A major function in the success of the left in both countries was played by majority regulation – single-mandate electoral districts – in Britain in 1 and in France in 2 rounds. British government always provides a disproportionate winner's bonus, especially if his support is equally distributed across the country. This year, however, it was unique even for its politics. The Labour organization won 63 percent of the seats, with 34% of the votes supported.
How read "Guardian" if elections to the home of Commons were held in accordance with proportional legislation, e.g. the 1 utilized in elections to the regional parliaments of Wales and Scotland, then the Labour organization would not have 411 mandates but only 220, Conservative 154 alternatively of 121, improvement UK 93 alternatively of 5, Green 44 alternatively of 4, and Liberal Democrats 79 alternatively of 72. A coalition of the Labour Party, Liberal Democrats and Greens would so be essential to build a majority, which is akin to the German ruling today.
In 2019, at the higher attendance of the Labour Party, she won more votes in absolute numbers, but they concentrated in those districts where she inactive won. This year the support of the Labourers spread evenly across the country, but in many districts their advantage over the second organization was small. By calculations Robert Ford, a political scientist from the University of Manchester, in the mediate of the winners of this year's Labour districts prevailed with an advantage of 20 percent points or less. How he calculated Tom Calver from the "Times", the average advantage of the winning candidate over the second place winner this year was 6.7 1000 votes, in 2019 it was 11.2 thousand.
The change is due to lower attendance, but besides shows fragmentation of the British political scene. This fragmentation makes even earlier comparatively safe districts competitive and parties lose votes in their erstwhile bastions. This is peculiarly evident in the case of the Labour Party: as Robert Ford points out in his analysis, in these elections there was a drain of votes in the theoretically friendly districts of her, that is, in large cities, in districts with a large number of young voters or Muslim voters.
Ford compares what the British left did in these elections to playing jengha. As you know, in the yen, players effort to build as advanced a tower as possible, translating blocks from lower floors to higher. As a result, the higher the tower, the more fragile its foundations and the easier the full structure can collapse. The laurels achieved large success by winning in a evidence number of districts – more tickets were won only by Blair in 1997 – but in many districts it is based on reasonably weak attitudes.
McSweeney's maneuver
For now, however, the tower of the Laburists is rising advanced and there is no indication that it will wobble. The architect of this success, alongside Starmer, is the party's run head and 1 of the closest contributors to the fresh Prime Minister, Morgan McSweeney. He was the author of the strategy in these elections, he made the decision to focus the funds and efforts in the districts where the fight for the mandate will take place until the last vote, even if it meant a decline in support in the districts where the Labour Party's mandate is certain.
McSweeney's experience of acting in local London politics has generated him a belief that the Labour Party's left wing is simply a completely irrational force with which no compromise can be concluded and can not be given real influence, due to the fact that it will end in an electoral disaster. erstwhile the typical of this wing, Jeremy Corbyn, was elected leader of the Labour Together, McSweeney and his think tank began – supported by disappointed Corbyn donors – to conduct investigation on how to take distant his organization and who could replace it.
McSweeney was besides behind the second key strategical decision of these elections: The Labour organization was to present in them as an antithesis of the 2019 formation. Corbyn's organization ran for election as a protest movement, promising a extremist transformation of British politics in the left-wing spirit. The Starmer and McSweenay Formation put quite a few effort into presenting themselves in this election not as a protest movement, but a liable organization of power that knows that it cannot promise besides much to voters.
Corbyn was seen as an unpatriotic politician, disrespecting the British state and its tradition, irresponsible on safety issues, inclined to form unusual global alliances. The Starmer organization presented itself as a patriotic force taking safety issues seriously and global agreements.
Corbyn's organization was presented as a formation having a structural problem with tolerance for anti-Semitism, accompanying Israel's criticism. Starmer announced a policy of "zero tolerance" for all suspects of anti-Jewish sympathy. Her victim was a popular economist of the young generation Faiza Shaheen, whose candidacy in the Chingford and Woodford Green districts in northeastern London was withdrawn due to the political activity in social media – specifically for the posts she was sipping and serving further. Among them was a sketch from Jon Stewart's show on the "Israeli lobby" in the States. It is hard to defy the impression that Shaheen remained to first show how harsh the current leadership on anti-Semitism is, secondly, to pacify the remnant of the organization left.
