2024 dawns dark for Rishi Sunak and his Conservative Party. Opinion polls show the Conservatives (aka Tories) up to 20% points behind Labour.
There has to be a general election by January 2025 at the latest. For some unknown reason, all elections in the UK are held on a Thursday. The Prime Minister has it in his gift to call an election early. The PM ‘advises’ King Charles III to dissolve Parliament. The monarch always follows ministerial advice. His Majesty shall dissolve Parliament, which will trigger an election within 6 weeks.
There is feverish speculation that Sunak will call an election in May. There is a tax cut coming into effect in March. The idea is that people will look at their pay cheques and because of the tax cut notice they have slightly more take-home pay than before.
The elections to local councils are held on the first Thursday in May in England. Sunak might want to time the general election to coincide with this.
But the most likely thing is that Sunak will leave the election until almost the last minute. This will allow some Tory policies to come to fruition. The much-maligned Rwanda Plan might start to work. This means that if people enter the UK illegally and claim asylum they will be sent to Rwanda. Thus far it has been thwarted by the courts.
On the economic front, inflation has fallen from 8% to 4% under Sunak and will likely be 2% by the end of 2023. There will be economic growth and progress on renewable energy.
Why are the Tories so bitterly unpopular? They have failed to achieve much in their main policy areas. They wanted to reduce immigration, both legal and illegal. Both have increased substantially. They wanted to grow the economy and it has mostly stagnated. They vowed to cut hospital waiting lists. Yet they have lengthened. The Conservative record on crime and public transport has been bad. The United Kingdom is plagued by strikes. What can be said in favour of the Tory Government? The UK is forging ahead with renewable energy and electric vehicles. But these are due to the technology sector and not mostly the government. The United Kingdom has signed numerous trade deals. But are these more advantageous to the UK than what the UK had when it was within the European Union? That is unclear. It has been a communications failure for the Tories not to persuade people that trade is better now after Brexit.
Sunak’s policy of funding and arming Ukraine has kept Ukraine in the fight. It has renewed its friendship with the European Union. But it has not ended the Ukraine War.
The Tory Party is played out. It has been in office for 14 years and achieved precious little. From 2014 to 2022 it went through five prime ministers in eight years. There was even talk in 2023 of a parliamentary coup against Sunak! One area where the Tories have not failed is in changing leaders often. The Tory Party may be stupid, but it is not suicidal. Booting out Sunak would only make things worse.
The Labour Party enjoys several significant advantages. Among these are the missteps and disunity in the Tory Party. There is a generational advantage. Younger people are much more likely to vote Labour than Tory. In 2019, the age at which people were more likely to vote Tory than Labour was 47. That was a good year for the Tories. 2024 will be annus horribilis for the Conservatives. The age that people are more likely to vote Tory than Labour will be more like 57. Remember that the higher your age range you go, the fewer people there are.
Ethnic minority people break heavily towards Labour. That is partly because they tend to be younger and partly because they tend to be urban. Labour is strong in the cities and weak in the countryside.
Labour has not won an election since 2005. They cannot lose them all. They have finally got their act together. Labour presents a coherent and credible government in waiting. Its leader is perceived as a safe pair of hands. He is dull but decent.
Sir Keir Starmer is the Leader of His Majesty’s Most Loyal Opposition – i.e. the Labour Party. Starmer’s ambition is not to be the leader of the opposition but to become PM. He will very likely realise his ambition.
Starmer comes from a working-class background in rural southern England. His first name (Keir) is to honour the founder of the Labour Party – James Keir Hardie. Starmer was the first in his family to pursue higher education. Starmer attended the University of Leeds where he read law and then did a postgraduate degree in law at Oxford. He was called to the bar. He practised highly successfully and worked pro bono for some activists who were sued by McDonald’s. Starmer later rose to be Director of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). He was knighted for being head of the CPS. He therefore had an extremely distinguished career in public service before entering politics at the comparatively advanced age of 55. He makes much of his proletarian origins, but it is pointed out that he is a multimillionaire in GBP.
Sir Keir is married to a Jewish lady. They have a brace of children who are raised in the Judaic faith. Sir Keir Starmer says he does not subscribe to any religion but is from a Christian background. He is a vegetarian.
