An American’s guide to the 2024 UK election

4 months ago 4

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LONDON — Greetings America … from your favorite offshore missile base.

Here in Britain, your snaggle-toothed former overlords are having an election this week. And no, it doesn’t involve Princes William and Harry tussling over who takes the crown from King Charles.

And while we may not be able to offer you a memory-challenged octogenarian duking it out with a perma-tanned convicted felon, Britain’s big vote is still an important moment.

Despite the two bloodless technocrats we have running for high office, this is looking like a game-changing election that could sweep the Conservatives away after 14 years in power and put the Labour Party back at the top.

Along the way we’ve had more twists and turns than a season of “The Crown” — and with a far uglier cast.

We’re even having the vote on July 4, in celebration of the day we finally shed the trappings of empire.

So here’s everything you need to know about the U.K. election … shorn of the kind of sophisticated British humor that would, of course, be lost on you guys.

When, where, who, how?

Polls open at 7 a.m. Thursday U.K. time and close at 10 p.m. Rather than directly electing a president, Brits pick 650 new members of parliament — known as MPs — to represent their local area, kind of like you do for the House of Representatives. The prime minister is the dude who can command a majority in the House of Commons, the U.K. parliament’s lower chamber, by getting the most MPs elected from the party they lead.

The first results are usually in by around 11:30 p.m. U.K. time, with a big rush of results between 3 a.m. and 5 a.m Friday morning. Around this point, the losing party leader usually concedes.

But but but … the winner doesn’t officially become PM until they’ve kissed hands with the king. Yes, really. Britain gonna Britain, right?

So the winner is expected to head to Buckingham Palace Friday morning to see King Charles and tell him they are confident they can form a new government. Then they’ll go on to No. 10 Downing Street, for decades the official residence of Britain’s premiers.

Which means that unlike in the States — where you have that whole post-election ‘transition’ thing — a defeated prime minister loses their home, as well as their job, overnight. There will literally be removal vans at the ready come Friday morning. Life sure is tough at the top.

Sorry — didn’t Britain just have like 12 elections?

Not quite … but boy have we cycled through prime ministers of late.

In short, the 2016 Brexit referendum kicked off a wild time in British politics. The governing Conservative Party, also known as the Tories, has not been able to stop knifing its leaders ever since, in the largely futile hopes of a better one eventually coming along.

Theresa May couldn’t get Brexit done and was swiftly shown the door. A botched handling of the Covid-19 pandemic — and a host of damaging scandals — did it in for Boris Johnson’s administration two years ago. He was followed by Tory grassroots favorite Liz Truss, whose tax-slashing, debt-fueled administration imploded within weeks and put Conservative poll ratings into freefall.

Her old rival, Rishi Sunak, stepped up to the plate in October 2022 and has been PM ever since, locked on a seemingly doomed quest to turn the Tory ship around and get the economy firing again. It’s not gone brilliantly, and pretty much everyone, including most of his own MPs, were shocked when he called a snap election.

Wait, what? Your leaders can call an election when they feel like it?

Yep. Well, kinda. There’s a five-year time limit on any administration.

But, within that period, a prime minister can call an election whenever they like — even just for fun! Or more aptly, at the exact moment it will most favor them and their party, and most screw up the opposition.

Again, they do this by having a chat with the king. That’s a very normal thing to do and monarchy is actually the best form of government. Your little American revolution was an act of folly.

God save the king! Tell me more about this Rishi Sunak guy.

That’s President Rashee Sanook to you.

Sunak, the 44-year-old incumbent prime minister, is quite short and very rich. He’s married to an Indian IT heiress, and the couple is, combined, wealthier than King Charles III.

Sunak first rose to national prominence as top finance minister during the pandemic, when he sprung up a massive Covid-19 scheme to avert economic disaster by paying Brits’ wages while they sheltered at home. He quit Boris Johnson’s scandal-hit government in 2022, a move that dealt Johnson a mortal blow and triggered a Tory leadership race.

He lost that battle to Truss … but took over when she imploded after just a few weeks.

So who’s the Labour guy?

Keir Starmer. This guy has had the same haircut for about 30 years and never stops talking about his dad’s job as a toolmaker.

