Friday 9 June 2017

Results of the United Kingdom general election of 2017

All results for the general election are through. Despite expectations that they would increase their majority - possibly drastically - the Conservatives instead lost several seats and with it, their majority in Parliament. As a result, in order to govern, the Prime Minister has had to make a deal with the Democratic Unionist Party, a party in Northern Ireland, who have enough seats to support the Conservatives and give them a small majority.

The Labour Party, which had long been expected to losses masses of seats to the Conservatives, instead gained 30 seats. Labour was able to seize long-term Tory seats such as Canterbury and Kensington, both of which (and other seats) were attributed to heavy turnout of the under-25s, which is estimated to have been over 72% this election. While Labour did lose a handful of seats through a combination of them being in Brexit-voting areas or the UKIP vote went to the Conservatives, Labour otherwise weathered the Brexit vote and also increased its margins in many Remain areas, taking out Tories in the process.

The Scottish National Party lost nearly half of its seats but nevertheless remain the largest party in Scotland and the third-biggest in Parliament. Their losses can be attributed to them overplaying their hand at another independence referendum; Scots mostly consider the matter settled and are likely tired of voting, seeing as they've had more national referendums to vote on when the AV from from 2011 is included.

The Liberal Democrats increased their numbers from 8 to 12 but had their margins reduced in some seats and their former leader, Nick Clegg, was defeated in Sheffield Hallam; his loss marked the first time that Labour has won that seat. Despite taking a heavily pro-Remain stance, Liberal Democrat gains were fairly minor.

The United Kingdom Independence Party/UKIP again failed to win any seats and its share of the vote severely collapsed, in both number and percentage. Many UKIP voters returned to the Tories although there were a large number who returned to Labour, too.

It is hard to predict where British poltics will go from here. Some are expecting another election in the fall but that will depend on how well the Tories can govern with their DUP-backed minority administration. It also depends on if any political infighting takes place within any of the parties; while Jeremy Corbyn appears to have emerged from this election unscathed thanks to his strong campaign and achieving the first Labour seat increase since 1997, many on the Tory side are annoyed with their leader for calling an election which they were supposed to win and, instead, ended up losing.

2 comments:

  1. About what I had expected. Conservatives were lucky they were able to pick up so many Scottish seats or even with help, they'd probably would have been a minority government.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They are indeed lucky. Ruth Davidson, to her credit, ran a good campaign in Scotland and capitalised on the SNP overplaying their hand at independence.

      Delete