In the European Union we talk about nothing but the French ballot, but there are other elections coming up that could change, if not the face, at least the power games of the old continent. While the far right is spreading in the EU, there is in fact a country in Europe that is preparing to move to the left: it is the UK, where there will be on Thursday 4th July early elections which could determine the biggest defeat in history for the Conservative Party continuously in power since 2010, or - depending on which side you look at - the most resounding victory ever for the Labor Party after more than a decade of political subordination which forced the progressives now led by Keir Starmer to re-establish themselves starting from the base. In the middle, or better yet further to the right, there is the usual Nigel Farage, special observer, who is preparing to enter Westminster for the first time in his long political career, raging against the already dying Tories.
Early elections in the United Kingdom
On Thursday 4 July, from 7 am to 22 pm, the United Kingdom will vote to elect the 650 new members of the House of Commons, the lower house of the British Parliament, of which however it is the dominant branch. The elections were called on May 22nd by the Prime Minister Rishi sunak six months in advance of the natural expiry of the legislature. A move that many English newspapers, even those of a conservative nature, have defined as "suicidal", branding it as a "madness", given the enormous advantage that Labor enjoys in the polls carried out in recent years (we will return to this shortly), with percentages that few could have predicted after the 2019 elections which gave the then Prime Minister Boris Johnson an overwhelming majority in Westminster . In between, however, there were negotiations for the Brexit, a series of scandali that would have made any voter pale, the political disaster of Liz Truss, who remained in Downing Street for just 45 days (just enough time to cause the collapse of the pound), and a new Prime Minister, Sunak, who has never really been able to make inroads into the heart of the conservative electorate, who consider him too close to Goldman Sachs (worked there) and too little to the citizens.
UK elections, how do you vote? The “First Past the Post”
It can't be simpler than this, but neither is it more "unfair" according to the detractors. Whoever gets the most votes wins, the leader of the winning party becomes Premier. Point.
The British electoral system is a pure majoritarian system called "First Past the Post”. It dates back to the Middle Ages and has only been updated once, in 1948, with the “Representation of the Law”. It harks back to the traditional horse races in England where "the first one over the pole wins". And it literally works like this: the Kingdom is divided into constituencies and in each constituency the voter receives only one ballot and can express only one preference. The candidate who gets the most votes wins and goes on to represent their territory in the House of Commons. Percentages don't matter: you can win with 51 or 80 percent, you can lose with 49 or 10 percent, nothing changes when it comes to representation.
Supporters of “First Past The Post” claim it is the only electoral system in the world capable of guaranteeing true stability to Governments, allowing direct representation in Parliament for each territory and ensuring that deputies are forced to answer for their actions to voters. Furthermore, among the advantages, there would also be the tendency to exclude extremist parties or those without local roots, favoring moderate forces instead.
Those who don't like it claim that it is an unfair system because even if a party obtains a high percentage of votes at a national level it can still remain out of parliament if it loses in the constituencies. An example above all? Precisely Nigel Farage who, despite getting many votes and despite being one of the most popular politicians in the Kingdom, never managed to enter Parliament because he never won in his constituency.
Little curiosity: until 2021 you didn't even need to vote identification document (there is no identity card in the UK). It was enough to show up at the polling station and "self-certify". The law was changed three years ago by the Johnson Government to avoid electoral fraud, sparking controversy because many believe that the new "limit" discourages participation in the vote.
United Kingdom elections: the candidates, eyes on Nigel Farage
The leader of the winning party packs his bags and moves to No. 10 Downing Street. So who are the candidates for the seat? The favorite is Keir Starmer, which could bring the Labor Party back to power for the first time since Gordon Brown. It was he who refounded the party, bringing it back to more moderate positions than those supported by his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn and making it rise in the polls. It took him five years, but - barring sensational surprises - he did it. In the unlikely event that the Tories were to win, however, the current Prime Minister would remain in Downing Street Rishi Sunak, although his popularity among His Majesty's subjects is not exactly at its peak.
John Swinney he is the candidate of the Scottish National Party, the third largest political party in the United Kingdom, after Labor and the Conservatives. For the Liberal Democrats in the race, however, there is Ed Davey, former member of the House of Commons for the constituencies of Kingston and Surbiton and leader of the party since 2020. Among the candidates at the polls there are also the Green Party, which presents itself with the duo Carla Denyer and Adrian Ramsay, the Welsh Plaid Cymru party led by Rhun ap Iorwerth, and the Scottish nationalist and independence party of Alba, with its leader Alex Salmond.
He wasn't even supposed to run, but he changed his mind in June. The absolute protagonist of this electoral round is Nigel Farage. No longer at the helm of UKIP, the party that promoted Brexit, but of Reform UK, a different name, with essentially the same ideas seasoned with some demonstration of sympathy towards Putin. According to many observers, the extent of the conservatives' defeat will depend on its result. During his long political career, Farage stood for election to the House of Commons seven times, but he was not never been elected, instead managing to win a seat in that European Parliament (because the electoral system is different) that he said he hated. This time, according to the polls, it could be the good one with Reform UK which could grab two seats, including that of its leader in the constituency of Clacton on Sea, in Essex, on the east coast of England. But in this case the percentages will also count. Because despite having little chance of victory in the majority of territories, Farage could steal a lot of votes from the Tories on the right, resulting in his defeat in even more seats than those already expected before he took the field (and there were already many). Not surprisingly, the conservative weekly Spectator he defined it Labour's “biggest weapon”.
UK elections: what do the polls say?
The polls are almost unanimous: the Conservative Party will suffer the biggest electoral defeat in its history. And we're talking about a 200-year history. All surveys put him about 20 percentage points behind Labour. According to the mega survey conducted byEconomist, Labor could win 465 of the 652 seats in the next parliament, against the Conservatives' 76. It would be the largest majority ever obtained since World War II. The same survey indicates the Farage's Reform UK at 14% and defines it as decisive in many constituencies to condemn the conservative candidate to defeat. Other polls even put it at 20%, but the party's deputies should still only be two.
