Over four months have passed since a sad and soggy Rishi Sunak stood at the Downing Street podium to announce this General Election. The reveal was accompanied by Labour’s 1997 election anthem, Things Can Only Get Better, booming from across the street.
The decision to call a general election came several months earlier than expected, with absolute reassurance that ‘the plan is working‘ despite almost all metrics confirming the opposite, as his party lay far behind Labour in the opinion polls.
So why did he call it?
Sunak’s rhetorical and only slightly ironic question, “Who do you trust?”, felt like a self-imposed bullet to the head. Considering the odds were stacked well against the Tories, why did Sunak decide to call the election when he did?
It could be that he had simply grown tired of being a punching bag for the UK public. From being the butt of memes comparing him to Woody from Toy Story, to the ridicule for struggling to use a petrol pump, and admitting with a sneer that he didn’t have any working-class friends – it’s no surprise this would wear anyone down.
The optimist may, however, suggest that the office was in a reasonable state when Sunak made his announcement – it was simply the best time to do it. There had been a brief moment of good news regarding the UK’s economy, since inflation had slowed and the economy had been growing at its fastest pace in two years. He may have simply decided to roll with the punches, take a risk, and present his agenda for a new term formally to voters.
However, it’s likely he also knew it was only going to get worse. The Rwanda scheme was failing to effectively tackle migration numbers, and economic growth remained stagnant, with the UK’s economy projected to be the worst-performing in the G7 next year. Since Sunak’s cabinet was also shuffling like a pack of cards, and his party couldn’t help but have a few scandals a month, he may have simply decided to make the bleeding stop and prevent even more damage to the party’s already tattered image. Future forecasts weren’t looking so great and the sooner they ripped off the Band-Aid, the sooner they could saddle Labour with it and accuse them of being responsible.
For the first time in 14 years, the Tories had become an opposition party. The game had changed.
‘Well, that didn’t go well’: The Conservative Party
As expected, the Tories suffered an eye-watering defeat at the hands of Labour, winning only 121 seats, down by 251 – the smallest number since its inception. The Tory defeat was particularly deafening here in Greater Manchester, where all nine of their previously held seats were lost. This battering was not completely unexpected, given that the Tories are led by a man who thought it was a brilliant idea to travel to Manchester to announce the cancellation of billions of pounds worth of infrastructure in Manchester.
Losing their centrist voter base forced them to shift right to attract more pliable right-wing voters, possibly at the expense of their traditional centrist base. Their campaign heavily revolved around ‘out-Reforming Reform’. This shift was seen in their campaign as emphasis was placed on tougher immigration, law-and-order, and, in a last-ditch effort to re-establish a contrived form of national identity, a mandatory national service scheme.
Sadly, Sunak’s step to the right wasn’t quite enough to keep him dry, as he still ended up getting drenched during his election speech. Getting caught in the storm was also a fitting metaphor for the Tories’ 2024 campaign as it seemed to be but a shadow of its former self, lacking the energy and clarity that propelled Boris Johnson to victory in 2019.
The core of the Tory campaign boiled down to scaremongering: if Labour gets in, taxes soar, and immigration spirals out of control. The irony, of course, is that under Tory rule, the UK had already suffered the highest tax burden since World War Two.
In all fairness, they didn’t have much to run on anyway. They didn’t have many great successes to speak of and any promises could only be answered with ‘why haven’t you done any of these things over the last 14 years?’. Brexit also became the elephant in the room – a topic everyone avoided discussing. The Tories’ manifesto barely mentioned it, with a grand total of 12 nods to the issue. Perhaps it’s because they’d rather not remind everyone that the whole thing turned out to be an ill-thought-out disaster, reducing the UK economy by almost £140 billion, ending free movement for young people, and somehow managing to deliver even more immigration. But, you know, who’s to say?
Starmer No Drama: The Labour Party
Throughout the 2024 election campaign, Keir Starmer was frequently asked how Labour would bring about real change and why they would be a better alternative to the Tories. His go-to response, “My father was a tool maker’, came across like a clumsily thumbed-in nod to his working-class roots, and his backup, ‘My muvva was a nurse’, also did little to satisfy voters, who were left wanting more specific answers and clearer policy details.
Labour’s campaign centred on undoing the economic damage of 14 years of Tory rule, with promises to tackle wealth inequality, invest in public services like the NHS, and provide relief from the cost-of-living crisis. A key departure from Tory policy was Labour’s stance on immigration, pledging to scrap the reactionary Rwanda Policy in favour of a preventative ‘smash the gangs’ approach. Though Starmer positioned Labour as a stable alternative to years of Tory turbulence, critics argued that the party’s messaging often lacked depth and failed to present the transformative vision needed to energize a frustrated electorate.
