “extinction level” event for the UK Conservatives as the 1993 ballot was for their former sister party in Canada.
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Yet, while the Conservatives have been polling at the lowest levels in history, the end of the party has been called at other times in the last couple of hundred years, including most recently in 1997. But it has always so far bounced back, and reinvented itself, earning the moniker of the “world’s most successful party”.
Nevertheless, in the volatile, turbulent UK political landscape of 2024, there is a significant possibility that key changes are under way. However, rather than giving way to a new two-party system,it might be the entrenchment of a multi-party system, akin to multiple continental European countries, heralding a more unpredictable, uncertain political landscape.
The decay of the traditional two-party Labour-Conservative post-war system is not a new phenomenon. In the period from 1945 to 1970, Labour and the Conservatives collectively averaged in excess of 90 per cent of the vote, and also the seats won, in the eight UK general elections held in this period.
Yet, from 1974 to 2005, the average share of the vote won by the Conservatives and Labour fell significantly in the subsequent nine UK general elections in this period. This has brought about a significant political change that is, by and large, still unfolding to this day.
It is the centrist Liberals, not Reform, which has probably done more to date to break the hold of the two major parties in power. From 1974 to 2005, the average Liberal share of the vote in general elections (including the SDP-Liberal Alliance from 1983-87) was just below 20 per cent, although the party slumped in the polls after forming a coalition government with the Conservatives from 2010 to 2015.
While the Liberals have long taken votes from both major parties, the overall political impact on Labour has probably been greatest. The success of the SDP-Liberal Alliance was one factor that helped contribute to Labour’s long period in opposition from 1979 to 1997 when it endured four consecutive general election defeats before Tony Blair’s successes.
Beyond the Liberals, several other parties have come into prominence too, including the Scottish National Party (SNP) which currently governs in Edinburgh’s devolved parliament; the Greens and Reform too.
Reform’s predecessor organisation, the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), won the European Parliament vote in the UK in 2014, thus becoming the first party other than the Conservatives or Labour to win a UK national election in over 100 years since the Liberals.
Driven in part by UKIP’s appeal, which was disproportionately higher among Conservative rather than Labour voters as is the case for Reform today, then prime minister David Cameron promised that if he won a majority in the 2015 general election he would hold an “in or out” referendum on the UK staying in the European Union. So UKIP had a profound influence on the United Kingdom, given that the 2016 referendum saw the “Leave” campaign win.
One reason the apparent decline of the two-party system may make for a more unpredictable outlook for UK politics is that it is harder for any one organisation to secure a majority government in UK general elections. This is despite the “first past the post” voting system which tends to provide the leading party a significantly larger number of seats in the House of Commons than would be given by a more proportionate electoral system, as is likely to be the case on Thursday for Labour.
To be sure, coalitions and power sharing have long been a feature of UK local government and devolved parliaments and assemblies outside of Westminster. However, this same dynamic may now become a more regular feature at the heart of the UK government itself in London.
Until 2010, when the coalition government was formed between the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives, Labour and the Conservatives had won overall majority governments at every election since 1945. That is, except for the very brief political interregnum between the February 1974 and October 1974 elections.
In 2017 too, the Conservatives failed to win an overall majority. Then prime minister Theresa May therefore had to reach a so-called “confidence and supply” agreement with the Democratic Unionist Party from Northern Ireland.
Taken together, the UK’s longstanding two-party system may therefore be giving way to a more unpredictable political landscape. While Labour will probably win big on Thursday, the UK political landscape is increasingly fragmented with Liberals, Reform, SNP and the Greens competing for prominence.
The writer is an associate at LSE IDEAS at the London School of Economics
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