Politics

Everything You Need To Know About The UK’s Shock Election

Could this mean big things for the Australian Labor Party?

by Chris Woods  9 June 2017
Uk election

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Throwing expectations of a Conservative landslide to the goddamn ocean, exit polls from the UK election are currently pointing to a hung parliament. While actual results are still, ever-so-slowly pouring in, this news is outwardly terrible for PM Theresa May and bloody terrific for Jeremy Corbyn and his band of latte-sniffing, free speech-hating leftie pinko socialists out there (i.e. me).

Conducted after voters hit polling booths across the UK overnight, the exit poll projects the following seat distribution: Conservative 314, Labour 266, SNP 34, Lib Dem 14, Plaid 3, Green 1, UKIP 0 and Other 18.

And while roughly half of those should sound like nonsense words to most Australians (no really, ‘Plaid’ is a party! It is Welsh), this basically means that, with no single party projected to get the 326 seats required for a majority, the UK is headed to a period of uncertainty and, depending on who you ask, absolute chaos and/or peace for all humankind.

What Do These Numbers Mean?

Despite this morning’s excitement, exit polls only ever provide an indication to the actual election result; we currently have just around 450 of the 650 seats declared. The full picture is not yet clear.

It should be stressed that, at this point, it is still possible for May’s Conservative Party to pull off an outright majority. This has recent precedent too; in the 2015 election, pollsters erroneously predicted the Tories would fall ten seats short, and they ended up with 12 more than required).

And even if Conservatives cannot form government in their own right, they’re expected to be the largest party and could form a minority government with the help of Northern Ireland unionists to get bills through in the same way as Julia Gillard’s Labor/Greens/Independent 2010 government.

Equally, it’s possible for a Labour/Scottish National/Liberal Democrats coalition to form government, with help from Plaid (lol), the Green MP and the SDLP.

Long story short, it’s going to be a while before we know how this plays out exactly.

Although, as a nice aside either way, the extremely conservative and controversial UKIP seems to have collapsed entirely. For a recent example of their general vibe, here is one of them mouthing “terrorist sympathiser” behind Corbyn earlier today:

But whatever the actual result, the fact that May has somehow not crushed an election that she a) called early to establish a Brexit mandate, b) had demonstrable help with from roughly 90 percent of the media and c) was expected to easily win, with forecasts showing they’d beat Labour by 100 seats is terrible new for the PM and might just cost her the leadership.

Who Are All These Strange People, And What Do They Want?!

Despite early signs she might run a somewhat-moderate conservative party, Theresa May has gone hard right in the past few months, signalling cuts to welfare, immigration, and corporation tax rates, which would make the UK’s the lowest anywhere in the OECD. Most worryingly of all she’s also proposed ripping up human rights laws in response to recent terror attacks.

May’s reason for calling the early election also centred around establishing a mandate for going into Brexit negotiations, which now seems all but impossible.

Counter to all of this, Jeremy Corbyn has rallied a massive grassroots campaign on the back of a “for the many, not the few” socialist-style ideology.

Promising free higher education tuition, free lunches for school-kids, and re-nationalisation of British infrastructure on the back of radical tax reform, Corbyn has created an atmosphere of optimism for young voters while pissing off basically every Tory, tabloid journalist, and establishment Labour member.

Could This Mean Anything For Australian Labor?

In short, and fuck Billy Shorten I reeeeally hope you’re reading this, the UK election demonstrates that the Left can get shit done with radical, seemingly unpopular ideas.

Whether he wins or not, Corbyn has somehow energised a nation full of disillusioned young people at a time when people like Donald Trump and Pauline Hanson wield political power. Not by kowtowing to the Right on immigration and sustainable energy, not by buying into racist, lowest common denominator ads, but by speaking up to higher ideals of social equity while also presenting practical solutions.

So we won’t know what the actual results mean for Australia until they’re, y’know, in; but the campaign itself could mean the beginning of that Big Lefty Revival many have been hoping for.

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Stay tuned for more election results here.

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Chris Woods is a Melbourne-based freelance journalist.