By Satyaki Chakraborty
As expected, the Labour Party won a resounding victory in the general elections in Britain held on July 4 by capturing more than 410 seats out of the total of 650 seats, thereby ousting the Conservative Party from power after its fourteen years rule. The Tories got only 119 seats. Sir Keir Starmer, the leader of the Labour Party is taking over as the new Prime Minister replacing Rishi Sunak who has already resigned.
The Labour Party under Starmer has been taking a centrist position on a number of issues affecting the working class in Britain since the earlier leader leftwing Jeremy Corbyn was ousted by Starmer from the leadership. The inner party tussle within the Labour Party between the Corbynites and Starmer group intensified in the last two years leading to the denial of candidacy to many left wingers including Jeremy Corbyn in the July 4 polls. However, Corbyn fought as an independent and won from his constituency despite all the efforts of Starmer group to defeat him.
The margin of Labour victory is broadly in line with Tony Blair’s 1997 win, and not as bad for the Tories as some opinion polls had predicted in the last ten days. Labour will have a highly comfortable Commons majority in the new term. The Labour got the full advantage of the continuous factional wars in the Conservative Party and the emergence of Reform Party by Nigel Farage which took away around 15 per cent vote base of the Tories. The polling details show that the Liberal Democrats with 91 seats also eroded the traditional electoral base of the Tories in a few constituencies. The outgoing PM Rishi Sunak was reconciled to his party’s defeat but he has retained his own seat. Now the issue is whether he retains his status as the leader of the Conservative Party in the new House
Keir Starmer has inherited a broken Britain, with millions struggling to pay the bills. To fix it, the new Labour government must turn its back on austerity and anti-democratic attitude to the genuine demands of the workers. British people are angry as the standard of common services for a decent livelihood has gone down. Despite Sunak’s latest efforts to add new jobs in the economy, the unemployment problem is acute. The new Labour Government has to do a lot for the improvement of the health facilities focusing on giving more funds to the National Health Service.
Sir Keir Starmer can take credit for bringing Labour to the office in 2024 elections just as Tony Blair did it in 1997. He has good opportunity to start with taking the corrective measures to plug the loopholes in some areas of the economy. With Jeremy Corbyn and the left wingers out of the Labour Party, the British businessmen as also the other multinationals remain well disposed towards the Starmer Government. Nobody expects the new Labour Government to bring out fundamental changes, neither in broad economic policy nor in foreign policy, but still the Labour victory is a positive development in the fight of the European people against far right ascendency after their big victory in European Parliament.
France is going to its crucial second round elections on July 7. The anti far right forces are showing signs of uniting against the dominant far right party RN of Marine Le Pen. Even the French football star Kylien Mbappe has declared that’ We can not allow our country to fall into the hands of Li Pen’. There is a growing awareness that fascism is knocking at the door and it should be disallowed by joint efforts. Labour victory just two days before French elections gives the message that the right and far right can be defeated if the citizens join hands. (IPA Service)
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