31 August 2024

Predictions Based on the Opinion Polls in the UK

The elections in the United Kingdom gave the Labour Party virtually unlimited power with around one-third of the vote. This was due to the electoral system, but at the same time, it was obviously contrary to the general idea of democracy, where every political movement should have representation in the decision-making bodies—parliaments—that reflects their share of the vote as accurately as possible.

Thus, Keir Starmer became Prime Minister, and his government has "distinguished itself" by violently suppressing protests and restricting freedom of speech. You might expect this to be reflected in post-election party support polls.

Interestingly, according to Politico's published tracking, Labour's support has remained unchanged, as has the Conservatives'. However, the support for Nigel Farage's Reform UK and the Greens has increased by several percentage points, even though the latter, in particular, has no realistic chance of becoming a significant political player due to the peculiarities of the UK's electoral system.

Let’s consider what would happen if this trend continued until the next elections. In that case, Reform UK would surpass the Conservatives in support and perhaps even challenge Labour. However, this party differs from the other two in that its support is distributed much more evenly across the population and geography. Therefore, far fewer of its candidates would be elected in the UK’s single-member constituencies than would happen under a proportional electoral system.

Thus, Labour might continue to hold power in Britain even if its vote count ended up being smaller than that of Reform UK. Only a true landslide victory could make Farage the Prime Minister.

For this reason, it is not insignificant how the British people react to Starmer’s government policies. Will censorship of opinions and turning a blind eye to the behavior of immigrants cause Labour supporters to abandon Starmer, or will they see these—odd from a Finnish perspective—actions as reflecting their will as expressed in the elections?


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