this post was submitted on 05 Jul 2024
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The Labour party has won over 400 seats (out of 650) in the 2024 UK General Elections, and Keir Starmer is expected to replace Rishi Sunak as Prime Minister. The Conservatives, in power for the last fourteen years, have suffered a rout, losing over two-thirds of their seats. The SNP has collapsed in Scotland, mostly to Labour, and the Liberal Democrats have gained over sixty seats.

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[–] [email protected] 126 points 4 months ago (12 children)

Well, at least the was one election where Nazis didn't win big.

[–] [email protected] 48 points 4 months ago (3 children)

They didn’t do that bad really, it just wasn’t reflected in the results. A new further right party showed up and split the right wing vote, which is largely why Labour won. If you look at the total votes the righter win parties did pretty well (Tories are really all that right wing but they did get the right wing vote).

[–] [email protected] 21 points 4 months ago

Yeah, as much as I hate everything Farage stands for, fair play to him for splitting the Tory voters and delivering a Labour government. I just wish that kind of thing wasn’t necessary.

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[–] emergencyfood 45 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (5 children)

Among smaller parties, the Liberal Democrats have gained over 60 seats, and Reform, the Greens and Plaid Cymru have also gained seats. Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, now contesting as an independent, retained Islington North. Labour lost another three seats to independents who ran against its inaction on Palestine. The SNP and DUP suffered big losses, while Sinn Fein's fortunes seem to have remained unchanged.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Very impressed with the Greens - four seats is double what was expected. Great result for them.

The Lib Dems have also come out of this really well.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 months ago (2 children)

I voted LD because I had to to ensure the Tory candidate didn’t get in, but I had to hold my nose while doing so. Last time I voted for them nationally was 2010, and we all know how that panned out.

To be fair to them though, after the 2015 election they had so few MPs that you could tag them all in a single tweet. So to have 71 now is impressive.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 months ago (6 children)

Is jeremy corbyn considered to the left of the Labour party?

[–] [email protected] 44 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, starmer kicked him out for not being centrist enough, which is why he ran independent (and beat the labour candidate)

[–] [email protected] 16 points 4 months ago (7 children)

and now they can kick out Kier and reinstate Jeremy! right!? right?? in my dreams

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (3 children)

Murikan here. I really like Corbyn. He feels like your version of our Bernie Sanders.

https://i.imgur.com/44aVA5T.png

[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 months ago (1 children)

He's better than Sanders, especially on foreign policy.

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[–] emergencyfood 15 points 4 months ago (1 children)

To the left of the current Labour leadership, yes.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I think it is safe to say he is just left wing. Corbyn also self identifies as a socialist.

Labour hasn't been left wing atleast since I started living.

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[–] [email protected] 42 points 4 months ago (4 children)

There was an anti-genocide independent running against Starmer (the new PM) and they came in second. Image if they had won: biggest Labor majority in generations, you are all set to become PM and you loose your seat because you were vague about whether you support or oppose killing innocent women and children.

[–] emergencyfood 28 points 4 months ago

Labour lost four seats to independents running against its inaction on Gaza.

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[–] [email protected] 39 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (5 children)

I get what a lot of you guys are saying about Starmer and the Labour government not being as left wing as Corbyn. I would also like someone who would use this majority to implement some really hardcore leftist policies.

But please can we just take a step back and look at what he wants to do:

  • Massive amounts of NHS funding

  • Nationalised green energy

  • Tax private schools

  • Allow regulators to hit company executives with criminal charges

  • Nationalise the railways

  • Increase the minimum wage to a living wage

  • Free school meals

I don't know about you, but that seems at the very least, left of center. Sure, he's not making drastic sweeping changes right off the bat. But this country needs an era of stability, whilst we make small but consistent steps in the right direction, and that's what Starmer will give us

[–] emergencyfood 9 points 4 months ago

That's a great wish list, but I'm not sure how many of those will happen. Increased NHS funding is sadly unlikely given your economy and xenophobia against immigrants. I'm hoping you get increased support for green energy, free school meals and rail nationalisation, and at least a modest raise in the minimum wage. Cheap, clean energy, educated and healthy children, and an affordable and reliable transport system can do so much for the economy.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago

Still let's not forget the right-wing policies from their manifesto:

  • Increasing military spending by 13 billion

  • Increase police funding

  • More border security force to "stop the boats"

  • Build more prisons

  • Pour money into polluting industries (car gigafactories, steel production, "carbon capture")

  • Keep oil and gas production in the North Sea for decades, with the only focus on jobs and none on environmental issues.

