‘Critics say support is ‘shallow’. But like the Three Lions, it is results that count’

Last Thursday’s general election was an election like no other. Labour won a whacking 412 seats, up 211 on their total from the 2019 election. Over 50% of MPs entering parliament today are newbies – and 41% are women. Both of these things are general election ‘firsts’.

The expectation of a new Labour government to deliver something tangible early on is immense. The fact that the Tories could not campaign on any policy successes during the election, despite being in power for 14 years, tells you everything about just how little they squandered their time in office and just how much needs to be done.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer is determined to show this is about delivery, not soundbites and on Saturday, told his new Cabinet “self-interest is yesterday’s politics”.

The stark difference between Labour and the former Conservative Cabinets could not be clearer. It’s proportionately northern – with Yorkshire fielding six Cabinet members – and is the most representative Cabinet ever recorded in terms of education backgrounds, according to the Sutton Trust.

Decisive from day one

Aware of the first 100 day ‘honeymoon period’, Starmer has wasted little time in making some important announcements.

First up was Friday’s announcement of ending the Rwanda scheme and diverting tens of millions of pounds from this to establish a new Border Security Command. On Sunday, a new military aid package for Ukraine was promised by Defence Secretary John Healey and on Monday Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced mandatory house building targets.

This has all been carefully choreographed.

Labour has been waiting in the wings for months for this and is keen to show that it means business.

But the party is also keenly aware that people are talking about their landslide as a ‘shallow’ win. Labour won 63% of the seats with just 34% of the vote share and saw its share of the popular vote actually fall. Corbynites have been quick to point out that under Jeremy Corbyn the vote share for Labour was greater – 12,877,918 in 2017, and 10,269,051 in 2019 against Starmer’s 9,634,399 in this election.

Yet this was not 2017 and it certainly wasn’t 2019.

The tactical vote, voter suppression and other factors

The Labour vote share was impacted to a degree by tactical voting. The general public who actually bothered to read up about stuff, knew exactly how to use their vote most efficiently in a way that wasn’t evident in 2017 and 2019.

People voting tactically did so in the knowledge that they’d get a Labour government and they did it deliberately. So however much this is painted as a ‘get the Tories out’ election (even expressed by many Tory voters it seemed) it was done in the knowledge that it was going to benefit Labour.

Low turnout was also a feature of this election. The BBC reported that “turnout across the UK as a whole is 60%, the second lowest in a UK election since 1885. Only 2001 was lower with 59%”.

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This is the first general election to be held since the 2022 Elections Act came into effect. After the 2023 local elections when 4% of non-voters did not participate because of the ID requirements the Electoral Commission reckoned that more than a million voters would de facto become non-voters.

And voter suppression, which was the intention of this draconian Tory legislation, certainly impacted the young where turnout was especially reduced. Holding an election when students are not around at university certainly helped the Tories.

Labour’s vote share did fall in seats with large Muslim populations – and probably explains the four new Independent seats – but this is not just about the situation in the Middle East. Gaza is the lightning rod but there are huge issues around poverty, community cohesion, and general political alienation that should not be overlooked.

The Reform surge

Reform undoubtedly also ate into Labour’s share of the vote and is as much a Labour problem as it is for all the other parties. But there is a large and significant unknown about this vote going forward. Their candidates are untried and untested (understatement of the century) and Reform UK is still a registered limited company rather than a constitutionally rooted political party. Their vote and support are wrapped quite firmly around (for some) the magnetic narcissism of Nigel Farage and not around much else.

Sound familiar? Boris Johnson absolutely did for the Tories, maybe terminally, and Farage shows all the signs of doing exactly the same.

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More than anything, this result shows just how good Labour are at being able to properly understand the first past the post system and how good their strategy was.

Their campaigning was ruthless, disciplined and effective. It was the most efficient use of Labour votes in history. Sometimes that was brutal but then politics is.

As for the Tories, if you can’t organise your vote, perhaps you shouldn’t be running a country.

Nationwide representation

Ultimately, we can talk about vote share until the cows come home – it’s the number of seats that matter. To use a football metaphor, and no doubt one that has been used endlessly, it really doesn’t matter if the England football team have 80% possession of the ball throughout the match if they then concede one goal and lose.

And now Labour have seats. Lots of them, and crucially in ALL parts of the country. No longer just in England but in Wales and Scotland and in rural and coastal areas, North, South, East and West, town and gown.

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Labour has the number of seats needed to hopefully get that second vital term in government to really deliver what is needed. And we have the most diverse MPs ever.

The simple truth is no one, least of all my children and communities here in Sheffield, could afford another five years of the Tories – I’m not sure we could have managed another five minutes. And whilst some papers bleated about a supermajority, you need a supermajority to fix this mess. You need a government for at least two terms to properly work through this.

A numbers game

There are huge challenges, not least for those new MPs like Jake Richards in Rother Valley who have a slim majority and a large share of voter apathy. But I’m confident that with the right policies that genuinely start to deliver and the new hyper-local campaigning ethic that Labour has instilled these seats will be retained.

In the meantime I’m just going to enjoy having a hard working Labour MP who substantially increased her majority, in a Labour city, with a Labour mayor – and a Labour government.

I doubt anyone would have been talking possession if the England football team had taken the trophy at Euro 2024. Politics is a numbers game; Labour got theirs right and I’m just going to bloody well enjoy it.

This article was first published on Yorkshire Bylines and has been republished on LabourList at the permission of the author.

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