T POLITICAL SEA CHANGE IN THE UNITED KINGDOM By SIMON GRAY Head of Business Development and Marketing BVI Finance
he 2019 UK General Election resulted in a political changing of the guard in the United Kingdom (UK). For the first time since 2010, one political party (Boris Johnson’s Conservatives) won not only a clear majority, but one large enough to ensure that the Prime Minister and his team do not need to be beholden to one faction or another - either in their own party or any other. The Labour Party suffered a poor result, eclipsing the 1983 Michael Foot loss and is now down to 202 seats, while the Liberal Democrats are diminished with Leader, Jo Swinson, losing her seat, and is down to 11 members. While the Liberal Democrats have postponed their leadership election due to Covid-19, the Labour Party has elected Sir Keir Starmer MP, its former Brexit spokesman and a former Director of Public Prosecutions as its new Leader. He is expected to appeal to a broader range of voters than his predecessor. However, there is no question he faces a significant challenge. The election changed the political geography of the UK especially in the north of England and the Midlands where seats previously held by Labour for decades, in its socalled Red Wall, switched to the Conservatives. There are a number of reasons for the scale of the defeat, including Labour’s position on Brexit, the unpopularity of then leader, Jeremy Corbyn and the disinclination of voters to believe that it could keep its manifesto promises. Nevertheless, the significant distance between the Labour Party and those it regards as its core voters is one which the new leader must overcome. Whether that can be done within one election cycle is open to question. While the Labour Party’s priority is making itself electable again, the Government’s initial focus following the election was on the official departure by the UK from the EU and agreeing new trade deals with the EU and the US. However, the scale of these challenges has been dwarfed by the impact of Covid-19 on the UK and the consequent effective mothballing of the UK economy until the virus can at least be suppressed. So, where does the UK Government go from here?
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