Election!

Save the date: the UK goes to the polls on the 4th of June 2024. Finally! My thoughts as a young(ish) Brit (though one who no longer lives in the country) and as a highly partisan Liberal Democrat.

The broad outcome isn’t really under contention: the Tories should lose, and badly, and Labour should win a decisive majority. If and when that happens, it’ll mean the first Labour government that anyone my age or younger has ever really been aware of (given I was 11 and not especially politically engaged during the 2010 election, though I do remember being vaguely aware of it when Brown became PM in 2007, despite not being entirely sure what that meant).

The first question on everyone’s minds: why now? Given the furious reaction from a lot of Tory MPs and activists, who hoped to cling on for another few months and hope that the polls improve, the decision has been widely seen as a political blunder — and especially how that decision was communicated (with Sunak as a boy, standing in front of a country, asking it to not tell him to fuck off). The economic forecast seems to have been the trigger, with all of this happening rather last minute, though if the economic outlook is improving it would probably behove the Tories to wait until people started to actually feel that improved outlook.

I do remember but a few weeks back when it was being said that delaying would only hurt Sunak more, as the winter would kill off a not insubstantial number of his voters and hurt the Tory campaigning machine, both due to their older demographic skew. And it’s possible that he wanted to call the election surprisingly early to wrongfoot Reform, as in a lot of constituencies the difference between the Tories winning and losing might very well be whether or not Reform can get a candidate in time. Still, I’m not sure those reasons fully explain why.

So, really, why now? I think the answer comes from the fact that Rishi Sunak’s interests aren’t the same as his party’s. Perhaps he feared a leadership challenge and wanted to unite the party behind him through an election, so he could at least leave with some dignity. Perhaps he’s tired of the job, finding that he doesn’t enjoy being this hated lame duck and would rather get it over with. Or perhaps he just wants to go on holiday in August. I suppose the only other possibility is that he genuinely believes that this is the best time for an election for the Conservative Party which, while almost certainly wrong, would be roughly in line with his established political (in)competence.

Which gets at a major problem for the Tories: their utter lack of talent. Sunak was only elected an MP in 2015 and blundered his way to the leadership, becoming chancellor only when Javid resigned in opposition to Johnson and then becoming PM when, after losing a leadership election to Truss, she then collapsed her own premiership within a month and a half. Fundamentally, the Conservative party pushed out most of its leaders — cultivated during the New Labour years and with a history of governance during the Cameron ministry — during the infighting that followed the Brexit vote. Big beasts who have survived — like IDS — don’t seem to want to touch government with a bargepole or — like Gove and Hunt — are too tainted by the Cameron years and Brexit infighting to be viable leaders. The remainder are a rather useless bunch whose main area of competence is undermining their own positions.

Liberal Democrats

Now, I’ll be voting for the Liberal Democrats and, where that isn’t a wasted vote, encourage you to do the same (assuming you can in fact vote in this election). I have been a Lib Dem member since 2016 and a supporter of the party for even longer and, since 2019, my home constituency of St. Albans has been represented by Daisy Cooper — in my opinion one of the best MPs in Parliament right now who also happens to be the Lib Dem deputy leader. Hence not only is voting Lib Dem my personal inclination, but it’s also the obvious vote in my constituency. Cooper won with 50% of the vote in 2019 and I fully expect her to extend that lead even further this time, as part of the beautiful transition of the city to a Lib Dem dominant-party system (for context, the Lib Dems currently hold 47/56 seats in the St. Albans City and District Council).

It is my belief that the Lib Dems will win at least 30 seats in the upcoming election and possibly up to 60, with 50 being my optimistic prediction. In his speech reacting to Sunak calling the election, Lib Dem leader Ed Davey said that each Lib Dem elected would be a ‘local champion’ which, in my mind, is exactly the line we should be rallying behind.

I was endlessly critical of the 2019 Lib Dem campaign, which presented Swinson as a valid candidate for PM and saw us gain 4 percentage points while losing a net one seat. We are a third party and should campaign as such. Saying that the Lib Dems can overtake one of the two major parties or even form a government is pure folly that makes us look delusional at best and manipulative at worst.

