UK election results

[Spartaculous]

What do my British friends make of these results? It's obviously a huge Labour landslide. But how much of that is simply because Reform UK ate away so many Tory votes?

[Octavious]

Virtually none. Reform was essentially just drawing a cock and balls on the ballot paper directed at the Tories. If Reform didn't exist their voters would largely have not bothered voting. Labour would still have won a landslide.

Starmer's great achievement was to convince Tory voters that a Labour government would be as radical as a boiled egg and there was nothing to fear from letting them win. This allowed traditional Tories to give their party the kicking they've wanted to for years, but couldn't because it meant Corbyn would take over.

By doing so Starmer sacrificed quite a significant chunk of his traditional base. This could well prove problematic at the next election. The number of Labour voters is remarkably small. If the right gets its act together again Labour is looking like an extremely soft target. But that's a big if, and Labour have time to become genuinely popular if they do things right

[Octavious]

The big question of the day... Will Sunak's Conservatives get more votes than Nick Clegg's Lib Dems did in 2010? It's touch and go!

[Jamiet99uk]

First Past The Post is a stupid system.

Labour's vote share increased by 1.6% since the last election, but the number of seats they won was more than doubled.

[Spartaculous]

First Past The Post is a stupid system.

Labour's vote share increased by 1.6% since the last election, but the number of seats they won was more than doubled.

What would you replace FPTP with?

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

First Past The Post is a stupid system.

Labour's vote share increased by 1.6% since the last election, but the number of seats they won was more than doubled.

I agree that FPTP is problematic, but this overstates the problem.

Labour gaining 1.5% in the popular vote is actually somewhat significant given that the major parties historically stay within a range of +/- 5% of their long-run average vote share.

More than that, in this case the driving force behind Labour's seat gains was the steep decline in the Torries' popular vote share. In this case I'd argue FPTP actually seems to have delivered a seat rebalancing that reflects the changing sentiments of voters.

Reform appears to be the worst loser due to the mechanics of FPTP, while the Lib Dems and SNP do very well by it - this seems like an outcome Jamie might like?

It's not easy to predict how a change in voting system (e.g., to proportional) might affect politics, but at a glance it seems like FPTP has delivered a strong mandate for a centre-left government while a more proportional system may have resulted in a comparatively less effective left-ish coalition. Even if Labour were not left enough for one's liking, I'm not sure you'd get more useable progressive policy out of an infighting governing coalition that included Green, SNP, etc.

[Octavious]

You're giving Labour too much credit by looking at the vote share.

2019 Election Corbyn's Labour got 10,269,051
2017 Election Corbyn's Labour got 12,877,918

2024 Election and Labour are looking at 9 3/4 million votes. Labour's support is far weaker than than the election suggests.

The most amusing result is from the Lib Dems

They've gone from 3,696,419 in 2019 to 3 1/2 million, and their reward for losing 8% of their votes is an 800% increase in seats

[Esquire Bertissimmo]

^ Super informative response, thanks!

I think one downside of looking at absolute vote counts is that it picks up the effect of dismal turnout.

[Spartaculous]

The most amusing result is from the Lib Dems

They've gone from 3,696,419 in 2019 to 3 1/2 million, and their reward for losing 8% of their votes is an 800% increase in seats

What is the Lib Dem's trick? They got fewer votes than Reform... but got 71 seats. Do they just do a good job of concentrating their votes in certain constituencies?

[Jamiet99uk]

The most amusing result is from the Lib Dems

They've gone from 3,696,419 in 2019 to 3 1/2 million, and their reward for losing 8% of their votes is an 800% increase in seats

What is the Lib Dem's trick? They got fewer votes than Reform... but got 71 seats. Do they just do a good job of concentrating their votes in certain constituencies?

It is partly that, yes. They have regained quite a number of seats which are "traditional" Lib Dem seats where they are relatively popular. More generally, they are an established party that knows how to campaign in elections, and knows how to concentrate their resources in places they have calculated they can win. It's also the case that a lot of places where they have won or regained seats, are in areas where the Conservatives were their main opponents, and therefore they benefited particularly strongly in some places from the collapse in the Tory vote.

The Green Party is somewhat similar to the Lib Dems, on a smaller scale, in the sense that we've gone from 1 MP to 4 MPs in this election, by carefully targeting our limited campaign resources at specific constituencies where we have been campaigning and slowly building a local base for a *long* time, for example in Bristol.

Reform is a relatively new party whose resources are quite thinly spread across the country. While they were able to stand candidates across the country, the quality and campaigning experience of a lot of those candidates was very limited. They got a decent share of the national vote but this led to them coming second and third in a lot of constituencies, whereas if they had targeted all their resources on, let's say, one third of those constituencies, they might have won several more seats.

[Spartaculous]

It is partly that, yes. They have regained quite a number of seats which are "traditional" Lib Dem seats where they are relatively popular. More generally, they are an established party that knows how to campaign in elections, and knows how to concentrate their resources in places they have calculated they can win. It's also the case that a lot of places where they have won or regained seats, are in areas where the Conservatives were their main opponents, and therefore they benefited particularly strongly in some places from the collapse in the Tory vote.

The Green Party is somewhat similar to the Lib Dems, on a smaller scale, in the sense that we've gone from 1 MP to 4 MPs in this election, by carefully targeting our limited campaign resources at specific constituencies where we have been campaigning and slowly building a local base for a *long* time, for example in Bristol.

Reform is a relatively new party whose resources are quite thinly spread across the country. While they were able to stand candidates across the country, the quality and campaigning experience of a lot of those candidates was very limited. They got a decent share of the national vote but this led to them coming second and third in a lot of constituencies, whereas if they had targeted all their resources on, let's say, one third of those constituencies, they might have won several more seats.

Thanks for your insights. What do you think the Green Party's role/goals will be now that they have a nontrivial number of MPs?

[Octavious]

It's also worth noting that Reform's power (and when I say Reform I include their previous incarnations as the Brexit Party and UKIP) has traditionally not come from seats, but from their ability to influence other parties. They have arguably been the most powerful party in the UK, aside from the big two, this century because of this method of working. Bums on seats has never been their primary yardstick for success.

The Green Party has a trivial number of MPs. When the government has a comfortable majority the ability to field a handful of MPs doesn't give you any Parliamentary power to speak of. My guess is that they'll try to use the opportunity to show that they can be effective as MPs. They have an MP and control of local government in Bristol now. If they make a mess of it they'll never be elected again. If they do well, other locations will take note