Labour are going to win the General Election. A lead that has not dipped to much less than 19 percentage points and a favourable electoral system means that Labour will achieve a majority in the House of Commons and it will be triple digits. Barring a monumental disaster the race is over. Because of the way we have done politics historically and the quirks of the first-past-the-post electoral system the Labour Party are the only choice for an executive now. The question is who will come second? That is far more interesting.
The Tories are doing everything they can to lose this election. 2 candidates and a close bodyguard to Rishi Sunak are under investigation by the betting commission for betting on the date of the election 3 days before it was unveiled - these are close aides of Sunak. The Tories wheeled out David Cameron to front up the campaign only to withdraw him soon after for his unpopularity. Boris Johnson was coaxed into making little videos to endorse 50 candidates and then decided to carry on with his holiday, returning the day before the country goes to the polls. The Tories have been incredibly quiet otherwise.
Now let’s look at the polls. The Tories have only ever been going down since the start of the General Election. Averaging at around 24%, they are now averaging at around 18/19%. The projected seats they would win has gone down from initially dire estimates of 140 to 100, then 77, then 60. Only 4 cabinet ministers look set to keep their seats including Kemi Badenoch. Potential Tory leaders after the next election including Jeremy Hunt, Penny Mourdant and Esther McVey look set to lose their seats. A couple fo days ago it was found that Rishi Sunak himself might lose his seat in a shock poll recently. The Tories look set to be in second place in terms of seats by only 10 or even 5 with the Liberal Democrats coming up behind them. They are polling third in the North, middle and east of England and in Wales. If the Tories win something like 80 seats it will be an electoral wipeout for one of the two parties heavily favoured by the electoral system.
Contrast this with Reform. Having started the election at around 12/13% they have risen to 18/19%, but this is nowhere near the whole story. Reform UK are second in the North, Middle and East of England, they are second in Wales and their seat projection has gone from 0 to 8. Amongst men they are polling first, amongst 2019 conservative voters they are first, amongst Brexit voters they are first and if you take out Scotland and London Reform are really something like 25% in the polls. Nigel Farage is polled at the moment to see a historic swing in Clacton from the Tories to a new party in history with a projected 42% of the vote. Lee Anderson is projected to win by a huge margin in Ashford and Ben Habib is projected to win by a margin of 5% in Wellingborough. In Boston and Skegness Richard Tice is also leading by around 5%.
Nigel Farage was recently voted the sexiest politician in the UK, but more importantly, he has consistently won all TV debates according to YouGov by a margin of at least 5%. The most followed UK politician on social media, Nigel has managed to tap into political momentum that is completely absent from all of the other parties. His personal profile has lifted Reform to heights that have not been seen by UKIP or any insurgent party on the right of British politics ever before. He has not only shifted the Overton Window (area of politically acceptable things to talk about) from its previously supremely narrow starting point, he has been the symbol of a changing attitude in the UK. In 2015 he campaigned as leader of UKIP and could barely escape the slings and arrows of abuse, especially when it came to his stance on health tourism. In debates he was laughed at, talked over and abused regularly. Whilst he still suffers abuse he is no longer laughed at, he’s no longer talked over. It’s quite an extraordinary transformation as opposing politicians realise that he’s rather more protected by a groundswell of actual public support that numbers in the millions.
Who comes second is not really interesting to some people, especially the more skin-deep political commentators who obsess with the winner. When you already know the winner your job is pretty much done. But to the more astute observer the second place game is far more important than meets the eye. If the Reform Party come second in hundreds of Labour-held areas as they are projected to be then they will be the effective opposition to Labour in most areas of the country. If Reform do the previously unthinkable and get more votes than the Tories then Nigel can sit in Parliament and claim democratic legitimacy to be the voice of opposition to Labour for the whole of the next parliament.
The obsession with seats in parliament for parties who aren’t in power makes no sense. If you are not in government it really doesn’t matter how many seats you have in terms of power and influence. The way the House of Commons works is that you need a parliamentary majority and that’s it. Whether you get 5 or 50 seats it really doesn’t matter other than you have more voices within the chamber itself. Labour will do whatever it wants so long as it has a majority. The Tories though will have the most to lose reputationally if they are reduced to something like 80 seats. It will be the political equivalent of a wipeout. The Lib Dems will rise to something close to 40 or even 50 seats themselves and will be the net beneficiaries of the electoral system by dint of tactical voting in the south, the shires and the south-west. But they will have little to do as once again they have neither the numbers nor the poltiical will to do anything that Labour won’t already do. With a projected vote share of something like 11% they will be an electoral irrelevance aside from a lot fo MPs and a hell of a lord of Peers in the Lords. The Tories are most likely going to be ‘Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition’ and the leader of the party…whoever it will be… will get to stand up and ask 6 questions every Wednesday. There are also opposition days in Parliament. But it all counts for nothing if you don’t have a majority in the Commons. Labour’s majority will be so big that despite by-elections, defections and retirements Labour’s majority will be in triple figures for the duration of the parliament.
The Tory argument that this means voting for the Tories makes more sense to make sure the Labour majority is less and therefore more precarious would make sense in a closer-run election. This election isn’t close run. Deluded Tories holding on to the argument of the electoral system looks more sad and desperate than an actual argument.
Who comes second in terms of votes, therefore, is the next thing to look at. Forget seats, it’s all about votes. We are still a democracy after all. If Reform comes second in the country, winning a handful of seats in Parliament to cause an almighty fuss with clear daylight between them and the Tories in terms of votes, then the entirety of the right of British politics is set for realignment. There will be Tory parliamentary defections as Reform have the voting public behind them to legitimise their place in Westminster. The Tories will have no political capital; Reform will.
A recent poll by ‘People Polling’ yesterday found Reform on 24%, 7 points ahead of the Tories. Whilst this is an outlier it should be noted that this is because other polling companies redistribute ‘don’t know’ voters to the vote share of parties in the 2019 General Election, artistically inflating the Tories and depressing the Reform party. Even with this out of the way though, in local areas up and down the country Reform can claim a vote for Tories is a vote for Labour. This is a difficult sell as this would require a bit cultural shift in a way that has not been seen for over a hundred years.
But here’s the thing:
The second-place race is not for this parliament, it’s for the next one. If Reform come a convincing second in this election then 5 years will pass where the entire political culture and norms will change in a way that will be truly historic. In 5 years time, thanks to this election, can Reform run on a ticket of being the next government? This election has been dominated by short-term political analysis. When it comes to second place and the real and possible chance of a genuine change the long term effects could be something truly incredible. In 5 years time will we look back on the 2024 election and point to the party that came in second and say “that’s where it all started”?
That silver medal never looked so sparkly.
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