By Andrew Hammond
The week between Christmas and New Year's Day is traditionally a time for U.K. politics to take a holiday. However, Dec. 27 saw U.K. Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt fire the starting guns on the 2024 general election campaign announcing a March 6 date for his annual budget.
This announcement will fuel speculation that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak could call the election in the first half of 2024. However, whenever the timing is, the most likely scenario is a significant change in U.K. politics which will have key international implications, not only domestic ones.
To be sure, there may be some significant continuity in U.K. foreign policy to begin with. This includes issues such as strong U.K. support for Ukraine in its fight against Russia.
However, Labour leader Keir Starmer says that one of his chief priorities, if he becomes prime minister, is “the restoration of the United Kingdom and its reputation on the world stage.” His argument is that many people overseas feel that the nation has “turned [its] back on the world and wherever you go people feel almost the absence of the United Kingdom, once a leading voice, now rarely consulted.”
With longstanding global allies, like the United States, this could see a strong relationship between Labour Party leader Keir Starmer and U.S. President Joe Biden in what Starmer has called the opportunity for a “progressive moment.” This possibly might even get close to the warmth of relations between Tony Blair and Bill Clinton almost a quarter of a century ago.
Meanwhile, closer to home in Europe, Labour wants a “much better” Brexit deal with the EU when the current deal is next reviewed in 2025. Starmer thinks the current deal is “too thin,” and wants a “closer [U.K.-EU] trading relationship.”
The fact that Labour is likely to win most seats at the election is shown by recent polls that still indicate the party could possibly have its biggest electoral success since its landslide wins under Blair in 1997 and Clement Atlee in 1945. Take the example of the Electoral Calculus prediction tool, which currently forecasts Labour winning some 459 seats at the general election, this would give the party a huge majority.
That may exaggerate the outcome which would be in excess of even the 1997 landslide and that of 1945 too. To put the 459 number into historical perspective, in the 21 elections since 1945, the winning party has only twice gained as many as 400 MPs. That was Labour in 1997 and again in 2001 under Blair’s leadership.
It is still plausible that the national polls will tighten in the coming months, of course. However, Labour is nonetheless likely to win more seats than the Conservatives, even if the size of victory is by no means assured to be on a historically epic scale such as 1997 and 1945.
Labour’s current big lead reflects not just the success of its leader Starmer in restoring confidence after the huge 2019 election loss. It also highlights the wide discontent with the Conservatives who have tried and ditched four prime ministers in the past seven years as Brexit and also the pandemic caused major convulsions across the country.
Increasingly, it appears as if Sunak’s position is comparable to that of then-prime minister John Major prior to the 1997 election. Around a year and a half before that 1997 election, the Conservative standing in the polls was as low as it is today, notwithstanding the economy being in much better health. By the time the general election came, the Conservatives had regained modest support, but not nearly enough to keep hold of power winning only 165 seats (significantly higher than the 120 that Electoral Calculus currently forecasts for the Conservatives at the next ballot), less than half the number it had in the previous Parliament from 1992 to 1997.
To regain any significant political momentum, Sunak needs to get over a wide series of challenges beforehand. More than a year into his term of office, he has had a very difficult time in 10 Downing Street, although he has not (yet) experienced a similar disastrous chain of events that his predecessor Liz Truss did in 2022, which saw her prime ministership implode within 50 days.
Yet, Sunak still has a massive political hill to climb as he, like other previous prime ministers who take over in the mid-term of a parliament, tries to give himself time to establish himself before going to the polls. The task is so difficult for Sunak because no party in modern U.K. political history has won five elections in a row, and he must try to do this in the context of a divided Conservative caucus of MPs, and sluggish economic growth.
Taken together, this is why Labour is now likely to win the most seats at the general election, potentially in overwhelming fashion. While Sunak is likely to stay as prime minister until then, the political winds are blowing strongly against the ruling Conservatives winning a fifth straight term of office.
Andrew Hammond is an associate at LSE IDEAS at the London School of Economics.
UK's election year has international implications
24
0
02.01.2024
By Andrew Hammond The week between Christmas and New Year's Day is traditionally a time for U.K. politics to take a holiday. However, Dec. 27 saw U.K. Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt fire the starting guns on the 2024 general election campaign announcing a March 6 date for his annual budget.
This announcement will fuel speculation that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak could call the election in the first half of 2024. However, whenever the timing is, the most likely scenario is a significant change in U.K. politics which will have key international implications, not only domestic ones.
To be sure, there may be some significant continuity in U.K. foreign policy to begin with. This includes issues such as strong U.K. support for Ukraine in its fight against Russia.
However, Labour leader Keir Starmer says that one of his chief priorities, if he becomes prime minister, is “the restoration of the United Kingdom and its reputation on the world stage.” His argument is that many people overseas feel that the nation has “turned [its] back on the world and wherever you go people feel almost the absence of the United Kingdom, once a leading voice, now rarely consulted.”
With longstanding global allies, like the United States, this could see a........
© The Korea Times
visit website
login
who are we?
contact us
qosheapp
Toi Staff
Gideon Levy
Belen Fernandez
Rami G Khouri
Mort Laitner
Donald Low
Ali Fathollah-Nejad
