UK parliamentary elections are getting closer and closer and national polls are already showing which party will replace the Torries in the government. Labourists, led by former Director of Public Persecutions, Keir Starmer, are leading with 40% of the votes, while the Conservatives, who has been leading with almost the same number of votes in 2020 are now falling in popularity receiving only 20% of the support from the constituents. Consequently, the question comes up: what is the main reason for such a large gap in votes between the two parties?
With almost 14 years in the government, the Conservatives are losing the support of British population, starting from the year 2020, when the UK has left the European Union. Brexit was one of the biggest mistakes that has been made by the Conservative Party in the 21 century. The country that is highly dependent on imports from its European neighbors (Germany, France, Netherlands) agreed to terminate its membership in the European Economic Area, from which the vast majority of EU member-states are receiving great benefits. Consequently, skyrocketing inflation, decreasing migration of qualified workers and rising energy crisis were and are still remaining the main issues of the Torries government. While growing energy crisis can be partially explained by the suspension of Russian gas and oil supplies, immense inflation is caused mainly by the lack of cheap European imports as well as by the shortage of high-skilled workers that have been coming mostly from the European Union in the past. Lack of innovations and major reforms from the Torries only increases the discontent of the population with the government. “People are angry,” said Carole Jones, a local councilor in Dorset, in southern England. “They are distrustful of all politicians.” Both young and old generations are struggling with rising year-by-year costs of living. Established nationwide 2,600 food banks by the government cannot greatly improve the situation while the social tensions are rising with the speed of the food prices. The party’s succession of scandals, unfulfilled promises and perceptions of corruption makes it unpopular, unwanted and falling on the national political arena. The Conservatives have been embroiled in a number of scandals starting from “Partygate” (the Downing Street lockdown parties that enraged a country stuck at home during the COVID outbreak) to claims of sexual harassment and assault to one MP who acknowledged twice seeing pornography in the House of Commons chamber. Consequently, people are seeking a change…
Keir Starmer- the new leader of British national political arena
As the unsatisfaction by the Torries government in growing year-by-year, the opponents of the Conservatives are gaining more and more popularity among British citizens. The new leader of UK´s political arena is the leader of the Labourists party- Keir Starmer.
Previously serving as a human rights adviser, a Director of Public Prosecutions and a Knight Commander of the Order of Bath, Starmer has been elected to the House of Commons in the year 2015. Keir Starmer has been advocating against Brexit simultaneously supporting the “Britain Stronger in Europe” social group campaigning in favor of the United Kingdom’s continued membership in the European Union. Right afterwards the 2016 referendum on UK’s European Union membership, Starmer has been proposing a second referendum on Brexit in order to rerun the vote of the first referendum.
As a leader of the Labou Party, Keir Starmer has made an effort to eliminate the antisemitism within the party by implementing several reforms in this case. He helped to improve Labour’s credibility with the electorate after several scandals around previous representatives of the party. Consequently, the popularity of the politician has grown significantly and due to the YouGo polls, Keir Starmer is considered to become the next Prime Minister by 40% of the respondents.
Labourists’ and Conservative’s pre-electoral proposals
While Labourists have promised not to increase the taxes on income and natinal insurance, they have also pledged to raise the windfall tax on oil and gas giants by ÂŁ1.2 billion per year. The party declared to increase the control of overseas property investors and non-doms as well as to tackle tax avoidance. Simultaneously, Labourists have promised to cut spendings and keep taxes, inflation and mortgages as low as possible. The party has pledges to launch the new border security command with hundreds of new specialists and anti-terror powers as well as to set up Great British Energy, a publicly owned clean power company, to cut bills for good and boost energy security, paid for by a windfall tax on oil and gas giants. The party stated to cut NHS waiting list for patients not to wait more than 18 weeks from referral for non-urgent health conditions. Additionally, the main opponents of Conservatives declared to stop the violent crime by recruiting more police officers and strengthening rules against terrorism and extremism. The special Border Security Command will be created with hundreds of new investigators, intelligence officers and cross-border officers in order to tackle the illegal migration to the UK and to strengthen the boarder control system. More additional return agreements with the safe countries will be signed to swiftly send back the asylum seekers. The prices of food will be reduced by removing barriers to business trading according to the Labourists. And last but not least, the Labour Party has promised to build more affordable housing alongside easing the access to the childcare system for all British citizens.
Meanwhile, Conservatives are proposing a variety of tax cuts, including the elimination of the stamp duty for first-time homebuyers on properties up to ÂŁ425,000 and cutting NI by an additional 2% for four million self-employed individuals. They have pledged to annually increase the salary standards for skilled workers in accordance with inflation to prevent them from “undercutting UK workers” and to make a second pay off on the National Insurance. In case of migration, the Conservatives are planning to continue the Rwanda scheme by gradually removing illegal migrants from Britain. The party is also considering the possibility for Britain to leave the European Court of Human Rights by promising to prioritize border security in the UK over the European court. The Conservatives have also mentioned to deliver 92,000 more nurses and 28,000 more doctors in order to improve the state of the healthcare system and to reduce the NHS waiting least. The governing party pledged to advance the British Standard of learning and to provide more than 100,000 high-quality internships for the young population in order to ease the access to the labor market. It has promised to boost the defense spending by 2,5% of GDP by 2030 to secure the British borders as well as to provide 8000 more full time police officers to tackle the crime. In conclusion, in its manifesto the Conservatives underlined the promise to build 1,6 mln more homes and to provide the access to 30 hours of free childcare from September 2025.
Summarizing, the July 4, 2024 elections are going to be a major change for the whole country as the difference between the votes of the Labourists and the Conservatives is excessively large and there is no doubt that the party change is coming. However, the question remains: will Keir Starmer be the next Prime Minister? Will see that after the election results…
