If you go deep into British politics, before the formation of the Labour Party in 1900, there was a regular switching of prime ministers from Whigs (known as the Liberal Party after 1859, and Liberal Democrats since 1988) representing the left wing of British Politics and the Tories (known as the Conservative Party since 1834).
The first Labour Prime Minister was Ramsey MacDonald in 1923. He formed an alliance with the Liberal Party and that made him the Prime Minister. Most governments of this era were coalition governments, with the exception of Stanley Baldwin in 1935, and after two changing of the guard, this was the election that led to Winston Churchill becoming Prime Minister. In 1945 Clement Attlee won a majority of seats despite winning only 47.7% of the vote. This is going to be a theme.
1935 was the last election where a party won a majority of the vote in the United Kingdom.
At the fundamental core of democracy is the idea that if a party wins a majority of the vote, that party should be able to control government until the next election. Paired with this idea, if a party has not won a majority of the vote it should not be able to hold all of the power without being forced to negotiate with other parties.
The 1979 United Kingdom general election was a travesty that violates the very idea of Democracy. The Conservatives under Margaret Thatcher won only 43.9% of the vote, but with that, they controlled a majority of the seats in parliament. The same is true in 1983, 1987, and 1992. Despite the majority of Britons consistently voting for Labour and the Liberal Democrats, the British people got a conservative government for over 10 years which they did not vote for. Even if the Labour government had not won an outright majority of seats, Paddy Ashdown made it very clear that if a hung parliament had existed, he would have made a coalition government with Labour in 1997, even though it turned out this wasn’t necessary. This pact officially started in 1977 under the leadership of David Steel. All but one Liberal leader has had this strategy since the formation of the Labour Party. We will get to that scumbag later.
During the time of Tony Blair, the Labour party won a majority of the seats in each parliament despite never winning over 50% of the vote.
This changed in 2010 when David Cameron won 306 seats when he needed 326 seats in order to form a government. The Liberal Democrats never won less than 15% of the vote during the time of “New Labour” under Tony Blair.
The 2010 election is the most important in modern British politics. The Liberal Democrats had increased their vote share to 23% of the vote, consistently increasing their vote share since the early 1990s to become the kingmaker. Despite the Liberal Democrats being center-left, and the only pro-Europe party in England, they made a coalition with the hard Euroskeptic anti-immigrant right-wing Conservative Party. After their success of acquiring 23% of the vote in 2010, and creating a coalition government with the Conservatives, they won only 7.9% of the vote in 2015. The only other era where the Liberals did so poorly was during the Great Depression, after the last coalition they made with the Tories! If only one could find a trend here… Nick Clegg single-handedly destroyed the confidence of the British politic in the Liberal Democrats, turning them into a minor party. He chose Euroskeptic right winger David Cameron to be the next prime minister of the United Kingdom, the man who almost single handedly created Brexit in 2016 under his failed leadership, and has led the United Kingdom to have the weakest economy in Western Europe with the least resilient recovery from COVID. He failed the world.
Ed Milliband failed to improve Labour’s share of the vote in the 2015 election and has blamed himself for not going far enough in Labour’s manifesto in 2015. He was the last competent Labour leader.
Ed Milliband was replaced with Jeremy Corbyn… a social democrat who had some really good domestic policies, such as renationalization of the railways, and ending austerity. He improved Labour’s vote share to 40% of the vote in 2017, a 9.6% increase over their 2015 failure. But for each of his good domestic policies he is a Euroskeptic who failed to counter the bollocks arguments for Brexit, he supports the UK leaving Europe and NATO, praised Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro, and opposed international intervention in the Kosovo genocide back in the 1990s. He is a highly unethical individual and it is not surprising that the majority of people in the United Kingdom saw through him like a window.
The current leader of Labour is Keir Starmer who continues to support Brexit despite the fact that it is increasing inflation and reducing wages in the country. He has failed. He will not win. He doesn’t offer a clear alternative to the failed Conservative policies on the issues that matter.
Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson succeeded in increasing the vote share of the Liberal Democrats back over 10% of the vote with her pro-Europe, pro-NATO, pro-human rights, anti-authoritarian platform in 2017. The English public will hopefully vote for the Liberal Democrats in the next British general election.
The Conservative Party offers austerity and Euroskepticism.
The Labour Party offers sympathy for dictators and Euroskepticism.
The Liberal Democrats are the only pro-Europe party that opposes austerity and has a strong human rights record in England today.
I may not be British, but as a trained political scientist, I implore everyone in the United Kingdom to vote for the Liberal Democrats.
If you are British and tired of voting for one vision for the last 50 years and getting another, I recommend implementing the Alternative Vote, though you should choose single transferable vote with multi-member districts, as they use in Ireland. Hopefully given the Brexit inflation and wage cut crisis you are currently undergoing this will be enough for the United Kingdom to finally implement a modern election system.
Just for good measure, let’s end with the national motto of the United Kingdom.
Nick Clegg is a cunt.