The trouble with Starmer is that he is very bland. He is a mediocre public speaker. He will be 63 when he comes PM. He is 20 years older than Sunak.
Starmer lacks the rock star presence of Tony Blair who led Labour to a stunning victory in 1997. Starmer will probably serve only one term as PM before handing over to another Labour politician. Labour is the only UK party never to have been led by a woman. Therefore, Labour which calls itself the most feminist party shall be under strong pressure to elect a female leader.
The fly in the ointment for Labour has been Palestine. The former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was a stalwart advocate of Palestinian freedom. He was blackguarded by the press as anti-Jewish. He has since been expelled from the Labour Party. Starmer was keen not to suffer the same fate. He therefore endorsed the Israeli assault on Gaza. This sicked some Labour politicians. Hundreds of Labour councillors resigned from the party. The Muslim community is mostly pro-Labour. It has disquieted them. But so far, a fatal fissure on this issue has not opened in Labour. Wounds within Labour will have time to heal before the election.
Labour does very well among young voters. Starmer’s relatively old age will balance this and appeal to some older voters.
The economic situation is such that Labour is offering very little. Its manifesto is going to be downbeat. Labour’s mantra is that the Tories have broken Britain and therefore major improvements cannot be afforded. It seems a Labour Government will change precious little. How does this motivate people to vote Labour?
The trouble for Labour is that its vote is soft. Opinion polls always overrate Labour. Many young people who are Labour-inclined do not bother to vote. Labour risks losing votes to left-wingers who vote for the Green Party or the SNP, or Lib Dems instead.
Labour is perhaps overcautious. It says it is not contemplating raising income tax. But without more revenue then the government shall not be able to improve public services.
Conservatives are more popular among the elderly. The older you are the more likely you are to vote Tory. At 43, Sunak is a very young PM. This perhaps mitigates Tory's unpopularity among the junior generation.
The Tories will probably be trashed in the election. This will probably be a defeat on the scale of the disastrous 1997 election.
There are 650 seats in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament. 326 is the magic number – the number needed for a majority. The Conservatives hold 360 currently. Projections suggest that the Tories will be reduced to 150 seats – even worse than their 1997 tally of a measly 166 MPs. However, methinks these grim forecasts (from a Tory point of view) are perhaps too pessimistic. The Conservative Party will certainly lose but not by quite as much as the polls suggest.
What about the minor parties? The Liberal Democrats did poorly at the last UK General Election in 2019. Notoriously their leader Jo Swinson lost her seat. She is the first party leader to be unseated since 1945.
The Lib Dems won only 11 seats in the last election. They have won 3 more in by-elections. The Liberal Democrats will almost certainly gain a few seats and get up to about 20 seats.
The Scottish National Party (SNP) has ruled the roost in Scotland since 2007 in the Scottish Parliament. Scotland is of course represented in the UK Parliament too. The SNP has been the main party in Scotland in terms of UK Parliamentary seats since 2015. They now have 48 out of 59 MPs for Scotland. The SNP will fall considerably down to about 35 MPs. Most of these losses will be gains for Labour which from the 1950s to the 2010s used to be the main party in Scotland.
When the Tories inevitably lose, then Sunak will drive to Buckingham Palace and offer his resignation to the king. The monarch will accept but ask one last piece of advice. Who should he appoint as PM? Sunak will recommend Starmer. The Palace will phone Labour HQ and ask Sir Keir if would find it convenient to attend the king? Starmer will then be invited to form a government as he commands the confidence of the House of Commons. Starmer shall accept. The physical action to seal the deal is that Starmer will kiss the king’s hand.
Labour will strive to get hospital waiting lists down, and increase the number of doctors, nurses and other public sector workers. Public sector workers are demanding pay rises. Labour believes this is unaffordable and does not want to fuel inflation by raising salaries. But if they do not increase salaries there will be staff shortages and strikes.
Labour relies on the Pakistani communities’ votes. But Pakistanis are only 2% of the UK populace. Labour will also be friendly to India. An apology for Jallianwala Bagh and maybe even colonialism might be forthcoming. Reparatory payments for slavery and perhaps all of imperialism might be possible under Labour.
A Labour Government will seek to strengthen ties with the EU and maybe rejoin the single market. The ulterior long-term plan is probably to reverse Brexit.
The author is a political analyst from the UK