On July 4, voters in Britain went to the polls to elect a new government. Labour ended up with 411 seats in the House of Commons, while the Conservative Party had just 121.
At first glance, the result seems like a massive popular mandate for Keir Starmer and the Labour Party. But we have to reckon with the British electoral system, which can give parties a large majority of seats without even a small majority of votes. Labour will form a government with less than 34 percent of the overall vote. That’s barely 2 percent more than the party achieved with Jeremy Corbyn as leader in 2019, on a much lower turnout.
The real story of the election was a Tory collapse. The Conservative vote share dropped by 20 percent. The right-wing Reform Party of Nigel Farage divided the right-wing bloc with its anti-immigrant platform. Reform received 14 percent of the vote, but only ended up with 5 seats.
For a conversation about the election and the future of British politics, Long Reads is joined by Phil Burton-Cartledge. Phil is a lecturer in sociology at the University of Derby, and he’s the author of a book about the Conservative Party called The Party’s Over.
Support for this podcast comes from Haymarket Books, offering free shipping on orders over $25 (or £20). One title you might enjoy is Against Erasure: A Photographic Memory of Palestine Before the Nakba.
Support also comes from A Sense of Rebellion, a new podcast from tech critic Evgeny Morozov that explores counterculture at the dawn of the digital revolution.
Long Reads is a Jacobin podcast looking in-depth at political topics and thinkers, both contemporary and historical, with the magazine’s longform writers. Hosted by features editor Daniel Finn. Produced by Conor Gillies, music by Knxwledge.
