UK

Support trulyindependent journalismFind out moreCloseOur mission is to deliver unbiased, fact-based reporting that holds power to account and exposes the truth.Whether $5 or $50, every contribution counts.Support us to deliver journalism without an agenda.Louise ThomasEditor The U.K. has its first change in government in 14 years after the Labour Party won a landslide victory in a general election Friday that saw the Conservative Party suffer its biggest defeat ever.The new government faces huge challenges, including fixing the country’s sluggish economic and social malaise resulting in part from the U.K’s exit from the European Union, the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine and several Conservative Party scandals.Here are some things we learned: A fraying two-party system For the past 100 years, Britain’s two main political parties have garnered the vast majority of votes. In 1951, for example, the Conservatives and Labour netted nearly 97% of the vote combined. In the decades since, the trend has been clear — down. This election marked a new low, with the two parties combined barely able to muster 60%. Despite that relatively low share of the vote, Prime Minister Keir Starmer will be able to govern with a massive majority in the House of Commons that will make it easier for him to get his legislation through.That’s because in Britain’s electoral system, the candidate with the most votes in each constituency wins even if they don’t get a majority. This makes it easier for a party to win a seat on a relatively low share of the vote, especially when votes are spread out among many parties. These include the anti-immigration Reform UK, the Greens and the Liberal Democrats. Conservatives punished No election has seen this many Cabinet ministers lose their seats in Parliament, including some who were prospective candidates to replace Rishi Sunak when he steps down as leader of the party.With all but one of the 650 contests reported, a dozen Cabinet ministers lost their seats. Perhaps the most consequential for the future of the Conservative Party is Penny Mordaunt, who gained international notoriety when she held up a large sword throughout much of last year’s coronation of King Charles III. She was widely tipped to be a future leader as she has support across the party.Others included Defense Secretary Grant Shapps, Transport Secretary Mark Harper and Education Secretary Gillian Keegan.The casualty with the highest profile wasn’t even in the Cabinet. That honor goes to Liz Truss, who was prime minister for just 49 days in the fall of 2022 and whose unfunded tax cuts roiled financial markets and sent borrowing costs for homeowners surging. Sunak, who succeeded Truss, could never shake off the legacy of her premiership. Labour’s Gaza problem Four of Labour’s candidates lost to independent challengers campaigning on a pro-Palestinian platform in constituencies with big Muslim populations.The biggest surprise was Jonathan Ashworth, who was expected to be in Starmer’s Cabinet but lost his seat in Leicester, a city in central England where a third of the population is Muslim. Even Starmer, who has been criticized for being slow to back a ceasefire in Gaza, saw his majority in his Holborn and St. Pancras seat reduced as more than 7,000 ballots were cast for an independent candidate who had Gaza at the heart of his campaign. Labour is back in Scotland In 2015 Labour, which had been dominant in Scottish politics for decades, lost all but one of its seats to the pro-independence Scottish National Party.Thursday’s election almost reversed that, with Labour winning the vast majority of seats in Scotland while the SNP lost 38 seats, leaving it with only nine and putting to rest any thoughts of a pro-independence referendum for Scotland any time soon.The SNP, which governs in Scotland, has had a difficult few years, most notably as a result of a funding scandal that has embroiled former leader Nicola Sturgeon and her husband. John Swinney, who only became first minister a few weeks ago, pledged a period of “soul searching” and admitted that the party was “not winning the argument” over independence. Musical chairs The newly elected candidates will officially become members of parliament on Tuesday when the House of Commons returns for the swearing in and oath of allegiance to King Charles III. When they take their seats on the green benches, the 412 Labour members — up 211 from the last election in 2019 — will sit where the Conservatives have been for the past 14 years, on the right hand side of the speaker of the House. The 121 Conservatives — down 251 — will be the main opposition and will sit to the left of the speaker.The other opposition benches will look very different, however. If as anticipated the Liberal Democrats win the final seat to report, the party will have 72 members of Parliament, up from the eight it won last time.There will also be four Green members rather than one, and five members of the anti-immigration Reform U.K., including its leader and self-professed political agitator, Nigel Farage, who won a seat on his eighth attempt. And the SNP’s presence will be much diminished. Reform, which contested its first election, is already saying the U.K.’s electoral system is unfair and are calling for a change, noting they got 14% of the vote, 2 percentage points more than the Liberal Democrats, but ended up with a far lower number of seats, But the U.K.’s electoral system has always been about getting the votes in the right place.___Follow AP’s coverage of elections around the world: https://apnews.com/hub/global-elections/ More

Support trulyindependent journalismFind out moreCloseOur mission is to deliver unbiased, fact-based reporting that holds power to account and exposes the truth.Whether $5 or $50, every contribution counts.Support us to deliver journalism without an agenda.Louise ThomasEditorNigel Farage’s Reform UK would have needed to win over just 364,474 more voters to gain more seats than the Conservatives in Thursday’s election, shock analysis reveals.The insurgent right-wing party won 14 per cent of the votes but gained just five MPs, due to the even spread of its support.Meanwhile, the Conservatives won just 19 per cent but gained 121 seats under the first-past-the-post voting system. While Labour’s average votes per seat won was 23,600, Reform’s average was 820,745 per seat, the number-crunching shows.Nigel Farage celebrates winning one or Reform’s five seats More

