chapotraphouse

It was a better outcome that was expected. Labour's vote share is weak. Keir's vote share in his own constituency halved. He's become the least popular opposition leader to ever win by any metric. The lowest turnout in, like, a hundred years despite this nominally being a regime change election shows a lack of belief and enthusiasm for the current system. Greens did historically well. Independents from the left did historically well. Not just the ones that won, but the ones that came strong second. Many of Labour's seats were won on a knife edge. It was not a resounding victory of the kind Blair won, which imo was the worst case scenario. Yes, FPTP means none of that technically matters. But also, it does, because many of Labour's MPs know they're on thin ice if they want to win again.

The predicted outcome was a license for absolute red tory arrogance. Wes Streeting was gleefully rubbing his hands at the prospect of selling off the NHS, but maybe winning by only 500 votes will make him think more carefully about that. Or maybe it won't. Maybe he doesn't care about being re-elected because he'll have a gravy train waiting at the station when he leaves.

But I still think there's something worth celebrating, because despite the compliant media, despite the total Conservative collapse, Labour barely got a better share than they did in 2019 and a significantly worse share than they did in 2017. There is an appetite for left politics, it is a spectre that is haunting the UK. It's not going to be sated by elections and establishment politics, I'm not under any illusion about that. But the poor turnout indicates that nobody else is either, which is significant. The desire is there, the disillusionment with the current system is there, the results show it.

The danger was always that Farage would be the main beneficiary of this failing system, but this election indicates to me that there is absolutely an opening for the left to win people over.