A Layman's analysis: UK Elections

A Layman's analysis: UK Elections

Amidst a lot of news, I'd like to share a layman's view of the election of the decade in the UK.

Yet another election battled out on fake news and on social media this year, a result that surprised a few but crushed the hopes of many was announced on Friday. The conservatives won the right to rule by 80 seats, in what was touted, rightly so, as the Brexit election. Many of the Labour heartlands in the midlands and the north voted blue for the first time, which has scratched many a heads. Herewith, I go about with my personal analysis of this election.



































Screenshot from BBC

1. One party a majority but a divided mandate?

The conservative party won a functioning majority to form a government on its own but most of its seats have come from England and Wales. The victory was won on the campaign promise of "Get Brexit Done". But up north, in Scotland and Northern Ireland, Nationalists have taken the majority of the seats, which were run on a backdrop of cancelling or stopping Brexit. The SNP, even though spoke about a second independence referendum, campaigned basically on stopping and cancelling Brexit altogether. This result shows us that Brexit is still a polarising factor. While people who voted remain and soft brexiteers of England and Wales want to get on with things and find a closure to the Brexit mess, people of Scotland and Ireland just want to stay in the EU and not have a Brexit.

2. Different leadership styles

One is a gaffe machine, who had the tendency to misrepresent facts, exaggerate numbers, go on a rant while answering questions and avoiding questions completely, while the other had crunched the numbers, tried to get the facts right with minor gaffes here and there, having a grasp of domestic issues and a campaign concentrated on the "real" issues, and calling out the misleading statements of his opponent. Which one would you have voted for?

One had a goal and a method to achieve the said goal, and had decided to achieve his goal, while the other was indecisive, not a clear plan to achieve his goal on the subject matter, and hesitant in clearing any clouded opinions. Which one would you vote for?
People in the end have spoken that a man with a plan is more trustworthy than the incorrect statements he may have spoken. The exuberant man, who could sell his plan to the people won. The nervous fellow, even though had good intentions, lost.

3. A simple line to chant

Source: The Telegraph

"Get Brexit done" and "Stopping Brexit" vibrated more with the voters than "Save our NHS". Part of the reason being that all the parties had promised their visions of NHS, which consisted of various levels of investments, the one topic all the parties differed was on their views of Brexit. From no-deal to no-Brexit to slightly hard Brexit to soft Brexit, parties belonged to every section of the spectrum. Brexit situation connected with the voters as they identified it to be the main reason for most of the reforms and public services not being implemented and maintained in the last three and a half years. Labour's decision not to campaign on their Brexit stance, which they were divided on for a long time as well, lead to them not being registered in the minds of voters as a credible party forward to solve this issue. These two slogans connected well with the voters as these meant that the fiasco of Brexit will be finished once and for all. Once again, this election has showed how important PR slogans are in this day and age. "Yes we can", "Make America Great Again", "Ab ki bar Modi sarkar" all are catchy and resonated in people's minds.

4. Divided opposition

All parties apart from Tories, UUP, DUP and the Brexit party were in open opposition. But I would like to concentrate solely on Labour, as their indecisiveness gave Mr. Johnson his majority. The stance of the Labour party was unknown for a long time. Do they favour a second referendum? Do they favour Brexit? Or do they wish to cancel Brexit completely? Even now, they have no proper answer. Many of the seats in the Labour heartlands had voted to leave. So if they decided to be the face of the Remain campaign, they would lose those Brexiteer seats. If they chose to tread the Brexit path and chose to negotiate a new Brexit deal or back a second referendum, they would likely lose their large Remain supporters. In the end, they decided to pool in both the options and rammed into a wall high speed, seeing their red wall converted into blue ones as the Brexit-backing Midlands and North England abandoned them. They lost their seats in North Ireland because of them backing another negotiation period and not outrightly cancelling Brexit. As far as Scotland is concerned, their unwillingness to neither entertain not deny a second independence referendum ensured that the neither the Unionists nor the Nationalists would vote for them, crushing Labour to one of their worst defeats since the 1930s.

5. Choosing the known devil

A known devil is better than unknown angel. The Remainer voters were split between Labour, Lib-Dems and Greens. Many senior Remainers decided to go with the known devil of Labour, while the Millennial-rich urban votes went for the Lib-Dems and the Greens (who were in an electoral pact with the Welsh Plaid Cymru). But when it came to Brexiteers, as mentioned earlier, an evil with a plan suited them better as they did not want another six months of this saga.


What I found interesting is that, barring the promises surrounding the Brexit issue, most of these trends have been common in recent elections. From 2016 USA Presidential elections, to 2019 Lok Sabha elections in India. Ensuring certain political climate before elections, where the opposition is divided, the incumbent has a clear agenda laid out, a charismatic flair in the speeches, and a catchy line provided to the crowd, vote share can be manipulated to enter office, no matter what the character of the leader is.