For my British friends …

Only 60% participation in election…

Labour Party takes more than 400 seats …

A very serious damage to the Conservative Party ..

WHAT DO YOU THINK WAS THE REASON FOR THIS??

Could it be the BREXIT policy??

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ArishMell · 70-79, M

The result suggests a strong desire to give the other lot a go after some years of one lot - simple as that.

In fact, as was mentioned on this morning's Today programme, major switches from one party to another are not very frequent in British politics. Each major party tends to be the Governmental one for a few terms, then the other, and so on. For the many decades it has been mainly a Labour / Conservative match but the Liberals (pre Liberal-Democrat) have been in power, and their successor party does sometimes make significant gains.

That low participation, only 60%, is fundamentally much more serious. It suggests a widespread uninterest in, or disillusionment with, politicians and politics generally; not any particular party, individuals, acts or policies. That is something for all parties to think about, and I suggest starting with honesty in interviews, and wasting less time attacking their opponents and more time explaining their own plans.

I do not propose compulsory voting as some nations use. There may be a case for an "Abstain" box on the ballot form (the correct term in any election, not that childish "None of the above") - but such a poor turn-out is bad for democracy.

Similarly I do not want any sort of "proportional voting" - the excuse of those who support parties that prove of only minor popularity because they offer little enough to be attractive. Its likely effect would simply be a more diffuse version of the same result, making governing the country even harder.

I have no time for that daft "tactical voting" notion, which is insincere, even dishonest.

There is nothing wrong with our electoral system, which is "proportional" arithmetically anyway, but the lower the participation the weaker it is and the less meaningful the result. That applies to any voting system - no matter how pretentiously complicated, it still needs voters.

What is wrong is low participation!

Those too lazy to vote are the only ones who can truthfully claim their votes were "wasted" - but they can not and should not complain about the country's politics if they are too idle to participate.

helenS · 36-40, F

@ArishMell

It suggests a widespread uninterest in, or disillusionment with, politicians and politics generally

... and it is exactly here where the populists start their campaigns.

MartinII · 70-79, M

@helenS Yes, but uninterest and disillusionment are, or can be, very different things. To give you an illustration of one, I'm as interested in politics as anyone could be, but I refused to vote for either of the major parties. I had to choose between abstaining or making a protest vote. In the event I chose the latter, but really the two options amounted to the same thing.

MartinII · 70-79, M

@ArishMell Some laziness no doubt, for example on the part of Labour supporters who thought the result was a foregone conclusion. But I think deliberate abstention by people who refused to vote for either major party was more important, and the parties need to address that seriously and not ignore it. I'm waiting to hear some acknowledgment from Starmer that the Labour vote was so relatively small, but I haven't noticed anything yet.

ArishMell · 70-79, M

@helenS Oh, yes - very much so.

It is a very vague term though, and implies it is wrong for any Party to offer anything that the electorate might want, if it is beyond safe things like better schools and hospitals.

It also implies the major parties, of any colour, think the electorate rather dim. For I suspect such parties who can't comprehend why they lose support, don't really stand back and say, "Well, maybe the other lot offered better or more credible policies, so we must do so next time!".

By better or more credible I mean practical ones, not mere emotion-harvesting as the minor, so-called "populist" parties use. Nevertheless the main parties need ask themselves, "Do the 'populists' gain support because they are not frightened as we are, to express very awkward thoughts raised by their constituents?"

We have seen this in Hungary and Turkey, and now seeing it in France; but the British examples include the sometimes quoted "rivers of blood" phrase wrongly and maliciously attributed to Enoch Powell. He did not coin it. He had repeated what a genuinely concerned constituent had told him during election campaigning - but it did not suit the Orthodox Ones in Parliament and constituency parties, so they used it against him.

As far as they were concerned his constituent and her fears could not exist. Then they wonder why such constituents turn to parties or candidates less politically sensitive.

ArishMell · 70-79, M

@MartinII A good point but I think the laziness is probably cross-party and indeed no-party - not just complacency as you suggest among Labour voters, but also a refusal to engage with any politics.

MartinII · 70-79, M

@ArishMell Yes, there's certainly some of that.

Vetrov · 61-69, M

@ArishMell
We have compulsory voting here and a Commonwealth Labor Government and every State has a Labor Government.
Except Tasmania.
Where l am 😂

ArishMell · 70-79, M

@Vetrov Australia? Yes - I knew that does when I wrote my ha'pence worth. I don't think you can connect the results to that though.

You probably gain a fairer representation of the populace's general views by having a far larger turn-out, but how anyone votes is a matter of personal belief, the relative attractiveness of manifestos and each party's past performance.

If Labor won in your election its suggests it offered something better than its opponents, to enough people to vote for it. The voting system, and having to vote, are simply the mechanics of the election.

I dislike compulsory voting for its own principle of compulsion - but I can see its potential advantage in gaining a better representation of all parties overall.