Corbyn's refusal to take off with the support of the Labour organization would service the same purpose. Like UnHerd writes Tom McTague, it was McSweeney who felt that pushing Corbyn out of the organization was essential for his leadership period not to burden the Laburists and Starmer in the campaign.
Manoeuvring costs
McSweeney's maneuver ended in apparent success, but had its costs. Corbyn as an independent candidate defended his mandate in the territory of Islington North, which has represented continuously since 1983. Shaheen competed in Chingford and Woodford Green as an independent candidate. She took 3rd place, but thanks to her launch, his mandate was able to defend Conservative candidate Ian Duncan Smith, organization leader from 2001 to 2003. If the organization had allowed Shaheen to take off, the Labourers would have another symbolically crucial triumph on Thursday.
McSweeney's strategy besides helped the Greens, who won 6.39% of the vote – more than twice as much as 5 years ago. For many extremist left-wing voters, disappointed by the Labour Party's turn towards the center, the vote on the Greens became the voice of protest in these elections.
Due to the ordination, this protest was not peculiarly painful for the Labour Party. Of the 4 Members of the home of Commons who were introduced by the Greens, only 1 deprived a typical of the Labourers. At the same time, as many as 40 constituency Green candidates took second place, behind Labour organization candidates. As Robert Ford writes, in the future, this creates the chance for the Greens to "open a fresh electoral front against the Laborists, in previously safe electoral districts, especially those with a large population of young people, graduates and cultural minorities."
The Labourers besides lost as many as 4 seats in the districts that elected independent deputies, who competed mainly as candidates for protest against the Labour Party's position on the Gaza conflict. The mandate thus lost a associate of the shadow cabinet, Jonathan Ashworth, moving from Leicester South District. The current wellness minister, Wes Streeting, 1 of Starmer's closest associates, defended his mandate against the starting candidate in London's Ilford North territory with only 536 votes.
How shaky is most of the lazers?
All of this inspires the question of how shaky the majority of the Labour organization is. While the mediate east conflict in the next elections does not should be specified a polarizing issue, these elections surely showed that even in their safe districts, the storms are susceptible to attacks from the left, especially from the Greens.
Reform UK may besides be a threat to the Labour organization Nigel Farage.
UK improvement is the biggest victim of majority ordination in these elections. As her votes spread to many districts, support of 14.29 percent – 4.11 million in absolute figures – only translated into 5 seats. For comparison, Liberal Democrats, thanks to a more favourable geographical distribution of support, converted 3.5 million votes to 72 seats.
UK improvement candidates were second in 100 districts, especially those who voted for Britain's exit from the European Union in 2016. Many of them recovered the Labour organization after 5 years ago, frequently the first time in the past of these places, the Conservatives won. improvement UK can so open its own electoral front against the Labour organization – as Farage has already announced.
It is so possible to imagine a situation in which, even with a slight drop in support, the Labour organization will lose quite a few seats, which the Greens at the same time attack in the centres of large cities, Reforms in the north of England and the reborn Conservatives in the south of the country.
Like in “New Statesman” notes Ben Walker, examining the results, is worth remembering another factor: these elections in the opinion of many voters have long been decided in favour of the Labour Party. In the poll announced 2 days before the vote, 70 percent of respondents stated so. This could have contributed to a low turnout and encouraged voters to experimentation with the voice of the protest on the UK's reform, the Greens or candidates from Gaza. The voters would have acted differently if the Tories had a real chance to win. The base of the Labour organization tower can so be more solid than it seems.
He won the Republican Front and ordination alternatively than the Left.
In France, unlike in large Britain, Election results They were a surprise to everyone. besides for the winners themselves. A period ago, the fresh People's Front didn't be yet. In the European elections, the left ran on respective lists, the largest of which won only 13.79% of support. Macron, announcing earlier elections, may have hoped that the left would not be able to communicate, and in this situation he himself would be able to present his organization as the only alternate to the utmost right.
