Draft:2024 United Kingdom general election

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The 2024 United Kingdom General Election is a currently incoming shitshow of clownery that is due to begin on July 4th 2024, when it was called on May 22nd by Rishi Sunak who presumably got bored and realised that no one was going to vote for him anyway. The actual impetus for this was, supposedly, inflation figures being good - although they were in fact worse than expected, meaning that there is a widespread presumption that something much worse is coming down the pipe and Sunak doesn't want to be around for it. Yay!

After Boris Johnson and the Conservative Party were elected in 2019 based on their yearly manifesto of being complete idiots, what followed would be the most embarrassing 4 years in power the Conservatives would ever have, starting with professional crackhead and former Have I Got News For You funnyman, Boris Johnson being exposed for unsurprisingly, being comically evil and incompetent, and being booted out, Liz Truss being exposed for being comically evil and incompetent and being booted out, and Rishi Sunak in the midst of proving a break with the past by being comically evil, incompetent and incredibly transphobic. With the economy currently firmly in the shitter and far right political thought on the rise, it seems the only person who's won is the cardboard cutout that is Keir Starmer, with a widespread presumption that Labour are going to be returned to office with a stinking great majority on the order of Tony Blair's 1997 victory.

Background

The last episode saw the Conservatives come into power with a 39 seat majority, which might not seem impressive but considering they had just spent 2 years arguing over the best way to effectively fuck over the economy and the poor in one fell swoop, it was better than Boris Johnson could have hoped for. Unfortunately for Johnson being a professional punching bag is quite easy: Governing the country it turns out is quite a lot harder, and the Conservatives would see a number of scandals, culminating in the 2022 UK Mini Budget proposed by the masterful economic genius that is Liz Truss, that unfortunately blew a hole in the economy, and even worse ruined any chances of the Conservatives winning relection. After Corbyns resignation for actually having some morals, he was subsequently replaced by the blander, Keir Starmer, who then proceeded to overturn all the promises he made to win the election, and luckily for him, despite actively swimming against the current is likely to win a huge majority by polling.

As this is a current event, I suggest that other folks add the events of the election campaign here. Once it is over, I will review it and turn it into something worthy of Mainspace. KarmaPolice (talk) 16:21, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

The Main Parties

See the main article on this topic: Political parties of the United Kingdom

The Conservative Party

See the main article on this topic: Conservative Party (UK)

After first being elected with a huge majority in 2019, the Tories subsequently lurched through a pandemic, numerous scandals, three separate Prime Ministers and complete economic chaos to fall to the sort of polling that makes Jeremy Corbyn look like an electoral wizard, with the consequence that they are widely expected to be wiped out. The majority official opinion on this is lol rofl lmao

Rishi Sunak Age: 44 Sitting Prime Minister, Leader of the Conservative Party, MP for Richmond (Yorks)

Advantages: ...they aren't Reform?

