The UK Electorate
UK Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer has resigned and intends to leave office before the parliamentary summer recess. By then Andy Burnham will more than likely be voted leader of the Labour Party and by default will become the new Prime Minister. Due to the current size of the incumbent Government’s majority, there is no pressing reason for a General Election that the UK’s right wing tabloid press is currently calling for. Whether this provides the Government with the reset they’re hoping for when Parliament reconvenes in autumn remains to be seen. With seven Prime Ministers coming and going in a decade, there are some serious questions to be asked about the current state of UK politics. However, the mechanics of contemporary politics, the decline of clearly defined ideologies and the people that seek elected office to be our leaders are only half of the problem. The other major impediment to the UK’s democracy functioning properly is the electorate.
UK Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer has resigned and intends to leave office before the parliamentary summer recess. By then Andy Burnham will more than likely be voted leader of the Labour Party and by default will become the new Prime Minister. Due to the current size of the incumbent Government’s majority, there is no pressing reason for a General Election that the UK’s right wing tabloid press is currently calling for. Whether this provides the Government with the reset they’re hoping for when Parliament reconvenes in autumn remains to be seen. With seven Prime Ministers coming and going in a decade, there are some serious questions to be asked about the current state of UK politics. However, the mechanics of contemporary politics, the decline of clearly defined ideologies and the people that seek elected office to be our leaders are only half of the problem. The other major impediment to the UK’s democracy functioning properly is the electorate.
Let us consider the reasons why Keir Starmer has resigned. Although the appointment of Peter Mandelson was a major political misjudgement, this is not the main reason for him being ousted by his own party. It is primarily due to his catastrophic decline in the opinion polls. Starmer won a substantial majority in the 2024 General Election predicated on prosed economic change and his party not being the Tories. Sadly, bold decisions were constantly rollbacked if they were seen to be poorly received by the general public. Hence his administration was seen to be constantly dithering and his policies were too vague to be clearly defined. Thus a substantial percentage of the public quickly became unhappy that “change” was not being delivered and this was reflected in Starmer’s approval rating. The Labour Party, like so many contemporary political organisations, became overly concerned about “optics” and decided to go down the road that leads to regicide.
The UK economy, along with many of its major public institutions are in a bad way. This is mainly due to decades of austerity following the 2008 financial crash and wider global factors such as COVID, regional wars and the current US administration. Infrastructure has been starved or finances, numerous services have been outsourced and asset stripped by those companies running them and the cost of living has just kept steadily increasing. The young have been poorly served by consecutive Governments and the old have unsustainable expectations with regard to public services, pensions and political representation. All of these are problems that require well considered and potentially radical solutions that will take time and effort to resolve. Any party seeking election eventually has to put their proposals to the electorate and it is at this point the problems start.
Ask anyone in the street about the aforementioned issues and they’ll confidently assert that “something must be done”. Some who are politically engaged may even share potential solutions. However a substantial amount of registered voters are not well versed in politics per se. They struggle to name significant individuals from politics, are not well informed about policies or ideologies and often form opinions based upon factually incorrect “news” on social media. Brexit was a textbook example of this. We also have to consider the erosion of communities and notions of civic duty. Politics is increasingly seen as a transactional process by people that have no concept of patience. The electorate’s expectations, combined with an absolute aversion to having to face any personal cost, thus becomes a major part of the UK's structural political paralysis. Voting ceases to be an administrative process with responsibilities and consequences. Instead it becomes like a reality show were you simply vote off those that “annoy” you.
There used to be an implicit social contract associated with UK democracy. After a General Election, the party with the most seats in parliament formed the next Government. You may not have liked the results but you recognised the legitimacy of the them and endured the new incumbent administration, if you were not a supporter. This mindset seems to have gone and there is a petulant element of the electorate who take the somewhat puerile attitude that “I didn’t vote for this so why do I have to put up with it”. Such a world view has consequences. No one wants to pay any more taxes, nor wants new housing built near them. Migrant labour that addresses the skills gap is reviled, yet no one seems to be opting for careers where such skills gaps exist. Democracy grinds to a halt because instead of a cohesive population with a sense of nationality and common purpose, you have 70 million individuals that want politics to personally serve their needs.
Political parties that have always been in thrall to opinion polls, are now increasingly more cognisant of “emerging trends” on social media. As a result the tail wags the dog these days which is why Keir Starmer has been effectively ousted by his own party. Although more media savvy and experienced in “doing” politics, I suspect that Andy Burnham is destined to run into exactly the same issues and criticism if he becomes PM. The chickens may well come home to roost by next spring when he has failed to grow the UK economy, increase wages and lower taxes and make the wind smell of wild flowers for the UK electorate. He has already indicated that he is not disposed towards addressing the realities of the UK economy and that to resolve the current situation requires the public enduring a period of hardship. Thus both groups inhabit their own personally chosen, alternative reality, while the those who recognise the situation for what it really is, watch on as Rome burns.
