2024 UK General election (IndyScotland2025)

The 2024 United Kingdom General election, which elected 650 MPs to the UK Parliament, was held on 11th December 2024. Labour's landslide win was fuelled by anger towards the Conservative Party after the coronavirus pandemic and various controversial bills. Keir Starmer became Prime Minister following this election, which many - even in Labour - were not suspecting. Various tactics were played in this election, including a 'Progressive Alliance' and the SNP standing candidates down. Many regard this as the most dramatic election in recent history.

Background
The COVID-19 Pandemic prompted the then Conservative government to impose many restrictions on the lives and businesses of everyone in the UK. This was met with general compliance, but after the government voted to continue to keep the authoritarian powers the Coronavirus Act 2020 gave them, the population began to become frustrated. As well as this, the Conservatives signed a trade deal with the European Union which many see as harmful to British business, and has caused violence to increase in Northern Ireland. Also, legislation such as the Police, Crime Courts and Sentencing Act 2021 brought much anger as activists pointed out that it infringes on human rights by curbing peoples' right to peaceful protest.

This made for an excellent environment for Labour to regrow. They positioned themselves as anti-authoritarian and a good alternative to the Conservatives. As well as this, Labour's recent focus on local issues boosted their support, which would have helped them attain such a landslide.

Progressive Alliance
The 'Progressive Alliance' was an agreement reached by Labour, Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru and the Greens to stand a single candidate between them in every constituency based on their respective levels of support. This was hailed as a massive achievement and a positive step in healing divides that occurred due to Brexit.

The Progressive Alliance was a big success, and the Liberal Democrats gained the most from it. Going from 12 to 37 seats was the party's biggest increase in over a decade. Labour also capitalised on this alliance, gaining back most of its hartlands in the North of England. Plaid Cymru and the Greens didn't gain anything from the Progressive Alliance, although their leaders have said that they would re-enter the agreement at the next election.

Overall, the Progressive Alliance significantly helped end the Conservative Party's reign, and aided the Labour Party back into government and shocked the Lib Dems back to life.

Scotland
In Scotland, the dominant Scottish National Party stood down all of their candidates, along with the other independence-supporting parties (Scottish Greens and Alba) in a last-ditch effort for Scottish independence after the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, pledging to sanction a Section 30 order for a second independence referendum.

This was a big step for the independence movement as this was the first time a major political party in the UK supported Scottish independence. The 2025 Scottish independence referendum returned a 'Leave' result, which meant that by 2026 Scotland was an independent country.

Without the SNP, many older voters went back to the parties they supported before they voted SNP, while many younger voters turned to Labour in the Central Belt and Liberal Democrats in the Highlands and North East. Due to this, Labour picked up almost all of their former strongholds, including Glasgow and Lothian. The Liberal Democrats saw a resurgence in Scotland, regaining the seats they lost in 2015.This would significantly impact the politics of Scotland for decades to come.

The 'Blue Wall'
The so-called 'Blue Wall' in the South West of England became a widely-discussed topic after the 2021 English local elections and the 2021 Chesham and Amersham by-election, where the Liberal Democrats took many Conservative seats and councils, and defeated the Conservatives in a Parliamentary seat they had held since its creation. The theory that was created after these events was the Liberal Democrats were the only real challengers to the Conservatives in this region, and were the only ones that could break down this wall.

The 'Blue Wall' theory was proven to be correct by this election as the Liberal Democrats took many of the seats formerly held by the Conservatives, but narrowly missing their biggest target of Esher and Walton, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab's seat.

Many political scientists are now speculating that the Liberal Democrat vote share in the Blue Wall will only continue to grow from here, adding that it could become the 'Orange Wall' in a decade's time.