He’s 61 years old, is pretty buttoned-up, and used to be Britain’s top public prosecutor. He served under hard-left leader Jeremy Corbyn, who took the party to its crushing 2019 defeat, but now insists he always knew the guy was a dud and that he’s changed Labour for good.

His party certainly has a commanding lead in the polls, apparently putting it on course for a landslide win. He’s dragged Labour to the perceived center ground on a host of issues including immigration, economic competence and running public services. He even booted Corbyn out of the party to show he really means it.

How’s the campaign going?

It’s been … fun. We guess?

Neither party seems to be really addressing any of the big issues bedeviling Britain, including mounting debt, crumbling public services, and a stagnant economy.

Labour insists it’s got a big plan to turbo-charge growth by spending a bit of money and doing things a bit more competently. The Conservatives say massive Labour tax hikes are coming. It’s all a little vague, to say the least.

The campaign has been most notable so far, though, for some spectacular own goals from Sunak’s Conservatives.

UK NATIONAL PARLIAMENT ELECTION POLL OF POLLS

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For more polling data from across Europe visit POLITICO Poll of Polls.

Sunak managed to — and we’re promising we didn’t just make this up — offend the entire country by leaving a somber commemoration with World War II D-Day veterans early to … do a TV interview. He later apologized for insulting war heroes, so at least he’s got that over Donald Trump.

Never to be outdone in the drama stakes, Sunak’s own party then caused him a massive headache when it emerged that Conservative insiders had placed suspicious-looking bets on the timing of the election date just days before it was called.

Sorry, what?!

Yes. The Tories had to drop their backing for two of their own candidates after Britain’s gambling regulator started probing suspicious bets laid with bookmakers in the run-up to Sunak calling the vote. Sunak’s police bodyguard was suspended and arrested over the row, too.

By contrast, Labour has been dull to fault. A week-long row about left-wing candidates being replaced with young, centrist Starmer loyalists faded pretty quickly, and the trickiest moments for the Labour leader have come from repeated questioning over his tax plans and past backing for Corbyn.

There’s also a lingering sense that voters aren’t exactly sold on Starmer himself and are more interested in punishing the Tories after 14 years in power.

That’s a dynamic Nigel Farage hopes to seize on as he tries to eclipse the Tories on the right.

Him again?

Yep. Donald Trump’s mate — and arguably the most effective force in British politics for decades — ain’t going anywhere.

Farage has never been a member of parliament, instead leading highly effective campaigning forces from the outside that have made the Conservatives squirm on migration and Europe.

But this time he’s a central player. The Brexiteer rabble-rouser initially insisted he was going to sit this election out, but decided to go all-in with a headline grabbling U-turn that put rocket boosters under the whole campaign.

Farage is running for a seat in parliament, which he looks set to win. He has taken over the leadership of Reform UK, a right-wing challenger party which, in some polls, is outpacing the centuries-old Conservatives.

So could Britain wake up to prime minister Farage on July 5?

Nah. Reform currently has just one MP. Polls predict its number of MPs after the election will still be in the single figures or low teens.

But there is a chance Reform actually gets a higher national vote share than the Conservatives and costs it a host of seats across the country by splitting the vote on the right.

That will hand Starmer an even bigger majority and could have major repercussions for any post-election Tory leadership contest, assuming Sunak resigns — and could even put Farage on a path to becoming the leader of the opposition within a decade.

Anything else we need to know before we get back to our real country?

Yes! The two guys vying for office here are watching the U.S. election closely, too.

Starmer is a social democrat and will be cheering Biden on in November if Labour wins. But his party has been forging links with Donald Trump’s team and key Republicans just in case.

Even Starmer’s foreign policy chief, David Lammy — who once called Trump a “neo-Nazi-sympathizing sociopath” — is sounding much warmer about the Republican firebrand now.

Brits cosying up to the Americans for influence? Surely not?

Look we just want to be you, OK? Is that a crime? Your teeth are better and you don’t put washing machines in the kitchen.

Even our prime minister is in on the act.

The Tory leader has been fawning over U.S. tech execs in office, and already owns a swanky house in California — so don’t be surprised if he crops up in Silicon Valley after an election defeat. Lucky you!

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