Disadvantages: Much was said about how exhausted Labour was in 2010 after thirteen years of majority government, but the Tories are beyond exhausted and have no clear policy platform beyond being a bit more brutal to refugees and basically hoping that everything turns out alright in the end. Usually, the Tories would run on economic competence, low taxes and crime. The problem is that they've put taxes up and their brief dalliance with Randian insanity spooked the markets enough to make the economy shit the bed, something they've never quite lived down. Meanwhile, that austerity thing they did, plus the rampant social issues it caused, has sent crime stratospheric while leaving prisons too full to house any more criminals; that is, if there are even police around to catch them or investigate any crimes. So, those three are out. In fact, as of April 2024, there is no area of public policy left on which Labour are not more trusted than the Tories. Their final cash cow, which is the Conservative's remarkable strategy of blaming the immigrants for everything, thanks to the embarassing mess of the Rwanda Scheme is also a no go. Put simply, they have no coherent ideas to solve any of the social and economic problems they precipitated, and so are left throwing transparent red meat to Daily Express readers and the extremely thick. Banging on about net zero, promising to bring back national service, shouting about immigration... it's desperate stuff when most people are worried about the economy, the health service and rivers full of very literal shit. Having stripped the nation's coffer's bare over the past decade and a half, and reduced public service funding below the point even of bare sufficiency, Sunak's Conservatives are intent on making the state even smaller and reducing its tax revenue further. A further Tory government is likely to be an existential threat to whatever public services remain after over a decade of being hollowed out by Cameron and his successors. Sunak is a dismal campaigner and historically unpopular, with ratings figures that match or surpass those of Jeremy Corbyn, who if you need reminding lost horribly. Gaffe-prone doesn't quite cover it - he's very obviously a distant posh boy, and seemingly incapable of making himself appear warm, in touch with people or even living in the same world as most of the electorate. In the past he's done such bizarre things as being unable to pay for something with a contactless bank card and borrowing someone else’s car to fill with petrol because his looked too obviously rich. Starmer might be wooden, but he at least has an authentic life story to tell - Sunak looks, sounds and acts like the rich twerp he is. It doesn't help the Tories seem to have a strange fetish for shooting themselves in the foot by consistently supporting policies either the general public don't care about, or are incredibly unpopular with anyone who isn't a 75 year old racist from Somerset. It’s very debatable as to how much Sunak even ‘’wants’’ the job at this point - he transparently does not really believe or care about half the shit he's saying, and his own MPs are all kinds of pissed off at him that he even went for an election. Either he knows something is coming down the pipe that he doesn't want to be in office for, or he simply wants out of a job where everyone hates him so he can bugger off to his second home in California. You choose. Of course, it would be remiss to ignore that Sunak has no major legislative achievements since coming into power, with anything that might have been reasonably deemed a "legacy" for him now discarded outright or unlikely to happen due to the early election, including a phased ban on tobacco smoking, reforms of the private rental sector and the Rwanda policy, which even he doesn't seem to really want in his heart. Pretty much anything that has happened has happened in spite of him - and it's telling that in his speech that called the election, the one thing he was able to call out was the COVID-era furlough scheme - something that happened when he was not actually Prime Minister, and that more to the point was an idea he stole from Labour. They have no real ideas left, and what ideas they do have are laser-focused at the stupidest people you know. They're well aware they're heading for obliteration and acting accordingly: Either they get the hung parliament they're desperately looking for or die trying. In short, if the Tories win it will be a shock victory to say the least and an unmitigated disaster in terms of governance.

Labour Party

See the main article on this topic: Labour Party

The presumptive winners, having turned it around drastically from their worst results in the modern era to somewhere between fifteen and twenty points ahead of the Tories, depending on which polls you look at. Examining the current Labour Party under Starmer solely in comparison to the Tories is practically night and day, although you could reasonably argue this is only due to the incredible amounts of incompetency the Conservatives are currently demonstrating.

Keir Starmer Age: 62 Leader of the Opposition, Leader of the Labour Party, MP for Holborn and St Pancras

Advantages: Whatever you think about him or his predecessor, or the means he's used since becoming leader - it's hard to argue with the facts - Starmer took Labour from a historic defeat to the next election being his race to lose. That's an unprecedented swing over the course of a single Parliament, and while you can easily credit this to events a lot more than the man personally, it's tough to argue he's played no part at all. What policy Labour has outlined since the campaign has started has been.... fine - in particular, Labour's plans for workers rights, even in the watered down state they're in, would be a marked improvement over the current position. The devil, of course, is in the detail - but we will wait to assess the manifesto. Other policies such as votes for 16 year olds, and Starmers stance on privatisation are reasonable enough, although....

Disadvantages: Despite being the presumptive winner, Starmer is not particularly well-liked - more liked than Sunak, but not really by much, and almost as gawky and wooden. As a result, he's quite vulnerable to attacks on his character. He doesn't have Corbyn's airport-sized collection of baggage, but he's got a serious trust deficit. He barely even pretends any more that he didn't secure his position as Labour leader on the back of pledges that he's discarded whenever it's expedient, and one of the few consistent Tory attack lines that make any sense is that he is quite clearly capable of lying to secure an elected office, so why would he not be lying now? Time will tell how that lands. At a time when the economic fragility of the UK is on full display, (Laymans term: The economy is down the shitter) its blatantly obvious to anyone who has been paying even the slightest bit of attention over the past 14 years, that it is almost entirely the fault of the Tories continuous support for austerity, lack of funding for levelling up, and despite what Sunak is desperately trying to convince voters that no he is definitely not doing, the same trickle down economic bullshit and neoliberalism that almost always ends up benefiting a shadowy cartoon villain at the top of the rung rather than the people who y'know... might NEED the help. And in the face of all of this Starmer has taken a bold, and welcome step by promising..... a continuation of austerity, and neo-liberal capitalist policies. Labour's current schtick of Blairism mixed with Centrist and Third Way policies might have worked in 1997, but its simply not good enough in 2024, at a time when Corbyn despite his enormous amounts of unholy baggage, might have been needed, and it demonstrates again the complete lack of policy direction Starmer and Labour have, which seems to essentially boil down to 'At least we're not the Conservatives'. Essentially, the 4th of July will likely see a Labour majority beyond Starmers wildest dreams but whether it will lead to any actual change would require you to trust a man who has consistently shown himself incapable of sticking to even the most basic of promises, has lost what little favour he has with the Left and progressives of his party in a vain attempt to win votes when he doesn't need to, and constantly shoves minorities under the bus as a part of a misguided attempt to be more 'electable', ignoring the fact Labour could likely promise to order an immediate nuclear strike on Iran in their manifesto and still win over 500 seats at this point. His positions on some matters are baldly regressive, and he seems to take a perverse pride in winding up his party's activist base. His position on Israel's war in Gaza was equivocal even as the country bombed it flat, and he has consistently ramped up transphobic rhetoric in his time as leader. In fact his position on Trans rights is only marginally better than Sunak solely because he had the decency to not mock a dead girls identity while her mother was in the chamber. In general, he has adopted a position of not really wanting to rock the boat too much, which is rather at odds with the general mood for - and his outward positioning as - supporting change. His Shadow Cabinet includes such wonders as Rachel Reeves, who has a markedly Osbornite approach to public spending, while his shadow health secretary Wes Streeting has received ample donations from private health firms, while also promising to expand private involvement in the NHS. There's fair reason to worry about the trajectory of a Starmer government if you're not a fan of the approach of David Cameron to governance circa 2012.

