2021 UK Election

On the 6th of May 2021, the United Kingdom held a local and regional election including the Welsh and Scottish Parliamentary election, and the English local council election. Mayoral, and police and crime commissioner were also on the table in this Super Thursday election for the UK. With this Super Thursday being the first ever election since the 2019 general election which gave the Conservatives majority in the House of Commons, it was going to be the first major election for the Leader of the Labour Party Keir Starmer. The results were grim for Keir Starmer as his Labour Party lost in the by-election in Hartlepool, and the current English council results put the Conservatives at 290 while the Labour sits at 247. While the Conservatives are projected to seat the most candidates in their English local council, the Scottish assembly gave the Scottish National Party one seat short of the majority with 64 seats. The Conservatives came in second in the Scottish Assembly with 31 seats, the Labour with 22 seats, Green with 8 seats, and the Liberal Democrats with 4 seats. In the Welsh assembly, the Labour Party won one seat over the majority of 31 seats with the Conservatives at 16 seats, Plaid Cymru at 13 seats, and the Liberal Democrat taking home 1 seat. Not all results were discouraging for the Labour Party as the result of the London assembly and the Mayoral elections were in their favor. With 25 London assembly seats up for grabs, the Labour Party managed to seat 11, while the Conservatives took 9 seats, 3 seats for Greens, and 2 for the Liberal Democrats. Out of the 13 mayoral elections in England, the Labour Party won 10 out of 12 elections with one correctly awaiting result. In this highly anticipated mayoral election, the London mayoral election went on to become national news given the record number of 20 candidates running for mayor. The major candidates in the London mayoral election were the Labour incumbent Sadiq Khan, Conservative candidate Shaun Bailey, Green candidate Sian Berry, Liberal Democrat candidate Luisa Porritt, independent candidate and Youtuber Niko Omilana, and Reclaim candidate and musician Laurence Fox. As most of the polls predicted, Labour Party candidate and the incumbent London Mayor Sadiq Khan took the victory and he now continues his post for another 4 years. Given the results of the election, Labour Leader Keir Starmer commented on his determination to change his party’s operation and further connect with the voters, “I’m bitterly disappointed in the results and I take full responsibility for the results, and I will take full responsibility for fixing things.” Keir Starmer went on to provide an explanation for their loss as being due the party not being able to relay their messages to the people, “We have changed as a party, but we haven’t set out a strong enough case to the country. Very often we’ve been talking to ourselves instead of to the country, and we’ve lost the trust of working people – particularly in places like Hartlepool. I intend to do whatever is necessary to fix that.” Over the weekend, Keir Starmer fired the Labour chair Angela Rainer over the poor election performance. While the Labour Party could blame the Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s vaccine rollout as being the reason for their poor performance, the future is grim and will continue to be grim without a massive shift in the voting block in their favor.