So why should people vote for the Lib Dems, on a practical level? Well, first, to help kick out the Tories in constituencies where we are more likely to be able to win than another progressive party. But that’s an argument for voting against the Tories, not for voting for us in particular. So, at the local level, I believe Lib Dems are great local champions, as Davey said, who can campaign on local issues and don’t have to fall in line with the government’s programme. Now, that can lead to NIMBYism, which I hugely oppose, but can also be positive, such as with Daisy Cooper campaigning to help local pubs. Similarly, arguing for local investment now that ‘levelling up’ has been forgotten by the two major parties and with the end of cohesion funding after Brexit, is I think best done by someone not taking marching orders from the PM.

And then, at the national level, I believe that we need a progressive opposition to the Labour party who can attack them from the left. From the left, I hear you say. Yes, undeniably, I would argue. I would position myself on the left of my party and often want the Lib Dems to go further than they have, but nonetheless I think you’ll find that the left has been the dominant force within the party really since the end of the Coalition. Swinson I would put on the right of the party, though she moved left after the Coalition, but Davey is I believe firmly on the party’s left flank, despite having contributed a chapter to the infamous Orange Book. And, beyond the leadership, the party membership (asserting far more democratic control over policy than in either the Tory or Labour parties) is clearly dominated by the left and the party’s more recent MPs seem to also align more with the Social Liberal Forum than Liberal Reform.

So the Lib Dems have moved quite decisively left since the Clegg years and, simultaneously, Starmer has lurched to the right since he won the leadership. Today, on social issues, economic issues, constitutional reform, and foreign policy, the Lib Dems are I believe undeniably a more progressive force than Labour and, unlike the Green Party, have a genuine chance to win dozens of constituencies across the country. Starmer is clearly inclined to move right where possible to eat into the Tory electorate, especially with the Tories so willing to move right themselves to fend of the challenge from Reform. The rump of the Tory party that remains after the election will, I think, move even further to the right (probably under someone like Braverman, though we’ll have to see who still has their seats after the election) and Starmer will want to chase them. Only the threat of losing progressive voters to the Liberal Democrats — the only other progressive force able to win across the country — will make him think twice about that strategy. So, just as we did during the Blair years on issues like the Iraq War and draconian ‘anti-terrorism’ legislation, I believe that we can be the true voice of progressives in Starmerite Britain.

The Outcome I Want

With all that said, you might be surprised to hear that I want this election to result in a Labour landslide on par with 1997, and I optimistically predict 400 seats for them, while hoping for even more (420, say, to rival Blair’s majority in that first victory). Why? Well, because the nature of British politics is that governing parties almost always lose seats, with a general trend of parties winning big and having their majorities slowly chipped away at until they lose that majority (seen most clearly in the 1979-1997 Tory government and 1997-2010 Labour government).

To be sure, that doesn’t always happen. These last 14 years of Tory rule have been much bumpier, the Tory government of 1951-64 increased their majority in every election until they lost, and the ‘60s and ‘70s were much more back-and-forth, but I think Thatcher-Major and Blair-Brown are much better models for the future Labour government. Both won big, roughly maintained that lead in the next election, then saw things start to fall apart. Given that Starmer doesn’t have a particularly positive vision to offer the country, and how wildly suppressed the Tory vote is right now, I believe his first victory is similarly likely to be his largest. This means that the larger his initial victory, the longer it will take for the Tories to slowly claw back seats until Labour lose their majority. And I want the Tories gone for a very long time indeed — a decade at least — leading me to hope for as few seats for them as possible and, correspondingly, the largest Labour majority possible.

For sure, that will limit the Lib Dem’s ability to hold Starmer’s feet to the fire, but I think it’s worth it in order to keep the Tories out longer. Of course, what I really want is a Lib Dem majority or, failing that, the Lib Dems to get 200 seats and support a Labour minority government. But neither of those are going to happen, so this is what I’m left with. As many Lib Dems as possible elected, yes, but even in my widest dreams that won’t be above 60, meaning the other hundred plus seats I want the Tories to lose (and the 20 seats I want the SNP to lose) will have to go to Labour.

