Big Majorities, Big Problems: 2024 can’t ignore 1906
Note: I am a working Civil Servant. This is a work of observation and none of the following should be taken as an endorsement of any political party or their policies.
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2024 has proven to be the worst Conservative defeat ever, even worse than the historic low of 156 seats won at the 1906 election. But, for some reason, this is the only time that 1906 ever gets mentioned. We are more keen to compare Keir Starmer’s victory to other Labour landslide wins, especially 1997, yet the situation is much more similar — eerily, even — to 1906.
In smoggy, monocle-wearing 1906, the Liberals won a very comfortable victory over the Conservatives. The Tories had ruled for twenty seven of the thirty years before 1906, but by then fighting between ‘free trade’ and ‘protection’ factions had crippled the party, and so the Liberals absolutely drubbed them. It was the only time before 2024, as far as I can tell, that one party’s large majority was replaced by another party’s large majority. For complicated, irrelevant reasons, it’s harder for the opposition to win seats than the government, so you often end up whittling away. In 1997, for example, Blair had to beat a Tory majority of just 13. 2024, and 1906, broke that pattern.
Coincidence? Well, yes, but actually no. It’s perhaps fair to say that the Conservatives lost both elections, rather than the opposition winning them. There’s generally little optimism for a Labour government in 2024: there was simply a brute desire to replace the Conservatives, and Labour was right there. I admit this narrative diminishes the incredible feat of switching from the worst Labour defeat in modern times to one of the greatest Labour victories over the course of one election cycle. Nonetheless, it seems plausible that this majority won’t last. Blair managed to lose only six seats in 2001. Will Starmer, with a difficult global economy and rising radical sentiment, manage that? Or is it more likely voters will punish the government with the recuperated Conservatives and ever-more popular fringe parties?
That’s what happened to the Liberals in 1910. In fact, everything after 1906 might be sobering for Starmer’s Labour. It was not possible to know, then, that the Liberals would end up catapulting the question of Irish independence to the centre of British politics. Neither could any see their third place doom, as a new and vibrant party replaced them in the two party system. No one could know that 1906 was the Liberal swansong. In 2024, we don’t know what will happen next either. But a new independence question at the next election, and new parties shaking up the settled two party system, should both haunt Labour’s new nightmares.
1910 saw the Liberals lose their majority. They were still the largest party — after all, the system favours the incumbents — but they needed allies to pass any legislation. Enter the Irish Parliamentary Party. In return for their support, the Liberals agreed to advocate for Irish autonomy. That kicked off a new phase in the increasingly bitter Home Rule debate that, eventually, produced the Easter Rising, the War of Independence, and the Free State.
Celtic nationalism might seem more or less irrelevant to the gargantuan Labour majority of 2024, especially when the Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) have so dramatically collapsed. And indeed, in 2024, I don’t see Scottish independence as a salient Westminster debate. Things may look very different in 2029 or 2034. Refreshed from a period of opposition, the SNP may be very ready to lambast the inevitable disappointments, failures, and scandals of a Labour government. Any Labour administration in Holyrood, meanwhile, will not be able to blame the party in power in London for their problems. The SNP will have no such trouble. Polls already say that most independence-minded Scots voted tactically to change the British government, not because they’ve given up on their ambitions. Should Labour lose a good chunk of their majority at the next general election, and the SNP rise, they may need to make similar bargains to 1910 Liberals..
Of course, there’s no guarantee Labour of 2029 will go the same way as the Liberals of 1910. Less guarantee still that it will mark their swansong. But the outlook isn’t hugely optimistic, is it? Even disregarding international problems beyond any government’s control, Labour must win in a society whose third pick was the radical right, yet who also elected four MPs on pro-Palestine platforms. That the traditional voting coalitions are less and less relevant is a problem for the South-East-losing Tories, too. That doesn’t make the febrile, fissiparous electorate any less of a problem for Labour. Even anti-Conservative unity could only deliver 30% of the vote, and now that has flown in the night. Labour must replace it with some new lynchpin— a big ask — or face a slow decline in the face of new forces. It may seem ironic that this was the fate of the Liberals at the hands of Labour, a hundred years ago. There’s nothing to say a party can’t go the way they came.
Take your choice of excitingly or distressingly plausible. Call it wild speculation, if you prefer. The real point is that 1906 seemed to deliver an established party a strong mandate to govern, just like any other election, but actually led to a profound shift in British politics. Just like in 2024?
