Big tech and fintech companies would certainly like to think so, as too does the City of London Corporation and Starmer’s mentor, Tony Blair.
As of today, July 5, 2024, the United Kingdom has a new government. As expected, the Labour Party trounced its main rival, the Conservative Party, and will be able to govern the country with what some are calling a “super majority.” Labour managed to win 412 out of 650 parliamentary seats, almost doubling its tally (210) from the 2019 elections. According to Foreign Policy magazine, the party’s leader and new prime minister-elect, Keir Starmer, is likely to become “the social democratic leader with the largest parliamentary majority anywhere on Earth.”
Granted, this is according to Foreign Policy‘s definition of what a “social democratic” leader consists of. As NC commenter Furnace points out below, “Starmer is as far from a true social-democrat as it gets.” It is also arguable whether his majority is bigger than that of Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico’s left-leaning president elect whose coalition government will control roughly two-thirds of both legislative houses. While Sheinbaum’s party, MORENA, garnered almost 60% of the entire vote share, Starmer’s Labour Party commanded just 33.8%. Thanks to the wonders of the UK’s first-past-the-post electoral system, that translated into almost two-thirds of the seats in parliament.
Of course, Starmer’s “landslide” victory was not owing to a groundswell of support for his vision or policy proposals — before the elections the UK public viewed the Labour Party under Starmer even less favourably than under Ed Miliband — but because support for the Conservative Party has all but disintegrated. Put simply, this election was a referendum on 14 years of depraved, divisive and destructive Tory governance, and the results speak for themselves. As The Economist notes, the Conservatives’ expected tally of 122 seats, down from 365 in the last elections, “is worse than any in modern history.”
In the days leading up to the election, the British polling company YouGov asked Labour voters to explain in their own words the main reason why they are backing the party. For the largest number (48%) the key motivation was ousting the Conservatives, which is perfectly understandable given: a) how long the Conservatives have governed for; and b) how badly they have governed during that time. Only 5% of the respondents to the YouGov survey said they were voting Labour because they agree with the party’s proposed policies.
Here’s the British satirist Jonathan Pie with a graphic summary of the damage, in many cases irreversible, the Conservative Party has inflicted on the United Kingdom and its people during its 14-year tenure:
One thing Pie doesn’t mention are all the measures and policies that recent Conservative governments have adopted to turn the UK into a digital police state. As we noted in August 2023, it increasingly seems that the UK decoupled from the European Union, its rules and regulations, only for its government to take the country in a progressively more authoritarian direction:
This is, of course, a generalised trend among ostensibly “liberal democracies” just about everywhere, including EU Member States, as they increasingly adopt the trappings and tactics of more authoritarian regimes, such as restricting free speech, cancelling people and weakening the rule of law. But the UK is most definitely at the leading edge of this trend. A case in point is the Home Office’s naked enthusiasm for biometric surveillance and control technologies.
Digital Surveillance and Control
The situation is unlikely to improve under a Starmer government, and could actually get worse…
Continue reading on Naked Capitalism
Nick Corbishley 