This is the third of PPI’s weekly bulletin charting the course of the UK General Election, from PPI’s Claire Ainsley.
Claire is based in the UK, directing PPI’s project on center-left renewal, and is former director of policy to Labour leader Keir Starmer. She is supporting the Labour campaign, as a media commentator, as well as on the ground ahead of polling day on Thursday 4th July.
With less than two weeks to go before voters go to the polls in the UK, a change of governing party for the first time in 14 years is looking more and more likely.
It is important to note that any kind of parliamentary majority for the Labour Party would be a huge achievement. When Keir Starmer was elected leader of the Labour Party in April 2020, Labour were 26 points behind the Conservatives who had just won their fourth successive election and an 80-seat majority in parliament. Labour was a long way behind, and Starmer’s turnaround to the point where Labour looks electable again is nothing short of remarkable.
With a change of government looking closer in the UK, international attention on the election has increased. I’m writing this bulletin from Berlin with PPI, where European centre-left parties, and Democrats, are hopeful that a change of government in the UK will bring fresh energy to the global center-left and vital cooperation on international possibilities and challenges.
If UK voters do put their faith in Labour at the coming election, the party would do well to seek counsel from the center-left parties who have found that winning the war of an election campaign does not mean winning the peace in government. The SPD in Germany became the leading party in the governing coalition at the last federal election in 2021, but have seen popular support ebb away as their programme hit fiscal constraint and cost of living reality in post-Covid crisis times. And of course in the US, the strong performance of the US economy is eyed with envy this side of the Atlantic, but as Democrats well know, it is not as yet translating into support for Biden ahead of his re-election campaign.
PPI will be hosting a webinar this coming Tuesday on the electoral politics behind the UK vote, and what a change of government in the UK could mean for the US. We will be joined by leading commentators Professor Rob Ford of the University of Manchester, one of the UK’s foremost political scientists, and Kiran Stacey, Political Correspondent at the Guardian and former Washington correspondent for the Financial Times. This is a unique opportunity to hear the insiders’ view on this potentially game-changing election, and you can sign up here.
