A new, centrist UK government, one acknowledging geopolitical instability as well as the need for change domestically, and holding a large majority, looks pretty enviable to plenty of European and international players. Meanwhile, the SNP in Scotland looks on the ropes. Can it find the energy to regroup and recover or does dynamic change now lie with Labour alone?
On Friday, world leaders including Joe Biden, Emmanuel Macron and Ursula von der Leyen queued up to offer congratulations to Keir Starmer on his landslide Labour victory.
But Hungary’s Viktor Orbán was, outrageously and provocatively, in Moscow meeting Vladimir Putin. His pretence at representing the EU was swiftly rejected by the actual president of the European Council, Charles Michel, and others. But Hungary is now in the lower-level EU driving seat through its six-month presidency; there will be more provocations.
France will soon have a new, likely highly unstable National Assembly, after the second round on Sunday 7th July. This follows Macron’s rash response in calling elections after Marine Le Pen’s National Rally won 33% in the European Parliament elections and then performed strongly in the first round on 30th June. Meanwhile, Ursula von der Leyen is busy drumming up the votes she needs by mid-July if she is to be elected for a second term as Commission president. By when, the pressures for Joe Biden to step down may have become overwhelming.
Landslide or Weak Win?
In the UK, the focus, inevitably, has been domestic. As Starmer’s new cabinet meets, there’s a lively discussion around whether Labour’s rather low share of the vote matters faced with its large tally of 412 seats and an effective majority of 181 (as explained by the Institute for Government). It’s an important debate. But a stable UK government, promising serious, professional government – if it happens – will be a huge change.
Keir Starmer has promised change and action not words. He has underlined the lack of trust and hope in politics across the UK after 14 years of destructive, dishonest, and corrupt Tory rule. Starmer, above all, comes across as an intense, professional technocrat. The accolades of decency need to be weighed against the ruthlessness and U-turns he has displayed in getting to be UK prime minister. Certainly, compared to the destructively bizarre parade of Tory prime ministers in the last decade, while basic technocracy may not be enough, it’s definitely preferable.
And with its landslide majority, Labour will have no excuse for failing to deliver change – even with the pressure of events or however hamstrung by Labour’s neoliberal fiscal promises, and increasingly blunt rejection of substantially closer EU ties, or the lure of the next election.
Vote share matters
But the vote shares matter too. Labour’s 20 point lead over the Tories during most of the campaign fell to just 10 points on the day. Reform’s 14% vote share probably made a significant contribution to Labour’s landslide. And it means, in vote share though not seats, the far right came third. Low turnout at 60% is not politically welcome either.
It’s also, worth noting that while Reform only got 7% in Scotland, its vote share in Wales, at 16.9% (just 1.3 points behind the Tories on 18.1%), was even bigger than in England. Meanwhile, the LibDems revival was principally England-based earning them 72 seats overall to Reform’s 4.
In Scotland, lack of trust and hope in the SNP was on display as it crashed to just nine seats. Scotland was the one part of Britain that gave Labour a substantial increase in vote share, a 17 point increase. Ironic indeed, if most hope for Labour, in this election, was displayed in Scotland. Yet, overall, Wales ended up with the largest Labour vote share at 37% (despite that being a drop of almost 4 points over 2019). So, there are many dynamics across the UK, including in Sinn Féin coming first in Northern Ireland, to analyse as the dust starts to settle and the new government begins its work.
All the big strategic challenges.
Starmer, it seems, is not going to make the New Labour mistake in 1997 of prioritising, above all, winning a second term. He is clear, and not wrong, that there need to be effective actions and positive results rapidly and throughout the next five years.
But this is a government of a strongly Blairite hue looking to business, in the main, to create the growth to allow the rebuilding of public services and infrastructure. Whether the lessons of those Blairite choices, after 1997, around wealth, private finance initiatives, financial deregulation and more have been learnt is debatable.
There are major questions on green issues, the EU, and on geopolitical conflict and instability. Can and will Labour act deeply and fast enough on the intertwined climate and biodiversity crises (having slashed its £28 billion green investment promises months back)? Can a welcome normalising of the EU-UK relationship into a more constructive one do more than ease trade at the margins? Will Labour be in any substantial ways progressive in its foreign policy?
On climate, the political will is there but the substance has to be too. And it will need funds. Labour’s growth mantra will only make sense if it’s fully green growth. And growth will not trickle down, so Labour will have to be genuinely progressive, radical even (but does Starmer do radical), on inequality, poverty, housing, social care, the NHS and education. Can it do this, given its electoral coalition, and its tying of its own hands financially?
On the EU, Starmer, unwisely in the closing stages of the campaign, took the framing of a journalist’s question on rejoining the EU ‘in his lifetime’ to rule it out for decades, alongside rejecting free movement and rejoining the single market and the customs union. Some suggest Labour might move as far as rejoining the EU’s customs union in the next five years. But that looks highly unlikely (and this would surely only work if the UK were given some say in EU trade policy – not a negotiation the EU, with its challenges, would want to engage in any time soon, if ever).
