While most Americans were watching fireworks last Thursday evening, Britain was undergoing some political fireworks of its own. As predicted, the Labour Party won a large victory in the July 4 general election, with party leader Keir Starmer becoming prime minister on Friday.
For both of Britain’s major political parties — the victorious Labour and the defeated Tories — the election outcome brings challenges. In a fragmented political environment, maintaining (or, in the Tories’ case, regaining) party unity will remain a constant struggle.
Labour Lurching Leftward Again?
Paradoxically, Labour’s thumping victory could give Starmer headaches. With 412 members of parliament (MP) in the House of Commons, which only requires 326 for a majority, the new prime minister will face demands from his backbenchers to move further leftward.
Knowing full well that previous leader Jeremy Corbyn had made the party unelectable with his fiscally irresponsible promises and appeasement of antisemitism, Starmer worked hard over the past four-plus years to restore Labour to the center ground. Starmer kicked Corbyn out of the Labour Party — though he was reelected anyway last Thursday as an independent MP — and pledged no new tax rises during the coming Parliament. The new prime minister even went so far as to agree with his Labour predecessor, Tony Blair, that “biologically, a woman is with a vagina and a man is with a penis,” after saying last year that “99.9% of women” do not have a penis. (By Labour standards, acknowledging basic biology is little short of
