British politics – hurry up and wait for a general election

Written By: - Date published: 4:58 am, May 21st, 2024 - 16 comments
Categories: Brexit, elections, electoral systems, First Past the Post, uk politics - Tags: , , ,

Originally posted on Nick Kelly’s blog

The recent Local Government and Police and Crime Commissioners elections were a disaster for the Conservative Party as predicted by many. While I was not quite brave enough to predict the result of the London Mayoral race in my previous blog post, it always seemed unlikely a hard-right candidate sympathetic to Donald Trump would win in London.

Current UK polling trends from December 2019 to April 2024: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election . Yes one should always be wary of individual polls – but there is something of an obvious trend in the above.

The move to adopt First Past the Post in all local elections was designed to help the Conservatives in places like London. In reality, it meant many Lib Dem and Labour voters tactically supported Sadiq.

More surprisingly, perhaps, was the defeat of Andy Street as West Midlands Mayor. Unlike Susan Hall in London, Andy was gracious in defeat wishing his successor all the best. The West Midlands result was close, reflecting that most would acknowledge Andy was a competent Mayor and his loss was due to a national swing against the Tories. Unfortunately, local elections in the UK turn into referendums on the performance of party performance nationally. In 2024, the Conservative and Unionist Party are deeply unpopular.

This may explain why two Conservative MPs have crossed the floor to Labour in the last month. The first Dr Dan Poulter, a former Conservative Health Minister crossed the floor to join Labour in late April citing frustration at the Government’s management of the NHS. More controversially, Dover MP and former member of the pro-Brexit European Research Group Natalie Elphicke Crossed the floor immediately before the Prime Minister’s question time on Wednesday immediately following the local elections.

My view is that if an MP is elected to parliament representing a party if they then resign their membership of the said party, they should resign from parliament. In this case, neither MP intended to run at the next general election, but no longer felt they could remain on the Tory benches. In UK politics there is a tradition of MPs crossing the floor and joining different parties, including former UK PM who in his early career left the Tories and joined the Tories in 1904, only to cross back to the Tories in 1924. While I understand the tradition and also the message it sends, I still hold the view that if you are elected to represent a party in parliament, on resigning party membership voters should be allowed to decide your replacement. That said, there is little point in holding two more by-elections this close to a general election.

While I do not pick elections, I think it is safe to make this point. If Rishi Sunak and the Conservative Party are holding on for a dramatic change in polling numbers, they are unlikely to see this happen. On current polling, even a 7% swing in their favour would not be enough to stop them from losing the election. Labour should not be complacent, but it is increasingly obvious that the voter coalition that helped the Conservatives win in 2019 has collapsed. That Britain will probably have to wait a further six months for this Government to go to the country is depressing for all concerned. For those who want a fresh start, it feels like the Government is delaying the inevitable. For Tory MPs standing down, who will be sick of trying to defend the indefensible when meeting their constituents, this will be a long and depressing few months.

Little will be achieved in these next few months. Global leaders watch UK media and are fully aware this is a dying government. Any major international deals on trade are unlikely to progress over the next few months. Instead, negotiators will be waiting until after the election to deal with Rishi’s successor.

The local election results and the recent Tory defections to Labour are further signs of a government in its dying days. Any hope of a 1992 surprise victory must be waning fast even in the most optimistic Conservative supporter.

I will brave one prediction, the UK election is likely to be in November this year. The Conservatives are unlikely to be rewarded for waiting it out. Until then the UK will be stuck in this hurry-up and wait limbo.

16 comments on “British politics – hurry up and wait for a general election ”

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  1. DS 1
    21 May 2024 at 7:09 am

    It's fairly safe to suggest that a giant section of the Tory base has run off to the right-wing nutters at Reform. One imagines that the Tories are frantically trying to lure those people back.

  2. Sanctuary 2
    21 May 2024 at 7:47 am

    I foolowed Count Binface's campaign for the London mayoralty keenly. His policy of requiring the executives of water companies to take daily dips in the Thames was widely popular.

    I know a rather gentle young Englishman, a slightly anachronistic "Tolkien Tory" who read history at Oxford and translates Latin texts for fun. He sadly related how on his last trip to England how all his friends have left the Conservative party and it is now a septic hell hole of pro-Reform party nutters and proto-fascists. It still doesn't stop him getting animated on the rather posh Grace Blakely as a class traitor though which makes for amusing debate.

