U.K. Election 2015
A surprise within the status quo
THE DAY AFTER the 2015 UK General Election, the world woke up to headlines suggesting that the Conservative (Tory) Party’s comprehensive defeat of its major party challenger, Labour was a shock. Granted, the polls throughout the campaign predicted a tight race, but a qualitative analysis, with an eye on history, would suggest otherwise.
The Tory’s overall majority in the House of Commons continues to echo a fundamental truth of British politics. No leader except Tony Blair has won an election for the Labour Party since Harold Wilson in 1974.
While this most recent result has secured David Cameron’s second term, the most fascinating aspect of his triumph was not the result itself, but rather what it means for all the major players in the British political landscape.
When all 650 seats were declared last week the final results were conclusive:
Long after it became clear that the Tories would be the party with the most members in the House of Commons, there were contradictory senses of excitement, and predictability. Would the Tories win enough seats in to govern by themselves? Luckily for Cameron the answer was yes. During the previous parliamentary term beginning in 2010, Cameron had to be content to form government with a coalition partner. That on first glance seemed not completely unremarkable. However, the junior coalition partner was the Liberal Democrats (Lib Dems) under the leadership of its former leader Nick Clegg. Traditionally, these two partners are seen as ideological opposites in British politics, especially over the hot button issues.
The hasty marriage of convenience between the Tories and the Lib Dems always had the feel of a shotgun wedding, and although they shared some policy achievements, the Tories largely achieved its overall majority by defeating its coalition partner in a number of seats.
The Lib Dems as a party achieved a number of its policy objectives during this five year arrangement, perhaps even more than they had initially anticipated, but the gains they made in this last parliamentary term will now make way for severe long term electoral pain. The Election results for the Lib Dems indicated as much with the party losing 49 seats.
This election a new minor party force emerged, and although they are not part of a coalition government, they could well leave a bigger impact on British politics than the Lib Dems did last time around. The Scottish National Party (SNP) won 56 out of the 59 seats available in Scotland, formerly considered to be a Labour Party stronghold. A sympathetic supporter of British Labour could reasonably argue that the SNP cost their party any chance of victory in the UK, but such an analysis chooses to ignore that despite Scottish Labour blaming the SNP for costing them seats, Labour could win them all and still not be able to form an overall majority in the parliament. It also ignores the signs that the SNP’s fortunes were always on the rise, particularly since the failed referendum on Scotland’s secession from the United Kingdom last September.
Two months after that referendum, the SNP installed a new leader, Nicola Sturgeon, who has smartly capitalized on the wave of nationalism by diversifying the SNP’s policy agenda, targeting smaller issues such as cost of living pressures, and pushing some big picture issues such as climate change and defense procurement. Given that the SNP even exceeded their own expectations at the ballot box, expect Sturgeon to push for yet another Scottish referendum some time in this new parliamentary term. However as far as the SNP are concerned, winning seats at an election was the easy part, the bigger challenges lies ahead.
The real test for the SNP will come when its new members sit on the Opposition benches in Westminster. Does the SNP have the skill to actively participate on issues that go beyond its Scottish scope and affect British society as a whole? When such issues arise how will they vote? While their natural instinct may be to vote against Labour on most policies to ensure that its MPs maintain their seats in the next election, a more pragmatic approach suggests that they have far more in common, in terms of policy, with Labour rather than the Tories.
Labor, on the other hand, have much more existential issues to deal with. The major party of the opposition has the most soul searching to do out of any political group in Britain, besides the pollsters. Politically, Labour has made no new ground since Gordon Brown resigned as leader in the wake of the 2010 result. British Labour must deal with the same challenges that its Australian cousins have failed to confront in the past: how can the party build on its legacy, while articulating a policy vision for the future? In this regard Tony Blair’s legacy dominates British politics in much the same way that the Hawke-Keating governments have dominated Australia’s.
The problem with the now departing Ed Miliband and his leadership was that he kept sending and delivering mixed signals. As detailed in a superb analysis of Miliband’s leadership in The Guardian, he would oxymoronically promise to return to the ideals of ‘New Labour’ for a few months, and then some months later would shift towards abandoning this promise, depending on the mood of his party room colleagues. The lack of support for Labour during this election was not so much a rejection of their policy platform, but rather a sign of displeasure at the party’s lack of political skill.
Whomever succeeds Milliband after September’s Labour Party conference will not only have to acknowledge the mistakes of past, but actually learn from them. It is here that the burgeoning movement of ‘Blue Labour’ may get some traction. ‘Blue Labour’ was created out of the ashes of Labour’s previous election defeat, and serves as a direct response from those who oppose the continuation of Blairist philosophy in the Labour Party. What started as a small fraction of disgruntled and frustrated members continues to build momentum, but ‘Blue Labor’ will need to enter the mainstream of progressive politics for its ideological perspectives to take hold within the Labour caucus.
The Tories, meanwhile, dominate the mainstream of British politics as a result of their sizable election victory. There are no longer any excuses for Cameron, because this next parliamentary term will define his political legacy for good or for ill. He can no longer use a nagging coalition partner as an excuse for policy failure. Given an overall majority in the House of Commons was everything that Cameron could hope for politically, he now has the responsibility to provide solutions to the problems his party encountered in its previous term.
- Can the Tories promote a strong economic plan?
- How will Cameron sell his plan to ensure that Britain stays in the EU?
- How will Cameron implement the Tory’s controversial social policies?
The answers to these questions will no doubt dominate Britain’s first full fixed term. While the default setting of modern British politics has been restored for the next five years, the challenges that the Second Cameron Government encounter will be unique. While on first glance the results of the 2015 British Election may have looked definitive and Cameron achieved the overall majority he wanted, his wish might become to be a nightmare.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
TODD WINTHER
Todd Winther is a PhD Candidate in Political Science at Griffith University.
Todd is a frequent contributor to The Conversation. His thesis studies the relationship between leadership and internal party structure.