Scottish National Party

See the main article on this topic: Scottish National Party

Liberal Democrats

See the main article on this topic: Liberal Democrats

Small Parties (Little to no MPs)

Workers Party of Great Britain (Or Galloways Grift Club)

See the main article on this topic: George Galloway

UKIP 3 THE RACISTS RETURN

See the main article on this topic: Reform UK

Yep they're still here

After unceremoniously getting their arses handed to them in 2019, and their only incredibly pathetic policy finally being over and done with, that is Brexit, Richard Tice rebranded the party into a right wing populist mess, their biggest accomplishment so far being polling 10-14% despite blatantly being the ANTICHRIST. Arguably they're the reason Sunak is sweating uncomfortably in No. 10 and desperately trying to appeal to the idiot voter group Tice has so effectively managed to manipulate. Thankfully for all of fucking humanity, Nigel Farage has declined to stand again as an MP.

Nigel Farage Age: 60 The actual leader is Richard Tice (need decent image)

Advantages: As usual, they have a precisely nil chance of ever fucking winning, but their unwanted rise in polls means they'll do a good job of splitting the right wing vote, practically ensuring that Rishi Sunak and his cronies will have to retire early. IF for some completely asinine reason, you want a government that does not give a flying fuck about you in the slightest..... they're probably not even the best men for THAT job. (see transphobia, homophobia, their stance on Abortion, etc etc....)

Disadvantages: Reform UK is a coalition of racists, bigots, imbeciles, and the most insufferable people on the planet who seem to be the penultimate proof that divine punishment does exist. Their only real platform is campaigning against all that is 'woke' which essentially boils down to, 'anything we think is slightly progressive'. Oh and they also practically have identical economic parity with the Tories, Tice and Co's main difference being they want even lower taxes. Whoopee. Of course their manifesto might have something somewhat interesting to say besides banging on about how much they hate, those goddamn transgenders and migrants, but nothing they've released so far has indicated their anything but a throwaway vote for racists who are interested in reviving the legacy of a certain Austrian painter.

Democratic Unionist Party (DUP)

See the main article on this topic: Democratic Unionist Party

Sinn Féin

See the main article on this topic: Sinn Féin

Plaid Cymru

See the main article on this topic: Plaid Cymru

Green Party of England and Wales

See the main article on this topic: Green Party § The Green Party in the UK

Completely Insignificant/Even Smaller Parties (no chance)

UK Independence Party

See the main article on this topic: United Kingdom Independence Party

Official Monster Raving Loony Party

See the main article on this topic: Official Monster Raving Loony Party

22nd May

- Sunak calls General election for 4th July. Folks of a certain age might be giving a little smile; as D:ream's 'Things can only get better' is heard in the backgorund (the soundtrack for Blair's 1997 Labour landslide).

23rd May

- Farage rules out standing as an MP. Sad, I wanted to see him lose again!

- Jeremy Corbyn confirms he's running as an independent in Islington North. He's very likely to win

25th May

- Labour confirms it would lower the voting age to 16 if it won the next election

- Unsurprisingly Conservative MPs are in mass exodus and more are now stepping down than when Tony Blair had his 1997 landslide

Notes

This page will be placed in the following categories if it is moved to the article namespace.

Categories:

• British politics
• Elections
• UK general elections