By Dr Nathan Critch
Department of Political Science and International Studies (POLSIS), University of Birmingham
Whilst the relatively low vote share Labour achieved in the 2024 general election was enough to secure a landslide in terms of parliamentary seats, a lack of real popular enthusiasm for their governing project is sure to cause problems for Labour in office.
The 2024 general election has produced a highly contradictory outcome. Labour has won the second highest majority of seats in the House of Commons achieved by a British political party in the post-war period, but has done so with the lowest vote share a single-party government has ever secured. In the aftermath of the election, pollster John Curtice surmised that ‘all in all this looks more like an election the Conservatives lost than one Labour won’. Labour’s vote share remained largely stagnant in comparison to 2019 (excepting large gains in Scotland) but did so in a context of significant Conservative decline.
This contradictory context has meant that despite the jubilation among Starmer’s supporters, some have diagnosed Labour as having achieved a “loveless landslide” or a “sandcastle majority”. Under this view, Labour has largely benefited from factors outside of their control such as the collapse of the Conservatives and the Scottish National Party and the paradoxes of Britain’s first-past-the-post electoral system, which tends to produce big inconsistencies between vote share won and seats gained. They have not—so the argument goes—convinced significantly more people to vote Labour, and voters have largely ‘failed to embrace Starmer’s party’.
How does low vote share equal electoral success?
Does this relatively low vote share matter? Electorally, Britain’s first-past-the-post system means that increasing one’s sheer number of votes is less important than an efficient and wide geographical distribution of those votes. Thus, whilst Labour’s sheer numerical vote share stayed the same, there is some evidence that Starmer’s strategy did shift the composition of Labour’s vote in ways which were electorally beneficial. In some urban seats, Labour majorities were shaved thin as Labour were pressured by progressive Green candidates and independents standing against Labour due to their position on Gaza. Whilst this did lead to a few high-profile losses for Labour, it was accompanied by the party being more competitive in areas where they had previously struggled, with Labour winning back much of its traditional Northern heartlands and some ‘middle England bellwether seats’. Although Labour’s vote share only actually rose in some of these seats.
Starmer’s sandcastle majority then, does represent a significant electoral success. Whilst Starmer did not secure an unprecedented level of votes for Labour, this was not his task. Instead, Starmer secured an efficient distribution of votes across the country, whilst benefiting from the collapse of Labour’s major political rivals. This was the ‘electoral Jenga’ Starmer’s Labour had to play, and they played it successfully.
What impact will a low vote share have on governing?
Whilst sheer number of votes accrued is not the electoral be-all and end-all, what level of support Labour was able to amass, and why its supporters chose to vote Labour, does matter when it comes to the task of governing. Thus, whilst a sandcastle majority cannot be written off as an electoral failure, it does signal a difficult governance context for Starmer’s government going forward.
Since becoming Labour leader, Starmer’s style has been characterized as marked by an ‘ideological quietism’, and Labour’s campaign strategy in the general election mirrored this. Labour focussed hard on lampooning the Conservatives for their failures and scandals but spent considerably less time outlining and building support for their vision. The near “supermajority” Labour enjoys in the House of Commons will allow them to railroad through their policies in that arena without too many problems. However, a lack of broader, entrenched public support for Starmer’s governing project will lead to problems beyond the narrow halls of Westminster.
Starmer’s own criticisms of the Conservatives acknowledge this. A particular point of focus for Starmer has been the discontent, division and strife which have characterised the Conservatives’ 14 years in office. Austerity, Brexit, the ramping up of “culture war” politics and more recently Britain’s support for Israel’s war in Gaza have also generated significant protest and civilian unrest. Meanwhile, Conservative economic policy has generated ever greater levels of strikes and industrial unrest as their 14-year reign has unfolded. All of this has made governing much more difficult in different ways and speaks to the prevailing sense that British democracy is broken and failing to meet the needs and reflect the views of citizens.
Starmer has promised to end this division and discontent. In his first address as Prime Minister he invited the British people to join in this mission of national renewal and promised to govern in the interests of all citizens. Starmer has therefore sought to offer a governing programme that citizens can unify around. However, Starmer and his allies have also been at pains to point out the difficult context in which Labour is entering office: a plethora of pressing yet thorny issues need to be addressed, and Labour has committed to addressing these whilst sticking to a straightjacketing set of fiscal restraints. Walking this tightrope successfully requires public patience with Starmer’s government and public confidence that in the long term Starmer does have answers to the issues they care about.
Here the problem of the sandcastle majority becomes clear. Whilst the number of votes won is not a perfect barometer of a party’s popular support given that some votes are cast tactically, it gives a flavour of the general levels of enthusiasm parties enjoy. That Labour’s landslide in terms of seats so outstripped actual levels of support for Labour among voters indicates that enthusiasm for a Starmer government is far less widespread than their working majority in the Commons suggests.
Polling conducted by YouGov further illustrates this. For nearly half of Labour voters, their main reason for voting Labour was to ‘get the Tories out’, and for another 13% because the ‘country needs a change’. By contrast, only 5% of Labour voters voted Labour because they ‘agree with their policies’ and only 1% because of Keir Starmer’s leadership. Public uncertainty also prevails regarding what a Starmer government actually stand for or will do in office. Only one in three Britons say ‘they have a broad idea of what Keir Starmer stands for’ and ‘only 9% feel like they are very clear on what he stands for’.
Much of Labour’s support in the general election, it appears, ultimately rested on a desire to get the Conservatives out of office. Thus, this base of support may well dissipate given that this objective has now been achieved in absence of other reasons to support the party. In not generating real, entrenched popular awareness, support and enthusiasm for his project, the patience Starmer’s Labour seem to want from voters is unlikely to materialise. Furthermore, without popular legitimacy for their policies, British governments have tended to govern in an authoritarian and top-down style, which further fuels dissent and discontent.
An early decline in Labour’s popularity and significant public discontent as they continue with fiscal restraint is therefore the real risk wrought by Labour’s sandcastle majority. This risk feels all too likely to manifest itself given Labour’s unwillingness to be bolder and build popular support for a clear political project and vision.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Birmingham.