Led by Prime Minister Anthony Blair, the Labour Party secured a clear victory, capturing 40.8 percent of the vote and 413 seats in parliament. The Conservative Party gained 31.8 percent of the vote and 166 seats and the Liberal Democrats garnered 18.3 percent of the vote and 52 seats. The result means the makeup of the parliament remains much as it was from the previous election in 1997.

The election in Scotland and Northern Ireland highlighted the further fracturing of the United Kingdom (UK). In Northern Ireland, Sinn Fein doubled its seats in parliament to four, outpolling the bourgeois nationalist Social Democratic Labour Party. At the same time the Ulster Unionist Party, the key ally of London in maintaining British rule, lost ground to the ultrarightist Democratic Unionist Party (see article above).

The growing nationalist sentiment in Scotland was marked less in the outcome of the vote than by the fact that each of the bourgeois parties produced a separate manifesto and campaigned on behalf of Scotland. As well, parties changed their names, with Labour calling itself Scottish Labour, for example.

The resistance of working people to the employer and government offensive also burst through the election campaign period, unlike 1997, signaling what lies ahead for the Labour government. A strike by postal workers that started May 23 grew over a week to involve 15,000 union members. The action was in response to moves to change working conditions as part of the preparations by the postal service to turn part of its operations over to private capitalist companies. The Daily Mail complained the strikes "recall the dark days of militancy in the old-style public services."

Two days before the election hundreds of Asian youth built barricades and repelled police assaults in the Harehills district of Leeds after cops had sprayed CS gas in the eyes of an Asian man. This mobilization followed one of 500 Asian youth in the streets of Oldham May 26 aimed at defending their communities against attacks by racists and the police.  
 
Low turnout
There was little celebration of the Labour victory by working people, unlike in 1997. Most of Britain's trade unions are affiliated to and support the Labour Party and its election victory in 1997 marked the end of 18 years of Conservative party rule. This year many working people did not vote, putting the 59 percent turnout as the lowest since 1918. Turnout in the predominantly working-class area of Liverpool Riverside dropped to 34 percent of eligible voters and the big-business press estimated that less than one-third of 18- to 25-year-olds cast a ballot. In many areas the Liberal Democrats, a smaller capitalist party, were able to increase their vote from youth and working people by pitching their campaign as one that was to the left of Labour.

The inability of the Conservative Party to make any significant gains against Labour reflects the shift marked in 1997 as working people began to seek ways to put years of assault under the Conservatives behind them. Former Conservative prime minister Margaret Thatcher featured prominently as both a speaker for her party's campaign and in Labour's campaign material, which appealed for votes in order to avert a return to the Thatcher years.

"The Conservative Party was extreme and prejudiced on social issues--asylum, homosexuality, the family," wrote Alice Miles in the June 6 Times, noting another aspect to their inability to reverse their electoral decline this time around.

Nick White, a former Vauxhall car worker who had been transferred to another General Motors company after an unsuccessful fight against job cuts, explained that while he didn't vote he hoped the Conservatives "will be out for many years to come."

The Labour government is "making it harder for working people, but the Conservatives only care about the rich--they look after their own," said car worker Andy McLoughlin, who voted Labour. The decline of the Conservative Party could also be seen in the wide backing given Labour by the big-business media, including for the first time by the Times and the Economist magazine.

Editors for the Economist wrote they advocated a vote for Labour, even though "our instincts remain closer to [Conservative Party leader] William Hague's," because Blair "hints that he favours real structural reform in health, education, and welfare, including greater use of private provision." It also cautions that to do this Blair would have to change. "A timid Blair has dominated the first term," the editors pointed out. The Times also warned Blair that in his plans to reform the public services he "may find himself the victim of unaccustomed unpopularity; it will take all the steel he possesses to stick with the course he believes to be right."

Despite some serious assaults on health and education provisions, the last four years of the Labour government have fallen well short of the capitalist class's need to cut into the social wage. Between 1999 and 2000 the UK was the only major imperialist country that failed to reduce public spending as a proportion of its gross domestic product (GDP). Currently the UK spends 40 percent of its GDP on public services compared to 30 percent in the United States.

The Blair administration says it aims to step up this assault through attacks on health care, education, and welfare. "Teachers, doctors, nurses...will be affected. Their unions are bound to resist," warned Mary Ann Seighart in an opinion column in the Times.

Since the election, Labour leaders have signaled their intention to accelerate their anti-immigrant attacks. New Home Secretary David Blunkett said the government will aim to increase the number of deportations of people seeking asylum from 8,900 last year to 30,000 by next March.

The shift to the right by the capitalist parties gave the fascist British National Party (BNP) some wind in its sails. In Oldham, where the cops initiated attacks on Asian areas, the rightist outfit polled 16 percent of the vote, its highest in a parliamentary election. The BNP called for "Belfast style segregation" of the town.

Uncertainty over London's stance toward the European currency came to the fore immediately after the election. The Financial Times said the most important task facing Labour is "Britain's entry into the eurozone." The Times warned Blair that to do this would "open a war on a second front" at home and recommended he focus on the "reforms to the public services, the professions, and the welfare and criminal justice systems." The differing views of these two leading pro-business papers reflect the divisions and uncertainty that wracks Britain's rulers in response to their declining influence in the world.

Pete Clifford is a member of the Transport and General Workers' Union.
 
 
Related article:
Sinn Fein gains in N. Ireland elections  
 
 
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