    Looking at the overall results the collapse of the Tory vote is astonishing. The hard liners are no longer satisifed with anything less than a racist Putinesque police state and have abandoned the Tories for Reform or are biding their time for defeat and the chance to enthrone Bravermann. But the rise in the votes for joke candidates, independents, the Greens and the stay at home vote indicates Labour's support is very soft. People mainly want the Conservatives gone. There is little to no enthusiasm for Starmer who seems widely regarded as untrustworthy and full of weasel words.

    The big worry is Labour will win offering nothing, do even less except try to manage the crisis better, and be swept out of power by a far right, Fidesz style Tory party run by an autocratic and anti-democratic Suella Bravermann who will, cheered on by a far right press, turn the UK into an even worse police state than it already is.

    • Dolomedes III 2.1
      21 May 2024 at 1:06 pm

      Yes you have to wonder what the Tories have to show for their 14(!) years in power. I'm surprised to hear your friend's take on the current Tory party – most of them look to me like liberals rather than conservatives (let alone fascists), some almost as indulgent of identity politics as UK Labour. Here's Penny Mordaunt, for example:

      And who could forget Theresa May congratulating British Muslims for performing the Hajj: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFQslqJZ4qQ

      They don't look like "proto-fascists" to me.

      And why do you describe Suella Bravermann as anti-democratic?

  3. Bearded Git 3
    21 May 2024 at 9:24 am

    An opinion poll in the Guardian today has the Conservatives dropping from 365 seats (2019 election) to 85 seats in the House of Commons.

    They will be able to take the whole lot to parliament in a couple of buses.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2024/may/20/uk-general-election-opinion-poll-tracker-latest-labour-tories

  4. Visubversa 4
    21 May 2024 at 12:28 pm

    We were in England September/October last year – mainly in the North. The feeling seemed to mainly be one of irritation and anger. A lot of general drunkenness and crime.

    Energy prices are ridiculous, the rail system is in a state of collapse and in cases overcrowded to the point of being unsafe. We saw a Press report of a London to Manchester train driver refusing to take the train out of Euston Station because it was so full.

    The most vivid example of the social collapse came from our visit to the Co-op supermarket in central Leeds. There were no shopping basket, or trolleys. We picked up the few things we had come for and when we got to the checkout – I asked about baskets. The chap serving us said that they regularly ran out because the shop thieves would come in, take a basket, fill it up and just walk straight out.

    We noted in Manchester that the supermarkets we used all had several security guards at the door and they scrutinised everybody before one could actually leave the store. We got used to having our till receipt in our hands as we left. On at least one occasion, our receipt was scrutinised and compared with what we had in the bag.

  5. Craig Haggis 5
    21 May 2024 at 5:37 pm

    Personally, I couldn't care less which version of the Conservative Party gets in. There's absolutely nothing in the so-called Labour Party's manifesto that will make the lives of people who have suffered most due to contrived austerity for the past 14 years any better.

    I'm hoping the SNP win the majority of seats and the process of a long-needed divorce from Ingerlund is finally achieved. And good luck also to Paid Cymru.

  6. SPC 6
    22 May 2024 at 8:07 pm

    They promised the UKIP a referendum for their support.

    Merkel allowed a million refugees into Germany because of images of woman and children in refugee camps – only half were Syrian and most were men.

    The people voted for Brexit, Boris Johnson said that this would be good idea.

    When it got real difficult delivering Brexit they allowed Johnson into Number 10 so he would make it all work they way he said it would.

    He also managed a pandemic with the guy from Epsilon 5 (who wound up his ear and the pro Brexit movement before him) and his Health Secretary.

    Then he left Britain no better or worse than he found it, apart from more people being dead, if not as many as the Telegraph wanted.

    So they picked one of those Randians to make the island a successful free enterprise centre the like no one had seen since it was an imperial economic hub.

    And the markets cried.

    So they chose someone with serious money of their own.

    But this did not trickle down to success for the UK while he was PM. Being an Indian did not translate to political popularity, outside India.

    It is time for someone black. Why not someone from outside Labour-Tory politics. Someone above the pettiness of Brexit and the Tory-liteness of Starmer's conformity.

    Press gang this man back to lead the LD

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuka_Umunna

    and provide the UK with an alternative.

    So after the Labour-LD coalition forms to rule Scotland, with the SNP in opposition (with the Tories irrelevant), a Labour, then LD, then Reform, then Tory outcome in the south.

    The ideal would be LD and Tories merging as Democratic Conservatives to compete with Labour and Greens with Reform being seen as outlier fascists as per AFD in Germany.

  7. SPC 7
    23 May 2024 at 12:06 pm

    Keir came, saw and stammered – an election in July is coming.