Conservative Party’s landslide Election Victory in the United Kingdom
We congratulate our member party, the Conservative and Unionist Party of the United Kingdom, for their landslide election victory on Thursday 12th December. The snap election was called by Prime Minister Boris Johnson and was the first December election in the UK since 1923. Called due to stagnation in parliament, this election was supposed to break the deadlock that has existed since 2017 and this was certainly achieved: the Conservatives have secured 365 seats, well over the 326 required for a majority in the House of Commons. This is the biggest landslide victory for the Conservative Party since Margaret Thatcher.
Most stunningly were the huge electoral gains from the so-called ‘Red Wall’, an area in the industrial north of England that has traditionally voted Labour. A number of seats won by the Conservative Party in this election have been Labour seats since those constituencies were created. In Tony Blair’s former seat, Sedgefield, where the former Prime Minister once held a majority of over 25,000, the Conservative Party beat their Labour counterparts to win the constituency with a margin of almost 5,000.
This election was previously considered impossible to predict, but the results show a very clear mandate for the Conservative Party, their Brexit plans, and their domestic agenda. The debate surrounding Brexit will likely remain fierce in Parliament, but few can now deny that the electorate has spoken clearly and decisively on this issue. Alongside Brexit, another key catalyst for this Conservative win has been increasing animosity towards Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party: in the midst of anti-Semitism allegations and a move to more and more left-wing policies, the Labour Party suffered its worst result since 1935 prompting Jeremy Corbyn to announce that he would not lead the party into the next election.
The IDU is delighted to see such success for our party in the United Kingdom. Their victory is a further example that centre-right politics offers the stability and reassurance to which people turn in times of political disruption as it provides policies of freedom, prosperity, and personal liberty. We look forward to continuing our close relationship with the Conservative Party, and we wish Prime Minister Boris Johnson the best of luck in his upcoming term.