Support trulyindependent journalismFind out moreCloseOur mission is to deliver unbiased, fact-based reporting that holds power to account and exposes the truth.Whether $5 or $50, every contribution counts.Support us to deliver journalism without an agenda.Louise ThomasEditor Prime Minister Keir Starmer held his first Cabinet meeting Saturday as his new government takes on the massive challenge of fixing a heap of domestic woes and winning over a public weary from years of austerity, political chaos and a battered economy.Starmer welcomed the new ministers around the table at 10 Downing St., saying it had been the honor of his life to be asked by King Charles III to form a government in a ceremony that officially elevated him to prime minister.“We have a huge amount of work to do, so now we get on with our work,” he said.Starmer’s Labour Party delivered the biggest blow to the Conservatives in their two-century history Friday in a landslide victory on a platform of change. Among a raft of problems they face are boosting a sluggish economy, fixing a broken health care system, and restoring trust in government.“Just because Labour won a big landslide doesn’t mean all the problems that the Conservative government has faced has gone away,” said Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London.In his first remarks as prime minister Friday after the meeting “kissing of hands” ceremony with Charles at Buckingham Palace, Starmer said he would get to work immediately, though he cautioned it would take some time to show results.,“Changing a country is not like flicking a switch,” he said as enthusiastic supporters cheered him outside his new official residence at 10 Downing. “This will take a while. But have no doubt that the work of change begins — immediately.”Starmer singled out several of the big items, such as fixing the revered but hobbled National Health Service and securing its borders, a reference a larger global problem across Europe and the U.S. of absorbing an influx of migrants fleeing war, poverty as well as drought, heat waves and floods attributed to climate change.Conservatives struggled to contain the flow of migrants arriving across the English Channel, failing to live up to ex-Prime Minister’s Rishi Sunak’s pledge to “stop the boats.”Starmer has said he will scrap the Conservatives controversial plan to deport asylum-seekers to Rwanda. The plan had cost hundreds of millions of pounds (dollars) without a single flight taking off.“Labour is going to need to find a solution to the small boats coming across the channel,” Bale said. “It’s going to ditch the Rwanda scheme, but it’s going to have to come up with other solutions to deal with that particular problem.”Suella Braverman, a Conservative hard liner on immigration who is a possible contender to replace Sunak as party leader, criticized Starmer’s plan to end the Rwanda pact. “Years of hard work, acts of Parliament, millions of pounds been spent on a scheme which had it been delivered properly would have worked,” she said Saturday. “There are big problems on the horizon which will be I’m afraid caused by Keir Starmer.” More

Support trulyindependent journalismFind out moreCloseOur mission is to deliver unbiased, fact-based reporting that holds power to account and exposes the truth.Whether $5 or $50, every contribution counts.Support us to deliver journalism without an agenda.Louise ThomasEditorMapping the change in seats from the 2019 general election to today paints a damning picture for the Conservative Party.Analysis by The Independent shows how the sea of Conservative blue, when the party won 365 seats under Boris Johnson, dwarfs all other parties.Click here for our live coverage of the general election results.It also reveals the extent of the SNP’s dominance in Scotland and the sheer scale of the defeat for Labour under Jeremy Corbyn.But, despite only a slight uptick in the party’s share of the vote under Sir Keir Starmer, 2024’s election map is awash with Labour red.Readers can toggle between the 2019 and 2024 results using the tool below.It reveals the shock SNP collapse, with the nationalists falling from 48 seats in 2019 to 9 today.And it shows a resurgent Liberal Democrat party, with Sir Ed Davey’s party storming to its best election result in a century.Thursday’s national ballot also led to historic gains for the Greens and Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, and saw victories by pro-Gaza independent candidates, among them ex-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn – dealing blows to some of Westminster’s most prominent MPs.Reform gained the highest amount of national vote share, up by 12.3 per cent from when the Brexit Party ran in 2019. However, Nigel Farage’s party has won only 5 seats.Meanwhile the Tories have lost 20 per cent of national vote share — nearly half of their 2019 supporters.Mr Sunak easily won his Richmond and Northallerton seat with 48 per cent of the vote, despite some of the polls predicting otherwise, but conceded defeat from the platform, confirming that he had already called Sir Keir to offer his congratulations.He told Tory members and candidates: “I am sorry.”Sir Keir told activists in central London: “This is what it is, for a changed Labour Party ready to restore service for working people.“Across our country, people will be waking up relieved. Now we can look forward to the morning. The sunlight will be shining strongly through the day in a country which, after 14 years, has an opportunity to get its future back.” More

