2025 UK General Election

The 2025 United Kingdom General Election was held on Friday, 24 January 2025. It resulted in the Labour Party UK winning a historic  landslide majority of 214 seats. It is the largest majority in UK history since Universal Suffrage was introduced, beating the second-largest (The election of  Tony Blair in 2001) by 35 seats. Labour made a net gain of 230 seats, the second-largest gain in UK history, only 9 seats behind Clement Attlee's 239 seat increase in 1945. Labour had 47.3% of the popular vote- a swing increase of 15.2%. It is the largest popular vote in modern (post-Margaret Thatcher) history, and within the top 10 largest popular votes since Universal Suffrage was passed.

Having lost the seats needed to constitute a working opposition in the 2017 election, Jeremy Corbyn was ousted as Party Leader and was replaced by  Keir Starmer. He led Labour into a period of  deradicalisation and wider-appealing policies, including a less critical stance on the government during the  COVID-19 Pandemic Lockdowns of 2020-2022. In 2024, Jeremy Corbyn returned as Leader of the Labour Party and embarked on another campaign for the premiership. This, combined with rising discontent against the Cost of Living Crisis, high but steady inflation and various corruption scandals led to a landslide victory for the Labour Party. The mandate they held allowed them to embark on the most radical of their policies, including police reform, election reform, immigration relaxation, social support and state-supported economic growth. The Conservative Party won 134 seats, their lowest amount in history.

Such a large majority also facilitated the formation of the UK-EU Agreement, which was a compromise between the Brexiteers (colloquialised) and the European Union, that allowed the UK to rejoin the EU Customs Union without adhering to many EU laws- especially considering many UK laws were realigned to match EU laws regardless. This sparked outrage amongst the Brexiteer population, and eventually led to the Jan 6th Riots of 2025 (Tweets from prominent members of the riot said they chose the date in order to align with the storming of the Capitol on Jan 6th by Trump supporters), where Brexit supporters stormed the Houses of Parliament and attempted to disrupt a session of the Commons where the question of formally rejoining the official EU was being debated. All rioters were charged with contempt of Parliament and fined along with official warnings from the Metropolitan (MET) Police. The supermajority also enabled the government to nationalise the railways and the electricity services- a much-demanded policy since the price of electricity skyrocketed in late 2022.

The Liberal Democrats, facing disappointing gains in Parliament after a seemingly winnable election swiftly motioned to remove Ed Davey as the Leader of the Party. The Conservative Party faced a different struggle- huge divides between factions in the party eventually led to the splintering of the Conservative backbenchers, along with many Scottish National Party (SNP) MPs, into a separate party named the National Conservative Party. This Party division caused political turmoil in the right-wing British voter base, as they got stuck between voting for the more radicalised Conservatives and the more moderate National Conservatives.

Background
Since the collapse of the 'Red Wall' (colloquialised) after the 2016 Brexit Referendum, the Labour Party faced various challenges to their election prospects, including but not limited to; collapsing membership, eroding trust within the voter base, radicalisation under Jeremy Corbyn, rapid deradicalisation under Sir Keir Starmer, anti-Semitism scandals, internal sabotage (contested - the Forde Report, commissioned by Sir Starmer's Labour, said that internal opposition to the Corbyn Administration impeded on the campaign) and the effect of the Brexit Referendum on voting patterns. In 2017, an anti-Semitism scandal erupted, with the Labour Party being accused of 'institutional anti-Semitism' and some of the main senior administrators, including Jeremy Corbyn, faced major anti-Semitism allegations. This, combined with Labour's opposition to Brexit, led to a decrease in votes and popularity within the voter base. In 2019, Labour continued to lose votes and lost a further 60 seats. This, combined with further anti-Semitism allegations and vocal opposition to Corbyn, led to his resignation as Labour Party leader.

Keir Starmer then became Labour Party leader in 2020, leading Labour into a period of deradicalisation and vocal opposition. Since the Conservative Party had a full majority over Parliament, Labour could not do very much to oppose Conservative laws passed during the stable period of government. However, on 7 July 2022, the Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson resigned, citing the disloyalty of his party as the reason for his resignation. Labour announced their support of his resignation but expressed outrage at the lack of a General Election in the wake of his departure. Throughout the COVID-19 Pandemic and the 2022 UK Cost of Living Crisis, Labour's support amongst the UK population steadily increased as trust was lost in the Conservative Party and periods of instability came to the country. Periods of rapid inflation also affected the country, partly because of COVID supply chain issues but also spurred on by the American Rescue Plan, a 1.9 trillion dollar aid package passed by President Biden in 2021. Replacing Boris Johnson was Liz Truss, the new, party member-elected Prime Minister. She proclaimed her focus on 'growth' in the economy. This announcement led to unrest and distrust in the markets with investors which caused a temporary collapse in the UK economy, mainly around investment banking and share prices. It rapidly became clear that the plan had failed, and the Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng was fired by Liz Truss, who soon after resigned as Prime Minister. Her resignation quickly led to apathy within the Conservative base, many of whom voiced their disapproval of the party. The next Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, was elected once again by members of the Conservative Party.

Throughout Sunak's Prime Ministership, the Cost of Living Crisis continued to worsen and inflation stagnated around 10% for the majority of his term. In 2024, major pressure from left-wing pressure groups in the UK led to the backtracking of Keir Starmer on the most centrist of his policies. This, combined with internal discontent and rising polarisation in society, led to the forced resignation of Keir Starmer in February. Jeremy Corbyn returned as the leader of the Labour Party, to vocal opposition by the centre and right wing in the UK. Labour's share of predicted votes started to rapidly decrease once Corbyn returned, and his manifesto from 2017 was quickly modified away from the leftist focus it held. Moving Labour back to the left, but still more moderate than it had been, Corbyn introduced party structure reforms that were widely lauded by the UK population and led to rapidly rising membership levels. By May 2024, Labour crossed the 500,000 member count and regained favour in the eyes of polling websites and election predictions.

Date of the Election
In 2024, the election was announced to be held on 16th December. Since the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act of 2011 was repealed by the Dissolution and Calling of Parliaments Act of 2022, the election was able to be set at the very latest on 4th January 2025. The opposition welcomed the unexpected date, since it was widely believed that the date would be delayed until 2025 in order to maximise campaign length. However, in late November 2024, the election was official set to be held on 4th January 2025- the latest date legally possible for the election to take place.