Geopolitics Review - 15th July 2024

Reflection On The UK Election, and Global Voting Systems

Contents

1. Introduction

2. Reflection On The Election

3. Global Voting Systems

4. Concluding Remarks

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Bitesize Edition

• It’s time for some reflection on the election in the UK. We saw Labour achieve a clear majority with 411 seats. On the surface, it’s a dominant win. There are, however, other deeper considerations to make. Not to take away from the Labour victory, but a repeat next time is unlikely.

• We saw the rise of Reform who achieved 14.3% of the total vote but only 5 seats. This was a consequence of the first-past-the-post system adopted in the UK.

• What would have occurred if we didn’t have a first-past-the-post system? Reform has stated if they had power they would enact a proportional representation system. What does this involve and what would have been the consequences of this election if we had it in place in the UK? Find out more below.

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Introduction

Today, I was going to discuss Ukraine and provide updates as to where the conflict is heading, but politics here in the UK is moving fast. When we expand to the field of geopolitics, there’s even more to discuss. So Ukraine updates come in a few weeks. For now, let’s reflect upon what on paper looks like a Labour domination. It is, of course, based on number of seats acquired. But looking deeper, there are many other implications for British politics over the coming years, and for how Starmer will work on the international scene. Let’s dive in.

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Reflection On The Election

Some trends have emerged from these elections that will have ramifications throughout British politics. The first of which is the rise of Reform.

The party led by Nigel Farage gained 4 seats, but 14.3% of the vote, placing them only behind Labour and the Conservatives. In terms of raw votes, the 4,000,000+ for reform was bettered by the 9.6M of Labour and the 6.7M of the Conservatives.

There is an emergence of the far right in British politics, centred around policies involving immigration.

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

From a geopolitical point of view, if we take the basket of necessities that a country has access to, this basket needs to be big enough to provide for the population of that country.

There are certain limitations to the size of the basket. For the UK, it’s a small landmass with a fairly large population. As a result, the UK isn’t self-sufficient at all. This is also a consequence of climate in relation to agriculture. This means the UK needs to rely on its neighbours for necessities such as food, and key raw materials.

Outside of this strain on key resources and land space, immigration shouldn’t ever be a policy that limits people migrating here to seek a better life for themselves. It does need to be controlled to ensure the basket isn’t emptied.

When voting, many people consider one key issue that’s important to them. Many consider immigration as one such issue. Parties such as Reform know this and take advantage of it. It’s why before the election, Farage’s seat in Clacton was fairly nailed on, as was the seat in Great Yarmouth. It’s a consequence of the demography of these regions.

Where this emergence of the far-right does need to be considered is the wider world, and the emergence of far-right governments in the European continent, such as Orban’s Hungary, Meloni’s Italy, France’s Le Pen and the recent European Elections that led to Macron calling the French National Assembly elections. Of course, Le Pen and National Rally didn’t perform as well as expected in France’s elections, but more on that in a few weeks also!