Britain’s Labour Party is Set for a Landslide Win

But how would a new centre-left British government engage with the wider world?

Britain is now deep into the election campaign with just over two weeks remaining before voters go to the polls on the 4th of July. The opinion polls suggest that not much has changed since the outgoing Prime Minister Rishi Sunak took the surprising decision last month to ask the King to dissolve parliament and call an early summer election.  

The polls had suggested for the last few years that the election outcome would be a landslide victory for the Labour Party. The most recent polling conducted within the last seven days suggests that the Labour Party has maintained its stellar lead. They are ahead by between 17% and 27% of the vote, depending on which poll is chosen.

In reality, it was always going to be an uphill battle for the unpopular governing Conservatives to win this election. Over the last few weeks of the campaign, they have failed to make any inroads in their attempt to hold onto power after fourteen years in office, which at times seemed chaotic. With little time left and the Nigel Farage-led Reform UK party now also hot on their heels, the conservative vote is both deflated and divided. A desire for change is in the air. Unless something dramatic happens between now and polling day, it will be Sir Keir Starmer at the dispatch box in a few weeks taking Prime Minister’s Questions.

So it is now time to start thinking about what Britain’s relationship with the wider world would be like under the first centre-left Labour government since the days of Gordon Brown, which now seems like a long time ago.

I have been following the campaign with both interest and amusement. Additionally, I have also been reading through the Labour election manifesto to try to gauge how much change could be in the air in terms of Britain’s relationship with its European neighbours, the United States, and the wider world. Will it be a case of radical change or closer to the British tradition of keeping calm and carrying on?

Relations with the European Union

The first thing to note about the Labour campaign and its published manifesto (as is also the same case with the Conservatives) is the absence of a comprehensive discussion about what many commentators believe is the big elephant in the room, it is the topic that has come to define contemporary Britain: Brexit. The referendum proposed by the Conservatives that led to Britain voting to leave the European Union in 2016. A full and updated discussion about this topic is off the agenda. This is despite a persistent feeling of Bregret among the general public in recent years with numerous polls since the referendum suggesting that a majority feel it was wrong to leave the EU.

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