Ed Miliband resigns as Labour leader after party’s defeat in British election

After a dramatic 24 hours that saw the pre-elections predictions of pollsters upended, Britain’s Conservative Party will form the next government, as it won a parliamentary majority in Thursday’s election. The leaders of three parties, including the Labour Party, resigned as their electoral hopes deeply disappointed, and the Scottish National Party emerged as a new major parliamentary force.

When the exit poll was published just after polling stations had closed at 10 pm on Thursday, giving a clear lead to the Conservatives, it was greeted with shock and denial by many senior political figures, after polls had consistently put the two main parties neck and neck at just over 30 percent for several weeks. But by early Friday morning local time, it became clear that the picture was indeed accurate, and in the early afternoon, the Conservatives crossed the 326 parliamentary seat threshold they needed in the 650-seat Westminster parliament.

By 3pm local time, Labour had just 232 seats to the Conservative’s 330. Some of Labour’s most prominent figures had lost their parliamentary seat, including shadow chancellor of the exchequer Ed Balls. Announcing his resignation, Labour leader Ed Miliband said he took “absolute and total responsibility” for the result and that it was time for a new person to take the party forward in a “new and honest debate” on its future direction.

But the biggest casualty of the day was the Conservatives’ former coalition partner, the Liberal Democrat Party, who saw their seat tally fall from 56 to 8, and prominent figures including Vincent Cable, the Business minister who took a prominent role in trade relations with India, lose their seat. Though party leader Nick Clegg clung onto his parliamentary majority, he stepped down as leader after what he described as a result “immeasurably more uncrushing and unkind” than he could have feared.

Nigel Farage, the leader of the Eurosceptic, anti-immigration party UKIP, also stepped down after failing to win his parliamentary seat, and his party won in just one constituency. The biggest victors were the Scottish National Party who won all but three of the 59 seats in Scotland, toppling even massive Labour majorities in places such as Glasgow – an increase of 50 seats.

The Conservative win will be seen as an endorsement of their pro-austerity agenda – the party’s manifesto commits them to over £30 billion of further spending cuts, including £12 billion pounds from the social security budget. In the run up to the election, according to the Institute of Fiscal Studies, the gap between Conservative and Labour party fiscal policy had never been as wide since 1992, with Labour willing to continue borrowing to cover investment spending, and Conservatives ruling out this option entirely.

However, the market and currency rally that followed predictions of a Conservative victory can be attributed to factors beyond fiscal policy, says Christian Schulz of Berenberg Bank in London, who argues that the Conservative’s policies in favour of a low-tax regime and, flexible labour and housing market contributed greatly to Britain’s economic recovery, and the creation of over 2 million jobs over the past five years.

However, Schulz adds a note of caution. The Conservative government will command a smaller parliamentary majority than it did in coalition with the Liberal Democrats – which had a moderating impact on government policies both towards Europe and austerity. The current configuration could give a greater role to Eurosceptic backbenchers within the Conservative Party – a matter of particular significance given that the Conservatives have pledged to hold a referendum on EU membership before 2017.

Among other challenges facing the new government will be tackling the current staffing and financial crisis at the NHS, as well as an increase in poverty: according to one report published at the end of April by the New Policy Institute in the past two years alone the number of people in poverty has increased by 800,000 to 14 million, while charities have pointed to a sharp rise in homelessness.

COMMENT NOW