The 2024 General Election broke many records but not all of them were positive as this election saw the second lowest voter turnout since The Great War.
The reasonings behind this drop are numerous but the biggest appears to be overwhelming political apathy amongst voters.
For the past few year’s voters have been calling for a general election with demands getting much louder since the events of Partygate and the advent of Liz Truss’ short lived government.
The loudest voice calling for an election was the then Leader of the Opposition Sir Kier Starmer.
Starmer and Labour
Starmer’s calls for an election got loader and louder as public dissatisfaction with the Conservative government climbed and polls suggested that his Labour Party would see a historic landslide.
In the months leading up to the election, polls claimed that Labour would see one of the biggest majorities in the history of the commons, while the Conservatives would be almost wiped out.
Certain early polls even suggested that the Conservatives would fall so far as to not even be the opposition party with that role being taken on by the Liberal Democrats.
Some early polls even suggested that the Scottish National Party could become the opposition party although the polls sharpy shifted after the resignation of party leader Nicola Sturgeon.
Despite this overwhelming popularity in the polls, public sentiment towards The Labour Party wasn’t great with not many British people even knowing who Starmer was until several years after he became party leader.
It was not until he started becoming more outspoken and aggressive during Prime Minister’s Questions that the country truly took notice of him.
When Starmer took over the Labour Party he was coming off the heels of Jeremy Corbin, one of the most divisive leaders the party had ever seen.
Corbin was adored by progressives and young people leading to a massive increase in party membership particularly amongst young first-time voters.
However, Corbin was very unpopular with moderates and was a constant target for the press and tabloids.
So, after suffering a horrible defeat in the 2019 General Election, Jeremy Corbin was replaced by the moderate Sir Kier Starmer.
Starmer has generated a lot less vitriol than Corbin but that is largely because he generated no headlines whatsoever for years.
For year’s Starmer has been accused of severely lacking in Charisma which has cost Labour a lot of spotlight time.
On top of this, many of the young people that supported Corbyn are very against Starmer. While he presents as a moderate and has even claimed that he is a socialist, he is often described online as “a Tory in a red tie”.
All these factors came together to give Labour very little energy going into the election and yet they were the overwhelmingly popular party as all other parties seemed to be doing worse.
Other Parties
The Conservative Party has been publicly imploding since Partygate. Fourteen years of Austerity, Brexit and the brief but chaotic leadership of Liz Truss have left the party looking unreliable.
The party’s image was not helped by their leader Rishi Sunak, who is seen as incredibly out of touch by much of the country.
The Liberal Democrats kept quite quiet save for local work in the likes of the West Country.
The Scottish National Party is in a complete nosedive which begun after the 2023 party finance scandal and resignation of Nicola Sturgeon.
The SNP’s hand got even worse after the chaotic ending of the Bute House Agreement, the end of the Scottish Government coalition with the Scottish Greens and the resignation of First Minister Hamza Yusaf.
The Greens strategically focused their efforts on four seats and were thus not a major electoral factor.
Reform UK was the dark horse in this election as they were able to feed on this national apathy and distain for the current political climate.
While Reform did take a lot of votes for its hardline stance and political outsider status those votes were largely from Conservative voters.
The majority of more moderate and progressive voters just decided not to vote which can best be seen in Labours vote share as while they won 63 percent of the seats in the House of Commons, they only received 33.7 percent of the vote, 0.8 percent more than in 2019 where they only won 31 percent of seats.
According to Statistica, the election had a 60 percent turnout which is less than one percent higher than the record low 59.4 percent turnout seen in 2001.
Turnout was on the rise from 2001 to 2016 which had a 72.2 percent turnout for the Brexit Referendum but has been falling ever since.
General apathy in British politics and Reform UK syphering Conservative voters is what really won the election, not hope in Labour.
It’s unclear what turnout will look like in the next election but if nothing is done to address this political apathy and inject some hope into the population then it is unlikely to improve anytime soon.
Featured Image Credit: members.parliament.uk
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