Novelty Candidates in UK Elections
Andy Burnham successfully won the Makerfield by-election yesterday, returning him to the House of Commons as a member of Parliament after holding the position of Mayor of Manchester for the past nine years. Prior to this, Burnham was Labour MP for Leigh from 2001 and 2017. He served in both the Tony Blair and Gordon Brown administrations and has held such senior governmental posts as Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and Secretary of State for Health. His return to Parliamentary politics is likely to result in a leadership challenge to incumbent Prime Minister Keir Starmer. When speaking after winning yesterday’s by-election Burnham spoke of “a final chance for change” the current trajectory of the present Labour Government. However, I don’t wish to focus on any of this at present. I am far more interested in the above picture, taken as the results were announced and what it says about UK politics.
Andy Burnham successfully won the Makerfield by-election yesterday, returning him to the House of Commons as a member of Parliament after holding the position of Mayor of Manchester for the past nine years. Prior to this, Burnham was Labour MP for Leigh from 2001 and 2017. He served in both the Tony Blair and Gordon Brown administrations and has held such senior governmental posts as Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and Secretary of State for Health. His return to Parliamentary politics is likely to result in a leadership challenge to incumbent Prime Minister Keir Starmer. When speaking after winning yesterday’s by-election Burnham spoke of “a final chance for change” the current trajectory of the present Labour Government. However, I don’t wish to focus on any of this at present. I am far more interested in the above picture, taken as the results were announced and what it says about UK politics.
If you live outside of the UK you may be somewhat surprised by the fact that there are often novelty candidates at UK by-elections. Politics is usually steeped in formal trappings in most modern democracies. Candidates strive to project a no nonsense demeanour and similarly wish their policies to be perceived in the same way. Frivolity, joviality and rank stupidity are the opposite sentiments that political candidates wish to project. Yet here in the UK, all by-elections will have a percentage of novelty or niche market candidates who are there to add a degree of fun and light-heartedness to what are otherwise rather serious proceedings. Some candidates, representing traditional political parties, will balk or appear uncomfortable with this sort of triviality. More season campaigners understand that it has become part of the UK electoral tradition and its best to roll with it all. Hence you’ll find the successful candidate standing next to the someone from the “Standing at the Back Dressed Stupidly and Looking Stupid Party”.
The presence of novelty or satirical candidates in UK by-elections is primarily due to the country's relatively low barriers to entry for parliamentary candidacy and the unique platform that by-elections provide. To stand as a candidate in a UK parliamentary election, an individual generally only needs to meet three basic criteria. Be at least 18 years old. Be a British citizen, a citizen of the Republic of Ireland, or a citizen of a Commonwealth country with indefinite leave to remain in the UK. Submit a nomination form signed by 10 registered voters from that constituency and pay a £500 deposit. The deposit is returned if the candidate receives a certain percentage of the vote (typically 5%). However, for many novelty candidates the deposit is often viewed as a “fee” to access a platform to broadcast their message or gain media attention. It is by far the most cost effective means to gain television airtime and access to the mainstream journalists.
Because by-elections often attract intense media scrutiny, serve as a barometer for public sentiment toward the government and are unique, singular events, they provide a desirable media platform. Novelty candidates can use this to satirise politics, critique what they see as hypocrisy and draw attention to issues that major parties ignore. Some candidates use the ballot paper as a vehicle for a single-issue protest or as a symbolic rejection of the “two-party” system. The novelty of a candidate in a costume or with a bizarre name often garners more press coverage than a serious independent candidate, allowing them to broadcast their message to a wider audience than they could through traditional campaigning. Note how in the case of Andy Burnham winning yesterday, when he took to the stage to make his speech he found that the only space available, strategically place him in between Count Binface and Rob Pownhall from Protect British Wildlife.
Novelty candidates and parties are not unique to UK politics. There is a history of them in Canada, Iceland and Denmark. Sadly, US politics seems somewhat more po-faced and I suspect that India and several South American countries are similarly formal. The UK, however has a long, historical tradition of mocking all its most hallowed institutions including elections. From Hogarth engravings to Charles Dickens. I suspect that the greatest inspirations for a lot of the modern novelty candidates stems from the classic 1970 Monty Python sketch “Election Night Special” in which there was an ongoing political insurgency from the Silly Party. Considering the polarised and more febrile nature of UK politics at present and the resurgence of nationalism, I think more than ever the injection of some humour is not only welcome but frankly necessary to keep things civil. Plus it’s worth reading the policies on Count Binface’s website. Some of them are quite sound.