The large success of the French Left is that it has managed to avoid this scenario. She showed that despite all her problems and divisions, she remained a permanent part of the French political scenery and neither Macro nor the far right could be erased from it.
The left has reasons to be content, but not triumphant. Like in interview for “Le Monde” said the MP from the department of Somma, writer and filmmaker François Ruffin, who first dropped the thought of the fresh People's Front, the results of the Sunday elections were just “an overturning judgment”. "The way in which the elections were held and the institutions stopped the emergence of the National Unity, but this wave is powerful," he says.
Elections in France won the Republican Front more than the left. If they were held according to the same ordination as in the UK, the Le Pen organization would prevail. In the first round, the candidates for National Unity or its allies were first in the 297 constituency. The absolute majority in the National Assembly is 289.
In the second round, the candidates of the centre, the left, as well as parts of the centre-left, who took 3rd place in the first round, withdrew from the election to support the strongest competitor for the National Unity candidates. As a result, how computes "Le Monde", of the 353 districts where the RN candidate faced the candidate of the "Republic Front", the candidates of the far right won only in 94, 154 National Union politicians who in the first circular took first place, lost in the second.
The left turned out to be a peculiarly loyal associate in the Republican front. Its candidates were criminally withdrawing from the election in the districts where they were third, so voters were mass voting for Macron's organization candidates and even centre-right. The politicians and voters of the centre and centre-left have been little loyal, especially in those districts where the left has exposed the candidates of the Inflexible France.
The left can surely congratulate itself on the work for the republic, but the result of the elections does not mean that society, erstwhile it saw a clear alternate to Macro's liberalism and Le Pen's right-wing populism, united massively under the left-wing banner. The results of the first circular show the opposite: the NFL had 9.042 million votes, with the remaining left-wing candidates somewhat over 400,000. For the National Unity and allies of 10.6 million, for the centreright 2.1 million, for Macron's block 6.8 million. So we see the divided of the electorate into 3 large blocks, where the right and the far right dominate.
Left may not be able to form a government
It is besides worth remembering that the fresh People's Front is not a party, but a assembled loose election coalition, a left-wing common move, something like erstwhile our AWS, but on the left. It unites very different environments, from those where Piotr Ikonowicz would be considered a average and reasonable policy, to a centre-left that our left-wing commentariat would be pecking for "libration".
Compared to the results of the 2022 – erstwhile the left competed within the NUMES – the fresh coalition strengthened more average elements. Although most deputies, like 2 years ago, have introduced left-wing populist France Inflexible, her position in the left-wing coalition is weaker than 2 years ago. The average Socialist organization doubled its parliamentary representation. Which, given the pro-European and pro-Ukrainian position of this group, is good news for our region.
The NFL has 180 tickets. It's not adequate to form a government. It's up to the President, due to the fact that it's him, not the National Assembly, who points to the Prime Minister in the French system. For now, voices are flowing from Macron's right wing of the coalition calling for him to form a government based on his coalition and the centre-right, which, though it did not have an absolute majority in the UN, raised more votes than the left block.
In the parliamentary cabinet system, the left would now be looking for coalitions. However, the political strategy of the V Republic does not favour coalition governments. The NFL itself seems indecisive on this issue – the more extremist part excludes coalition governments, the more average is open to talks with Macron. However, the presidential majority would be hard to agree to the withdrawal of the pension reform, and the more left-wing part of the NFL would not agree to this. Unlike the British French Left, it does not seem peculiarly well prepared to take power. The NFL programme was a collection of slogans to mobilise the electorate alternatively than a realistic government programme.
So we are facing a period of considerable political instability, which will take at least a year – due to the fact that only after that time, Macro can solve the UN again and announce fresh elections – and its victim may besides be left-wing coalition.
Fragmentation time
So what is the conclusion of the French elections? First of all, the rumors of the death of the left are exaggerated, and the mobilization force of the far right is not as large as it might seem.
Secondly, in France and the UK, we see political scenes becoming fragmented even of the most mature democracies. It does not defend against this in explanation designed to prevent fragmentation of majority ordination. This fragmentation, even where, as in the United Kingdom, it does not prevent a unchangeable government majority from being created, will be an increasingly destabilising origin in many places in Europe.
