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 220 seats, the second-largest gain in UK history, only 19 seats behind Clement Atlee'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 Sir 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.

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 stuck around 10% for the majority of his reign. 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.