The Labour Party’s thumping victory in Britain’s general election seems to have bucked the trend of declining support for social-democratic parties, particularly in the face of fervour for the populist right. The left and centre in France have only staved off a triumph of the far right by standing down candidates to form a united front. In Germany the main party in the ruling coalition, the SPD, finished third in the European Parliament elections in June, behind the far-right Alternative für Deutschland. Those elections saw an overall shift to the political right in Europe.
Labour’s success is all the more striking because of the speed of the party’s turnaround under Sir Keir Starmer. When he was elected leader in April 2020, Labour had been defeated by the Conservatives for a fourth consecutive time, with Boris Johnson’s Tories winning a comfortable majority that included dozens of seats the party hadn’t won for decades, or ever.
The election of a Labour government after 14 years of Conservative rule is a shot in the arm for the global centre-left. But it is vital to understand why and how Labour won, before taking any comfort that this marks the start of the centre-left’s comeback.