If it was still in the EU, the UK would be pretty much the most influential member state, in a leading position at this critical time for Europe, and as French politics heads to instability while Germany’s coalition wobbles around. From the outside, the UK can and will now act to strengthen EU-UK relations. But with precious little influence on internal EU politics.
Beyond the EU, David Lammy, on his first day as foreign secretary, emphasised he wanted to see a ceasefire in Gaza and said: “I will do all I can diplomatically to support Joe Biden in bringing about that ceasefire”. But Biden has other challenges on his hand as he defends his presidential candidacy. And the US, still supplying arms (as is the UK) to Israel, has failed for nine months to halt the Israeli government’s genocide in Gaza.
Will we see a halt to UK arms sales, will that be part of Lammy’s ‘progressive realism’? Or will we see the UK tucking in behind the US, unlike braver European countries including Spain and Ireland? Tucking in behind the US will not work, of course, in the event of a Trump victory in November. So European relations are key.
Scotland and Independence: where now?
There will be much debate in the coming months over where now for independence, and what next for the SNP. Unless opinion changes substantially, independence is not going away as an issue. But, equally, unless support for independence heads over 50% and stays there, it’s not likely to create any significant political pressure for change in the near future.
The election leaves the SNP reeling as it looks at its nine MPs, its 12 point fall in vote share, and the lack of results from its nine years of hegemony in Scotland’s seats at Westminster. But Labour too faces challenges while over 60% of those under 50 years old still back independence. The 2026 Holyrood election – and the campaign is effectively ongoing from now – is not a slam dunk for Labour, even if a Lab-Lib coalition looks like a quite likely outcome.
Politically, it seems clear the independence movement needs a reset. The SNP may look like a busted flush. But with 30% of the general election vote, it’s not so calamitous that the SNP will just shut up shop. But fresh thinking is badly needed. And not just a rehash of the different positions that already exist.
Across the many different views in the SNP and the wider independence movement, there has been much commonality that, if only a second referendum or vote could be achieved, a strong campaign would take Scotland to independence. This has pushed debate in the direction of process – getting to a referendum, hanging it on a general election (that one is truly over for now) or other more radical routes. But perhaps there needs to be much more focus on substance – both the substance of what independence really looks like, including the path to independence, and the substance of the SNP’s devolved government.
Those who have called for a real drive to push sustained support towards 60% are surely right. That doesn’t mean agreeing to a referendum that sets that threshold. It means recognising the political dynamics that would ensue if such a shift in support rather than the present stalemate occurred.
Of course, the opposite may happen now. Recent polls have been around 50:50 but with the ‘no’ side more often slightly ahead. Whether Labour’s first months or years will shift the polls to the union or not is going to be keenly watched. And a crucial political question.
A broader, national and civic discussion about where now for Scotland could be valuable. But until now, unionist-independence splits and Labour-SNP stand-offs have not allowed anything valuable and fresh of this sort. It looks unlikely today too. But it shouldn’t be as a route to new thinking.
What now for the SNP?
It’s easy to say the SNP, with its new-old party leader in John Swinney, almost no funds and trailing a difficult, close to calamitous year behind it, ran a weak campaign. But the SNP also ran a curious campaign.
With Keir Starmer taking Labour into a cautious campaign with few promises, neoliberal fiscal rules, and a massive cut in its promised green funding, the SNP had a real chance to offer itself to Scottish voters as a genuine social democratic alternative to a centrist Labour with its rather minimalist, now clearly highly successful, offer of stability and change.
But the younger leadership contenders of Stephen Flynn and Kate Forbes, with Swinney’s apparently happy endorsement, pushed for frankly reactionary lines on north sea oil and gas (does anyone, honestly, need to test climate compatibility of new oil and gas fields?). So, the SNP casually chucked its green credentials out the door. This was not helped by the SNP-Green break up which should never have been allowed to make the SNP appear less green either but was – partly (mainly?) deliberately. That the SNP held both its Aberdeen seats while losing 38 others, does not exactly suggest dumping its climate credentials was worth it.
With Kate Forbes talking against Scotland’s existing higher income taxes, and no wind in the sails on independence, even if no one doubts Swinney still believes in it, it was a low key campaign, defending a patchy domestic record, that didn’t manage to position the SNP anywhere near the social democratic side of centrist Labour.
The risk now, in the campaign through to 2026, is that the SNP continues this shift to the – less green – right. That looks like a path to nowhere. But also quite a likely path. That will depend too on whether a genuine, open debate now unfolds over time. Or whether recrimination followed by battening down the hatches is preferred.
Change in UK and Scotland
In London, Starmer’s new government has taken office with wind in its sails and the advantage of new, hopeful faces around the cabinet table. Scotland is sending 37 Labour MPs to Westminster as part of that change. In Edinburgh, a tired, minority Scottish government has to govern, come up with a substantial and dynamic campaign plan for 2026, and have a major and open debate on where next for the SNP and independence.
Can the SNP somehow find renewed energy, now it’s time for a change, or is that energy all with Labour? The coming months will soon show the answer.
Excellent piece. Though I'm somewhat bound to think that, as I agree wholeheartedly with it! Much to reflect further on here...