English
By Ross Gower, Analyst KEDISA
After months of speculation of an early general election, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced last week that there would in fact be an election this summer. The announcement of an election to be held on 4th July follows repeated denials from Sunak that an early election would be called. The election will see Sunak’s Conservative party, who have been behind in the polls for over two years, face off against Starmer’s Labour party who are enjoying record support. An expected significant swing of seats from the Conservatives to Labour along with the rise of the Reform Party and decline of the Scottish National Party means that the election is expected to be a tumultuous one. This article will explore the main five parties running in the election, what Government will likely form and why Sunak called an early election.
Who is Running:
There are several parties running in the UK General Election. Broadly speaking, there are five main parties in the running who can significantly alter the face of the Parliament: Labour, the Conservatives, Reform, the Scottish National Party and the Liberal Democrats.
Labour:
Polling overwhelmingly predicts Labour to make huge gains at the election and to become the largest party in Parliament. The party is expected to win between 39-49% of the vote, a significant increase on the 32% that they achieved in 2019.The 2019 election was the worst election result for Labour since 1935, and saw the removal of Jeremy Corbyn, who represented the far-left of the party, as leader. Since then Labour has elected Keir Starmer as its leader who represents the moderate wing of the party and has moved its policies to the centre. If polling is correct, Starmer will achieve Labour’s best election result since 2005 and become Prime Minister. While most of the polling puts the party below 50%, due to the First Past the Post voting system typically leading to the largest party winning a larger proportion of seats than votes, Labour will most likely have a majority of the seats and not have to form a coalition.
Conservatives:
The Conservatives in contrast are expected to experience significant losses. They are currently polling between 18-28%, down from the 43% they won in 2019. If they win less than 25%, this will be the worst election result in the party’s modern history.Rishi Sunak became leader of the Conservative Party and Prime Minister following the Boris Johnson administration and the short-lived Liz Truss leadership. The Conservative Party first dropped below Labour in the polls in November 2021 following revelations that Number 10 held parties during the Covid Lockdowns and Johnson promoted a Conservative MP who he knew had sexual assault allegations made against him. Following this, Liz Truss became leader. She passed a mini budget that created market turmoil, leading her to resign after less than two months as Prime Minister and for Labour to significantly increase their lead in the polls. Sunak then became Prime Minister in October 2022 promising to return economic stability, but he has been unable to close the polling gap with Labour.
Reform Party:
July 4th will be the first General Election that the Reform Party has run in. The party, currently led by Richard Tice, was founded by Nigel Farage following Brexit. Reform is further to the political right than the Conservatives, focusing on issues such as immigration control.The party is currently polling at between 8-14%. This would give Reform the third largest vote share. While this seems impressive, the First Past the Post voting system means that they will likely receive few seats. Some polling groups, such as Electoral Calculus, predict they won’t win a single seat due to their voters not being geographically concentrated in specific constituencies. Something similar happened to Nigel Farage’s previous party UKIP in the 2015 election where, despite winning over 12% of the vote, didn’t gain any seats.Despite having a minimal presence in Parliament, Reform poses a significant threat to the Conservative Party. Reform’s right-wing positions on policies such as immigration has attracted many former Conservative voters. This division of the right-of-centre vote may cost the Conservatives in a number of constituencies.
Scottish National Party:
The Scottish National Party only operates in Scotland and is pro Scottish independence. They are expected to lose a lot of votes at the election. In 2019 they won 45% of the Scottish vote (3.9% UK-wide). Currently however, they are polling at around 33% in Scotland.The Scottish National Party has been the largest party in Scotland for a number of years. They have been the largest party in Scotland in General Elections since 2015, and the largest in the Scottish devolved Parliament since 2007. This dominance however has been challenged in recent years. The Party is currently led by John Swinney, who only came into the role in May. The Scottish National Party has been rocked by a police probe into its finances which led to the arrest and questioning of senior party figures. Furthermore, they have experienced infighting with their Green Party coalition partners in the Scottish Parliament leading to the resignation of Humza Yousaf as party leader. As a result of these scandals, for the first time since 2010, Labour may receive the largest vote share in Scotland ahead of the Scottish National Party.
Liberal Democrat Party:
The Liberal Democrat Party is expected to lose some of its vote share. The centrist liberal party led by Ed Davey won 11% in 2019. They are currently polling at between 6-12%.
Labour Majority Government?
Given Labour’s 20 point lead in the polls and the unpopularity of their main opponents, many analysts see it as a full blown conclusion that the election will result in a Labour-led majority Government. There may be some tripholes that Labour will face that will prevent this from happening, but the odds of this significantly denting their sizable lead, at least in this election, seems unlikely.
