United Kingdom: Behind Labour's expected victory, the shadow of the far right looms (2024)

The British and French will cast their ballots at almost the same time: July 4 for the United Kingdom, and June 30 and July 7 for France, in early general elections on both sides of the Channel. The similarities end there. In an astonishing reversal of fortunes between France and the UK, while politics in France took a chaotic and dizzying turn with Emmanuel Macron's surprise decision to dissolve the Assemblée Nationale, the UK seems to be moving away from the shores of populism and into calmer waters, resolutely committed to the rule of law.

If the polls are to be believed – they've often been wrong in previous elections, but have all been pointing in the same direction for months – Labour is on the doorstep of power. Voters look set to heavily punish the Conservatives, fed up with their broken Brexit promises, the scandals of the Boris Johnson era, Liz Truss's irresponsible budget experiment (£40 billion, or €47 billion, in unfunded tax cuts) and Rishi Sunak's uninspired tenure.

With two weeks to go to the polls, the national media are focusing less on Sunak's eviction from Downing Street, considered guaranteed, than on the scale of the victory for the left. Will Labour do as well as Tony Blair's New Labour at the 1997 election, or even better, potentially taking up to two-thirds of the seats in the House of Commons?

Tory overtones

With a one-word slogan – "Change" – and one priority – a return to political and economic stability – Labour leader Keir Starmer has promised to get rid of the most shocking elements of the Conservative government's legacy. The policy of deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda would be abandoned.

However, the British Labour Party has nothing in common with the Nouveau Front Populaire (left-wing), formed in France to block the Rassemblement National (far-right). Labour is not as left-leaning: Starmer insists on patriotism and security, intends to beef up customs manpower and "properly control levels" of net migration.

On the economic front, Labour's manifesto even has strong conservative overtones, promising not to raise VAT or income tax, insisting on necessary fiscal discipline and limiting its promises of investment in public services to those that can be financed without increasing public debt. Since taking the reins of Labour in early 2020, Starmer has deliberately marginalized his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters on the party's left wing. He claims to have transformed it into a "pro-business" party. Rachel Reeves, his likely future chancellor of the Exchequer, even evoked the memory of former Conservative prime minister Margaret Thatcher, who was until then the ultimate enemy of the left.

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