So yeah I guess it's better to have an authoritarian social-ish democratic state than an outright fascist one but that's not a very high bar and will only work until the climate crisis boils us all alive :)

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[–] [email protected] 36 points 4 months ago (5 children)

An overwhelming majority by seats but only 33% of the popular vote.

36% voted Tory/Reform so voters have not shifted left but split the more right wing vote

[–] [email protected] 35 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (5 children)

We already have the left wing vote split by Labour, Lib Dem and Green.

If you want to claim the 36%, you'll need to add up the left wing parties together.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 months ago (5 children)

But that's better than nothing, right?

[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 months ago

And ~54% of the votes went to left(ish) parties, so that's something

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 months ago

And socially progressive parties got 56% of the vote. But that's split between about 4 parties.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Its missleading to bass too much on that analysis. The parties don't compete for the popular vote but to concentrate votes within seats they feel they can win.

No one was aiming to win the popular vote. I agree that's a problem but we can't really read to much into the split imo.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago

So you're tallying the right wing and comparing vs one party on the "left"?

[–] [email protected] 34 points 4 months ago (8 children)

i hope this is an omen for what is to happen in the US

[–] [email protected] 39 points 4 months ago (3 children)

I think it's important to note that the primary reason the conservative party lost many of their seats is because their vote was split between them, and an even more right wing party led by Nigel Farage. It wasn't because of a huge shift to the left (or at least the centre left position the labour party occupy right now).

In my constituency for example, if you put the conservative + reform votes together, they would have beaten the nearest competitor by a country mile.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 months ago (1 children)

i think the primary reason was that the tories were a tragic, worthless mess and the reform racists were there to pick up the protest vote and the lib dems, the others. the low turn out were the tories that couldn't even be bothered.

i see the republicans in a very similar situation

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 months ago (10 children)

That's what I originally thought would be the case. But, just statistically (looking at voter share here):

2019: Cons: 43.6% Lab: 32.1% LD: 11.6% SNP: 3.9%
2024: Lab: 33.7% Cons: 23.7% Reform: 14.3% LD: 12.2% (Weirdly, wikipedia has yet to include reform in their share ranking had to use BBC)

Labour picked up less than 2% more of the vote share. Reform took the vast majority of the tory lead away.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad the tories are out. But, it's mostly because reform split the vote and Labour were second place in most constituencies. This is important to bear in mind while the conservatives sort themselves out to decide how they deal with not being right wing enough..

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago

I think it's important to note that the primary reason the conservative party has had many of their seats in the past is because the left/socially progressive vote was split between labour, lib Dems and the greens.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 4 months ago (4 children)
[–] [email protected] 18 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Not going to happen. They even said it's not going to happen.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I heard that they probably won't, because they are afraid that they would lose support from the large amount of Brexit supporters that now voted labour.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 months ago

lol and his soft stance on Brexit was part of why pundits said Corbyn lost. Talking out both sides of their mouths. Party full of fuckin' snakes.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago (1 children)

How do you convince the EU to let us back in?

We'll need a couple of Labour terms before they'll answer the phone.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Can we have some of this in the US, please? While we still exist.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Pretty sure our right wing is left of your left wing. So no you can't have it because you don't have a system that supports anything other than the right-wing hellscape you got now.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 months ago

Leadership that detests trans people and wants to genocide Palestinians? You're in luck, bud! You get that no matter who wins!

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 months ago (5 children)

watching from abroad it seems that keir has got no incentive or menace to make him go more to the left, which means he won't do it and sees this victory as a reward to his positions. meanwhile tory tactics of incorporating farage's discourse has finally broke down, and the votes they made out of it have returned to their rightful (pun intended) owner. libdems did their homework. sad for the snp and well deserved for the dup.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago

let me guess, they will do nothing and fascism will come back again...

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago

Good that the Tories are out. Starmer is the most middle of the road centrist thou. Would be nice if the elected a left wing party

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago
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