In early July, the British and French went to the polls to elect new legislatures. Both elections saw a victory for the left, with the Labor Party and New Popular Front (NPF) winning in Britain and France respectively. However, these victories for the left were not defeats for the far right, as many have claimed. The results show a continuation of the far-right electoral surge in Europe.
In the UK, Reform UK, a right-wing anti-immigration party, won around 14% of the votes, the equivalent of 5 seats in the 650-seat Parliament. It also contributed heavily to the splitting of the right-wing vote in Britain as the Labor Party was able to gain 412 seats despite winning only 34% of the vote. The Conservative Party also recorded its worst defeat in history, with many of its voters switching to Reform. Reform’s lackluster seat count is due to the UK’s "first past the post" electoral system which means that the party with the highest votes wins the seat. This system implies that even though Reform came second in many seats, it ended up only winning 1st place in a handful of constituencies. The party would have won around 91 seats if the UK had proportional representation, a groundbreaking victory for a relatively new party.
The Electoral Reform Society stated that the election was “the most disproportional in British electoral history.” Reform’s election strategy also contributed to the low seat count, as they did not focus on certain marginal seats and regions. At the same time, Labor grandee Lord Mandelson told the BBC that the Labor Party’s strategy had been to maximize its chances of winning a large number of seats, which were considered gainable, rather than increasing its vote share across the country.
In France, a similar situation played out. France’s far-right National Rally (RN) party also seemingly lost the election to the NFP. The RN, however, gained 33.3% of the vote in the first round, prompting Macron’s centrist Ensemble party to work with the NFP in a “cordon sanitaire” against the RN. This meant that Ensemble and NFP candidates that came in 3rd place in the first round would withdraw from the race to stop the votes from splitting and allowing the RN to win. This strategy was successful as the NFP and Ensemble took first and second place respectively. The RN came 3rd, which was a shock result after being rather confident that it could gain the most seats in the assembly. Similar to Reform’s case in the UK, a disproportionate vote share was a factor in the loss. The RN won 37% of the votes, which is over 11 percentage points higher than the NFP. The RN also fared better than Reform in terms of seats as it increased its seats by 53, grabbing a total of 142 seats in a 577-member Parliament. The lack of unity within the NFP, which showed its cracks during the election campaign, will make forming a government even harder, possibly presenting the RN with an opportunity to enter government.
These two cases should not be taken as defeats for the far right, as they show the great popularity and political competitiveness of these movements, as shown by the large increases in vote share gained. Therefore, they still follow the trend of an emerging far-right across Europe. It could also be argued that these results allowed the far right to become an even more powerful opposition. This could be more beneficial than being in government as it allows them to maintain the populist anti-establishment rhetoric they are known for, allowing them to gain more traction by the next election. The elections show a clear and continued trend for the far right, which is reshaping European politics.
Tamer El Imad
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