The general election brought about dramatic change across the country.
The Conservative vote fell by around 20 points, having lost to Labor across most of the country.
This was enough for the Labor Party to win over 200 seats. But not everything was positive. They lost in the big cities to the Greens and independents and only increased their vote percentage by 1.6 points.
This translated into four Green seats, the highest total ever. The Liberal Democrats won more than 60 victories, taking the party past the recent highs of the mid-2000s under the leadership of Charles Kennedy and, later, Nick Clegg.
Destroying holders
This was an election in which voters appear to have delivered a scathing verdict on the incumbents’ performance.
In Scotland, the SNP’s vote fell by 15 points, with Labor up by 17. In Wales, while Labor won nine seats, its vote fell – by 41 points to 37.
Sinn Fein also became the largest party in Northern Ireland after the DUP lost three seats and eight percentage points.
Fighting on two fronts
The Conservatives collapsed in the face of a challenge to their right from the Reform Party, while Labor and the Liberal Democrats capitalized on the will of voters on their left – seeing the government caught in a pincer movement.
Conservatives lose more in their strongest areas
The drop in the Conservative vote was greater where it started higher.
In seats where the party started above 60% it lost around 30%, in seats where it started with less than 20% it lost less than 8%.
In contrast, the Labor Party recorded the biggest increases in its vote in places where it won between 20% and 30% of the vote in 2019 – leaving it well positioned to take advantage of the collapse in the Conservative vote.
The importance of Brexit
It was the Reform Party that drove the nail into the coffin of the Conservative Party.
It guaranteed a 12.5 point increase in the national vote. This was more than six points more in seats that the Brexit Party did not win in 2019.
After several years in which Brexit shaped the fortunes of the Tories (and Labour), the Leave vote in 2016 is now much more strongly correlated with support for Reform than for the Tories.
Tactical voting
Amid this wave of disillusionment with the incumbent, there is evidence that voters responded to the options offered to them.
The Liberal Democrats rose almost nine points in seats, where they started in second place behind the Conservatives, while Labor’s vote was stable.
In contrast, in seats where Labor started behind the government in second place, its vote rose by almost six points.
Another major story of the night was the big drops in the Labor vote in areas with large Muslim communities. The party’s vote fell by almost 20 points in areas with a population of more than 30% Muslim.
Starmer Popularity
Although Sir Keir Starmer begins his term with the strongest majority since Tony Blair, and against an even more wounded opposition, the election result was not necessarily a resounding endorsement of his popularity.
The party finished with just over a third of the national vote and received fewer total votes than under Blair in 1997 – when the country’s population was much smaller – or even Jeremy Corbyn in 2017.
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