The United Kingdom’s Conservative Party has been called the most successful political party in the Western world. Yet,
Labour won Thursday’s election by a historic landslide that may redefine the UK’s polity and economy into the 2030s.
Incoming prime minister
Keir Starmer will have little time to catch his breath after the campaign as he will seek to quickly make his mark in international summitry. Next week, he heads to Washington for a Nato summit to commemorate
75 years of the military alliance. Moreover, a week later he is expected to host the European Political Community conference of leaders from across the continent.
However, while Starmer faces no end to the international dialogue on the horizon, it will be domestic politics that occupies him as he seeks to make the most of his first 100 days in power. Some of the big policies which Labour has said it will move forward with include kick-starting reforms to boost infrastructure development.
A part of this process will be new legislation to create “Great British Energy”, a new state-owned generator of green electricity which Labour claims will help make the country “a clean energy superpower”. The party says the new company will cost around £8.3 billion (US$10.58 billion) and be paid for by a windfall tax on oil and gas companies. In addition, Labour has pledged to repeal the current de facto ban on new onshore wind farms.
Also likely to be scrapped is the Conservative Party’s controversial, flagship
Rwanda migrant deportation scheme. Labour has pledged to instead create a border security command, appoint hundreds of investigators and use counterterror powers to “smash criminal boat gangs”.
To move forward with this big agenda, Labour will seek to take advantage of the disorientation among the Conservatives who have suffered a huge setback. To put Labour’s win into historical context, the number of seats the party looks likely to have won is comparable with 1997, under
Tony Blair’s leadership, which was one of the largest number of seats won in post-war UK history.
