The political pendulum swing to the left in the United Kingdom may have been widely anticipated by opinion polls, but it is striking, especially from a French perspective, where the far right has the wind in its sails on the eve of the second round of France's parliamentary elections. Repeating a record score equivalent to Tony Blair's in 1997 (418 seats), Keir Starmer's Labour won at least 412 of the 650 seats in Parliament in the general election held on Thursday, July 4.
The distorting effect of the UK's single-round electoral system, where the candidate who comes out on top in each constituency gets the seat – with 34% of the vote, Labour wins over 60% of the seats – only very partially explains this massive, historic victory.
In resolutely opting for a change of government after 14 years of Conservative rule, voters have first and foremost punished a disastrous record of fiscal austerity and Brexit. A fractured, isolated and weakened country, infrastructure and public services at half-mast, sluggish wage and investment growth... The ills from which the country suffers are largely the result of risky political choices.
The Tories' major act of leaving the European Union (EU), the result of a failed bluff by Prime Minister David Cameron and now considered a failure by 60% of Britons, will go down as a terrible example of a self-destructive decision taken by popular referendum. Neither the country nor the divided Tories have recovered.
As for Boris Johnson's antics, they only briefly masked the inconsistency of the nationalist, anti-European coalition united in his name, between wealthy, anti-state, anti-tax voters in the south of the country and the underprivileged in the north, demanding public assistance and services. The scandal of Downing Street parties during lockdown and the calamitous budgetary decisions of the short-lived Liz Truss premiership completed the demolition of the Conservatives' reputation for responsibility and seriousness.
Buoyed by a wave of Britons rejecting the Tories, rather than by popular enthusiasm for his program and person, the austere Starmer, architect of a spectacular refocusing of Labour, is undoubtedly the "normal prime minister" that the country wants after so many years of political spectacle and error. A proponent of budgetary orthodoxy and "wealth creation," Starmer is favored by the business community while carrying the hopes of Britons affected by austerity, precariousness and the collapse of the National Health Service (NHS).
His modesty seems to augur well for the many challenges he will have to face, with no budgetary room for maneuver, and the reorientations he will have to make, including those concerning relations with the EU. However, this victory for pragmatism has yet to be transformed into perceptible progress for the working classes, who have largely returned to Labour, but who are also being courted by the far right in the UK. His resounding success gives Starmer immense responsibilities, particularly in the face of the entry into Westminster of Nigel Farage's xenophobic Reform UK party (14% of the vote).
The good news is that the return to power of a party that claims to stand for social justice in one of Europe's leading countries will be closely scrutinized by all those seeking to counter the reactionary winds at work in the developed world.