Support trulyindependent journalismFind out moreCloseOur mission is to deliver unbiased, fact-based reporting that holds power to account and exposes the truth.Whether $5 or $50, every contribution counts.Support us to deliver journalism without an agenda.Louise ThomasEditorSir Keir Starmer triumphantly entered Downing Street on Friday, signalling a new era in politics and promising to fix Britain’s problems “with respect and humility”.The Labour leader returned his party to power after 14 years in the wilderness with one of the biggest majorities in history – 176 seats.After meeting King Charles, he stood on the steps of No 10 and declared: “Our country has voted decisively for change, for national renewal and a return of politics to public service. Our work is urgent and we begin it today.”Labour won 412 seats, while the Tories suffered their worst result in history with just 121. Rishi Sunak announced he would quit as Tory leader and used his final speech in Downing Street to apologise to the British people and the Conservative Party.But Sir Keir was only too aware that despite his huge majority, Labour only received 34 per cent of the vote in an election with a low turnout of 60 per cent. His party received fewer votes than when it was defeated under Jeremy Corbyn in 2019.Labour was also helped by the rise of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, which split the vote on the right, earning 15 per cent of the vote and five seats.Sir Keir made it clear that his mission was to help those who “have been ignored” for too long.The Starmers enter No 10 as a new political era begins in Britain More

Support trulyindependent journalismFind out moreCloseOur mission is to deliver unbiased, fact-based reporting that holds power to account and exposes the truth.Whether $5 or $50, every contribution counts.Support us to deliver journalism without an agenda.Louise ThomasEditor Great Britain’s Labour Party has defeated the Conservatives in a historic parliamentary election for control of the nation’s government. With most votes counted, here’s a breakdown of the numbers: 412 seats Labour has won 412 seats — a 63% majority — of the 650 seats in the lower house of Parliament. One seat remains undeclared.Meanwhile, the Conservatives have 121 seats, the smallest number in the party’s two-century history, and down from 365 seats in 2019.Smaller parties picked up millions of votes, including the centrist Liberal Democrats, who captured 71 seats — up by 60 from the last election. And one of the biggest losers was the Scottish National Party, which held most of Scotland’s 57 seats before the election but looked set to lose all but a handful, mostly to Labour. Each seat represents a geographic area of the U.K. The leader of the party with enough seats to command a majority — either alone or in coalition — becomes prime minister and leads the government. 14 years of power Labour’s landslide brought a new party to power for the first time in 14 years. Parliament had been led by the center-right Conservatives since 2010. They had faced one challenge after another, including Brexit, the COVID-19 pandemic and soaring inflation.Many voters blamed the Conservatives for the litany of problems facing Britain, from unreliable train service to the cost-of-living crisis and the influx of migrants crossing the English Channel.In 2010, the Labour Party had been ousted after being in power for 13 years, its longest ever stretch. By the end of its last reign, Labour’s popularity had taken a dive. That was partly because of the deep recession in the U.K. that was wrought by the global financial crisis in 2008. 60% support for the two major political parties Labour and Conservative candidates were barely able to muster 60% of votes cast in this election, marking a new low.For the past 100 years, Britain’s two main political parties have garnered the vast majority of votes. In 1951, for example, the Conservatives and Labour netted nearly 97% of the vote combined. In the decades since, the trend has been clear — down.The two main political parties had candidates running for more than 600 of the 650 seats in Parliament, according to the House of Commons Library. But so did three other parties: Liberal Democrat, Green and Reform. 4,515 candidates An average of seven candidates — from almost 100 different political parties — ran for each seat, the library noted. Nine parties fielded over 50 candidates.The total number of people running for a seat in Parliament was 4,515 this year, the library stated. That’s over a thousand more than in 2019.Despite that relatively low share of the vote, Prime Minister Keir Starmer will be able to govern with a massive majority in the House of Commons.In Britain, the candidate with the most votes in each constituency wins even if they don’t get a majority. This makes it easier for a party to win a seat on a relatively low share of the vote, especially when votes are spread out among many parties. More

Support trulyindependent journalismFind out moreCloseOur mission is to deliver unbiased, fact-based reporting that holds power to account and exposes the truth.Whether $5 or $50, every contribution counts.Support us to deliver journalism without an agenda.Louise ThomasEditorNigel Farage’s victory press conference was targeted by hecklers who accused him of being no friend to working people after his Reform party won four seats at Westminster overnight. A total of seven people had to be escorted out of the venue. As one man started shouting at him, Mr Farage, famously a large drinker, asked him: “Are you downwind a couple already? You’ve had a bigger lunch than I have.”He also questioning if they were actors – a nod to a Reform canvasser filmed using a racial slur to describe now former prime minister Rishi Sunak.Nigel Farage outlined his desire to make changes to the party during his speech More

Support trulyindependent journalismFind out moreCloseOur mission is to deliver unbiased, fact-based reporting that holds power to account and exposes the truth.Whether $5 or $50, every contribution counts.Support us to deliver journalism without an agenda.Louise ThomasEditorSir Keir Starmer has made Rachel Reeves Britain’s first female chancellor as he appoints his new cabinet to get on with the job quickly.One of his easiest appointments for the new prime minister was Ms Reeves as his new chancellor. She played a major role in the campaign and as a former Bank of England economist has helped bring economic credibility back to Labour from the wreckage of the Jeremy Corbyn years.She is the first female to hold the second most important role in governent in 708 years of the office being in existance.Reeves is Britain’s first female chancellor More