THE 2015 U.K. ELECTION (2)

The polls said that it would be the closest election ever, but it wasn't. The Conservatives ended up with 331 seats, giving them a majority of 12 (with 650 seats in the House of Commons, the theoretical total needed is 326; however, the Irish party Sinn Fein consistently refuse to take any seats that they win, so the practical total is lower). In doing so, they increased their total by 24, an unusual event for a governing party.

One prediction that did come true was the wipe-out of the Liberal Democrats, who were reduced from 57 seats to just 8. Their share of the popular vote fell from just over 23% to just under 8%, a truly terrible result. Indeed, the LibDems were the only major party to have a reduced share of the popular vote. Their leader Nick Clegg survived in Sheffield, but he resigned the leadership of the party anyway.

UKIP got almost 4 million votes, but just one seat. While the Scottish Nationalists got just under 1.5 million votes, but almost swept the board in Scotland, winning 56 of the 59 seats. Those two facts, combined with the fact that the Conservatives won a majority with only 36.9% of the popular vote, are likely to resurrect the issue of changing the voting system.

Labour, who had hopes of winning the Premiership, had a disastrous election. They actually won 15 seats in England from the LibDems, but that was more than outweighed by the fact of being obliterated in Scotland. For much of the past two decades, the Labour Party has been dominated by Scots, and the Scottish nationalist rebellion has left it floundering. Nor surprisingly, its inept leader Ed Milliband also resigned the leadership of his party.

That leaves David Cameron and his Conservative Party in a strong position. They can govern alone, without the irritating LibDems, they have an experienced ministerial team, and the opposition is in complete disarray. And yet, and yet. The two big issues of the coming Parliament are going to be first, the relationship between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom; with the SNP dominating politics beyond the border, there could well be pressure for a second referendum on independence. Secondly, the relationship between the U.K. and Europe, and the in/out referendum that Mr. Cameron rashly promised if he won a majority. Mr. Cameron is pro the union and pro the E.U. Keeping both would have been easier if he had not won a majority and had had to work with other parties. The irony of his famous victory is that it is now more likely that he goes down in history as the man that saw the break-up of the United Kingdom and/or the British exit from the E.U.

Walter Blotscher