And yes, I want the SNP to lose at least 20 seats, ideally 30. I do believe that having a voice for communities sometimes forgotten in the Westminster bubble is important (and believe the Lib Dems, with our historical strongholds in the Celtic Fringe can be that voice), but I oppose Scottish nationalism with every fibre of my being. As a liberal internationalist, I am inherently sceptical of attempts to further divide people along increasingly parochial national lines and only support secessionist movements in cases of ethnic cleansing against the minority population (explaining my support for Kosovar independence but opposition to, say, Scottish, Flemish, and Catalonian nationalism). I also believe that independence would be awful for Scotland both politically and economically. And I despise the fact that the SNP don’t vote on issues that don’t affect Scotland, which over the past years has been entirely to the benefit of the Tories. We are one country, all in this together, and should care about each other. Leaving segments of the population to languish and only looking out for ourselves is the very worst of political inclinations, in my opinion. Lastly I would just say that the SNP’s recent history is one of chaos and corruption and they have gotten far too used, far too quickly, to being the dominant party of Scotland. So, for Scotland’s sake and for the whole UK’s, I hope the SNP lose big in this election and that the Lib Dems pick up a few of those seats, with the rest going to Labour. MPs that care about making devolution work and improving the lives of Scots and Brits generally will be infinitely superior to those whose first priority is to destroy the very country they are helping govern.

In this first parliament, I don’t expect a Starmer ministry to do all that much. But I hope that Labour will win at least two more victories, likely in 2028 and then again in 2032 or 2033. It’s that third victory that I hope will end with either a very small working majority or a hung parliament. During that time, I hope the Lib Dems are able to build up to 60 MPs and use them to extract policy concessions from Labour, focusing on political reforms (a proportional electoral system, HoL reform or abolition, applying to re-join the EU, and a few smaller items — yes most of these reforms don’t directly change people’s material conditions, but they make it easier to pass policies that will in the future, opening the way to break down the Tory-Labour duopoly and end the Lords as a place where radical reforms go to die). Sadly, that probably means the Tories returning to power in 2037 or 2038, about a century too soon, but ultimately the nature of our political system is you can’t win forever. But, of course, a week is along time in politics, making a decade something similar to geological epoch and any predictions that far in the future are fundamentally exercises in futility.

Overall, I am hopeful for our political future. No, Starmer’s government is not going to be radically reformist. I hope it will move left over the course of the next parliament, but I fully accept that hope is unlikely to manifest (hence, you know, being a Lib Dem). But I at least believe that kicking the Tories out will arrest the country’s political move to the right and I’m very excited to see dozens of Lib Dems on the opposition benches. So, here’s to the Tories’ demise and the Liberal Democrats’ good fortunes!

Prediction

As a matter of public record, here’s my rough prediction for the election (I admit it’s a little optimistic, I think) which I’ll check in on on June 5th:

Labour: 400

Tories: 160

Lib Dems: 50

SNP: 20

Plaid Cymru: 3

Greens: 1

(Independents: 1, Mr Speaker, obviously, and I’m not going to predict any of Northern Ireland’s seats due to lack of familiarity, though I suspect Sinn Fein and the DUP will continue to do historically well. I’m 50/50 on Corbyn retaining his seat as an independent but don’t think Galloway will keep his.)

The prediction doesn’t quite add up but that’s because I’m using multiples of 10 for the larger parties. Rough prediction, goddamn it. It’s a fair amount more pessimistic than current polls, so let me just quickly explain why. The polls have been against the Tories for something like two years now and I don’t expect the campaign to hugely change that. However, governing parties do tend to get a boost in the couple weeks leading up to the election, as their natural voters stop complaining and realise they still prefer the government to the opposition. I think that effect will be even greater in this election, with a large number of Reform supporters voting for the Tories on polling day due to a combination of Reform not being able to truly campaign (likely not even having candidates in a lot of seats, and definitely not having any kind of campaigning machine) and Reform being completely unable to win in any constituency leading to tactical votes for the Tories.

Hence I’m not predicting anything truly unprecedented like the Tories being reduced to third place with less than 50 seats, but I do think they’ll be looking at one of their worst defeats in history. 160 seats is my prediction, but I could see that rising to 180 or even 200 if the above mentioned effects are even stronger than I think. On the other hand, there’s also a chance, though I consider it slim, that the Tories really do get 120 or fewer seats as some current polls are predicting. We’ll just have to wait and see.

Anyway, if this were the outcome it would give Labour a 100 seat majority (plus a little more, especially if Sinn Fein do well) allowing Starmer to really do whatever he wants. A great amount of power; I hope he uses it wisely.