This clarity somewhat arrived in the form of the Labour manifesto – alas not entirely in a good way – and the bigger question still remains: will Starmer deliver? For all the talk of change, their manifesto was shockingly tame, offering very little in terms of the bold or transformative policies upon which they had built their identity. They are not nationalizing energy, rather they are proposing a state-run company to compete with private firms. Labour also won’t be reversing the two-child benefit cap, a policy that is often said to hit the poorest hardest.
Now that Starmer is in government, it also appears that the backtracking is set to continue. Pre-campaign, Starmer expressed his disgust that pensioners were unable to heat their homes under Tory rule. Yet, one of Labour’s first acts in Parliament has been to pass a policy that reduces the number of pensioners receiving winter fuel payments by 10 million, cutting up to £300 in support for those most vulnerable to rising energy costs. This measure saves the country £1.4 billion, but at what cost?
This isn’t the Labour that people voted for. In fact, it’s hardly the party anyone voted for at all. The so-called “Labour landslide” demands heavy scrutiny. While headlines celebrated a historic win, the actual numbers tell a very different story. Only 59.7% of the country turned out, and of those, only 33.7% voted Labour, and yet this resulted in 412 seats in Parliament. It’s less of a triumph of democracy and more a glaring indictment of the UK’s first-past-the-post system – an electoral structure that skews representation. Safe to say, Labour didn’t win – the Tories lost.
The result of this election only underscores the need for urgent reform – ironically, one of Starmer’s earlier pledges. Now that the system is working in his favour, however, it seems unlikely he’ll reignite that commitment to change.
‘Stop The Boats’: Reform UK
Reform UK emerged as a powerful force in the UK election as they swept up populist-sympathetic, protectionist votes by promising net-zero immigration and drastic cuts to corporation tax. They capitalized on public discontent surrounding record-breaking illegal immigration, and the Tory decline rooted in more than a decade of questionable decisions, Brexit, and scandals. Evolving from the single-issue Brexit Party of 2019, Reform shifted its platform to appeal to disillusioned voters in former Conservative strongholds. After Nigel Farage replaced Richard Tice as its leader in June 2024, Reform secured a significant vote share of 4.1 million. However, they only won 5 seats, largely due to their less localized, nationally-focused campaign and their failure to effectively target specific constituencies.
The biggest confusion lies in how people buy into Farage and Tice’s superficial self-portrayal as ‘ordinary working-class blokes.’ Both are privately educated and possess net worths in the millions. Ironically, they belong to the very ‘elite’ they claim to despise. Yet, by adopting such a contrived working-class persona, they have managed to position Reform as a credible alternative to the ‘elitist’ two-party system.
Despite this, Reform was somewhat caught napping when Sunak called the election. They had been in the midst of a recent vetting scandal, where one report found that nearly 1 in 10 prospective Reform candidates were Facebook friends with Gary Raikes – the leader of neo-fascist group: New British Union. With Reform still reeling from criticism surrounding the scandal, and a shortage of candidates, Sunak may have concluded that a snap election would prevent Reform from organising and becoming a stronger opponent.
From The Sidelines: The Other Parties
The election also saw a colourful array of candidates beyond the two main parties, the success of which demonstrates some breaking up of the two-party system. The Liberal Democrats’ campaign was quite unusual, with Ed Davey making front-page splashes – often literally, as his campaign seemed to revolve much around falling off paddleboards and jet skis. Humiliating as it may seem to some, they secured an impressive 72 seats in Parliament by focusing their campaign efforts on safe Lib Dem constituencies and deprioritizing more marginal ones. This is quite a feat, especially considering they focused only 3.5 million votes in targeted areas to leverage those 72 MPs.
Meanwhile, the Green Party, operating under a co-leadership, achieved a greater vote share, forcing Labour and the Conservatives to address environmental concerns more prominently in their campaigns. This pressure from the Greens not only pushed the main parties to hit those green policies but also sparked wider discussion on climate action, highlighting the electorate’s growing demand for meaningful environmental commitments.
Independent candidates, predominantly those aligned with Gaza, siphoned votes from Labour in 5 key areas such as Blackburn, Birmingham, and Leicester. These candidates opposed the major parties’ positions on the conflict and spoke to many dissatisfied with both the Conservative and Labour stances on the issue. Jeremy Corbyn was among the six independent candidates elected, and has since been in discussions with other independent MPs to form a new alliance aimed at boosting their parliamentary influence.