Are the Polls Wrong?
One potential risk to a future Labour majority Government is that the current opinion polls are wrong. In both the 2015 and 1992 general elections, the majority of polls predicted a Labour win only for the Conservatives to obtain the majority of seats. As such there are concerns that something similar could happen again.The main difference between now and these past elections is the size of the lead. In 2015 and 1992, the majority of polls only put Labour marginally ahead, and there was a sizable minority that predicted a Conservative win. Today, Labour has a 20 point lead and the party is predicted to win by the vast majority of polls. As such, polls have to be far more inaccurate than they were in 2015 and 1992 for Labour not to win.
Lead Based on the Unpopularity of Opponents:
The other problem that Labour faces is that their lead is largely due to the unpopularity of their key rivals rather than the popularity of their own leaders and policies.Polling suggests that the population have a largely negative view of the Labour Party and Keir Starmer. Only: 17% view Labour as a party that keeps its promises, 39% think they understand the problems the country faces, 24% think they have a good team of leaders and 31% think they are fit to govern. Furthermore a plurality of people have a negative view of Keir Starmer and his leadership of the party.Labour’s lead is mostly down to their main rivals to Governance, the Conservatives, experiencing record levels of unpopularity. They are also significantly helped by the Scottish National Party losing their monopoly over mostly left-leaning Scotland. As such there is a risk that once these parties are able to recover their image, Labour will be on the back foot again, just like they were before the various Boris Johnson and Scottish National Party scandals.However, the likelihood of this happening before the election is unlikely. Both the Conservatives and Scottish National Party have been rocked by their respective scandals for over a year now, and neither seems likely to make a recovery within the next two months. As such, a Labour victory at the election still seems likely even if it is due to the unpopularity of their opponents, with the recovery of their rivals not becoming a problem for them until future elections.
Right-wing Unites:
The last potential risk to a Labour victory is that the Conservatives and Reform are able to unite their votes. As mentioned previously, Reform are polling well and have attracted the support of many former Conservative voters. If they are able to unite they prevent the risk of dividing the right-wing vote in many constituencies. This may take the form of either an electoral pact between the two parties, or Reform supporters on the day deciding it would be safer to vote Conservative.While these two parties uniting would significantly close the gap with Labour, it would unlikely prevent a Labour victory. The Conservatives are currently polling at an average of 24% and Reform at 11%. Even if all Reform supporters were to support the Conservatives, already a highly unlikely scenario, that would still bring the right-wing vote to 35%. This would put them ten points behind Labour. While this is a sizable dent to Labour’s lead and overall majority, if polling is accurate, it wouldn’t prevent a Labour victory.
Why Call and Early Election:
Considering Labour’s polling lead and the fact that Sunak didn’t need to call an election until the end of the year, there are questions as to why the Prime Minister called for a summer election. There are a couple tactical reasons as to why Sunak wanted to call the election early.
Catch Opponents by Surprise:
By calling the election early, Sunak could catch his opponents in Labour and Reform by surprise and leave them unprepared.The Labour Party now have to finish their election manifesto earlier than expected. This means they may have to rush part of it, leading to both criticism that they have poorly designed policy commitments and potential public infighting between the moderate and left-wing factions due to less internal party consultation.It also means that Reform doesn’t have much time to choose its full list of constituency candidates. At the May local elections, Reform only had a little over 300 candidates, far from the over 2600 Council seats up for grabs. That was an election that they knew the date of far in advance, so it will be difficult for Reform now to field candidates in all 650 Parliamentary constituencies before a surprise early election date.
Prevent a Vote of No Confidence
The other potential reason Sunak called an early election is to prevent Conservative MPs from launching a successful vote of no confidence bid against him.There have been rumours for many months now that many Conservative MPs have been sending no confidence letters to the party chairman. Some have very openly criticised his leadership and expressed support for ousting him. By calling an election now, Sunak has prevented the possibility of enough no confidence letters being submitted to have a vote on his leadership before an Autumn election.
Conclusion:
The July 4th election looks set to significantly change the composition of Parliament. Labour, who had their worst election in decades in 2019, now looks likely to win a majority of the seats and form the next Government. In contrast, the Conservatives, who have been in power since 2010, and the Scottish National Party, who have dominated Scottish politics for over a decade, look set to experience significant losses. While there are potential pitfalls that may lead to an unexpected result, the persistent size of Labour’s lead and unpopularity of the Conservatives and Scottish National Party makes it seem extremely likely that Keir Starmer will become the UK’s next Prime Minister.
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