Sir Keir has the lowest mandate from the people of any UK government in history
Shouldn’t he and his Government therefore have the highest level of scrutiny?
Montage © Facts4EU.Org 2024
We review the Starmer Government's legitimacy ahead of an exciting new set of Facts4EU reports
The official data is now starting to appear about our overall financial state, since the management of the UK’s economy was handed over by Rishi Sunak and the Conservative government to the new Labour government of Sir Keir Starmer and his Chancellor, Rachel Reeves. In this Boxing Day report we remind readers of the unprecedented electoral circumstances which gave rise to Labour taking power.
This will then take us into what we believe will be essential reading, as we publish a regular set of reports to track the progress of the Government’s policies and the impact they are having on our everyday lives – good and bad.
A Brexit Facts4EU.Org Mini-Series
The General Election 2024
Part I (This report) - Sir Keir has the lowest electoral mandate of any government in history
Part II - How is Reform UK so unrepresented in Parliament?
Part III - Nigel Farage, voter apathy, postal voting, and other reasons this election was so different
Part IV - There are only 3 truly national parties in the UK, and the LibDems don't appear on the list
The strangest electoral results in history?
In the General Election which took place on 05 July 2024, Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party secured a win which gave them a massive 174-seat majority in Parliament. However, they did so by securing only 20% of the available votes on the electoral register. Their share of those who were sufficiently motivated to vote was 33.7%, the lowest of any winning party on record. In so doing, they lost over half-a-million (560,000) votes compared to their total in 2019. At the 2024 election, only 9.7m people voted Labour out of a population of nearly 68m and a registered electorate of 48,208,507.
Meanwhile the Conservative’s share of the available vote was just 14.2%. Of those who actually voted it was 23.7%. Only 6.8m people voted for them. This was the worst result in the Party’s long history. It lost a shocking 251 seats in total, including big names such as those of 12 Cabinet ministers and even that of former prime minister Liz Truss. The Conservatives’ losses represent the largest ever decrease for any party in British history.
How did the UK's two largest parties end up?
In order to understand fully the scale of Labour's majority, despite them losing more than half-a-million votes since the 2019 election, the chart below might help. Whilst the number of people voting for them fell, Labour won a disproportionately large number of seats for a comparatively small number of total votes.
Brexit Facts4EU.Org Summary
1. Vote share versus seat share - the two main parties
© Brexit Facts4EU.Org 2024 - click to enlarge
[Source: House of Commons Library, 2024.]
2. Results by all parties, sorted by percentage of votes cast
© Brexit Facts4EU.Org 2024 - click to enlarge
[Source : As reported to Parliament by the Returning Officer for each constituency.]
Labour has the lowest mandate from the British people of any government in history
In summary, Sir Keir Starmer’s government rose to power on the lowest popular mandate in British history.
Facts4EU.Org remains non-partisan but given this extraordinary democratic imbalance beating all records, it seems reasonable to put the Government’s policies and actions under even closer scrutiny than usual. In our coming series of reports we will be doing just that, using all the official data to which we have access.
Observations
Following this FOUR-part mini-series, we will go on to launch our 'Government Trackers'
These reports will be tailored to everyone’s real-life experience of living in the UK as we go into 2025. We’ll begin with how well off - or badly off - we feel and what is happening to our economy, using a tracker we have developed. We’ll also publish a regular tracker on the immgration crisis and the impact this is having on us all. Finally we’ll use latest research on the Government’s Net Zero policies – to reveal the costs versus the benefits.
In addition to the above we will look at the public sector productivity crisis, the 'closer alignment' Sir Keir is negotiating with the EU, and we will continue to publish our regular and unique reports on a wide variety of other subjects. Will you support us in providing this unique service? We badly need your help this Christmas with a donation to keep us going.
We get the messages out there but if you want us to keep doing work like this,
please support us with a small (or large!) gesture, or we will have to cut back dramatically.
Every few pounds helps to keep us fighting for Brexit,
and for independence, sovereignty, democracy and freedom.
Please help us today if you can – it takes just two minutes and your details are kept confidential.
The Facts4EU.Org site and its activities such as conferences, TV & video interviews, forums, etc, are :-
- Advert-free : no annoying distractions or ‘pop-ups’
- Paywall-free : Reading our news and reports does not require you to sign up and pay
- Merchandising-free : We don’t try to sell you t-shirts or coffee mugs advertising us
- Sponsorship-free : No corporate sponsorship funds our reports – we’re independent
- We’re funded by donations from you – the public
The content :-
- Unique, original, well-researched reports
- No ‘re-hashing’ of articles you’ll read elsewhere
- Based on official data, statements and reports, analysed by us
- Transparent sources : Whether it’s the EU Commission, the ONS, or the IMF, we state where we obtained our data
- We rely solely on donations from you – the public - to keep us going
NOTICE : Facts4EU has now scaled back to publishing 5 days-a-week
For nine years we have worked seven days-a-week. As far as we are aware we are the only organisation of our type to have done this. We are grateful to those of our readers who have made donations but sadly the level of our funding is now such that we must make it stretch for as long as we can. This means team members taking other paid work and reducing our output to five days-a-week.
Please, please help us to carry on our vital work in defence of independence, sovereignty, democracy and freedom by donating today. Thank you.
[ Sources: House of Commons Library | The Electoral Commission ] Politicians and journalists can contact us for details, as ever.
Brexit Facts4EU.Org, Boxing Day, 26 Dec 2024
Click here to go to our news headlines
Please scroll down to COMMENT on the above article.
And don't forget actually to post your message after you have previewed it!
Since before the EU Referendum, Brexit Facts4EU.Org
has been the most prolific researcher and publisher of Brexit facts in the world.
Supported by MPs, MEPs, & other groups, our work has impact.
We think facts matter. Please donate today, so that we can continue to ensure a clean Brexit is finally delivered.
Paypal Users Only - Choose amount first
Quick One-off
Monthly
Something to say about this? Scroll down for reader comments