Riots in Southport, Machete fights in Southend, attacks on immigrants’ hotel in Rotherham, fights with armed police in Manchester, children killed in Southport and knife attack on a teenager, all in a week. Welcome to Great Britain, where everything has changed and nothing has changed. There is a new Government with a massive majority. But little changes, governments come and go.
After fourteen years of power, the Conservative Party has been mauled at the elections and Labour has triumphantly taken over control with an insanely large majority. But in the adversarial culture of Britain little changes on the street, latent racism lurking in dark corners and deranged youth killing other youth with knives.
The Conservative Party of United Kingdom whose leader in 2024 as Prime Minister was Rishi Sunak, the first Indian to climb to that height, had 365 seats in Parliament, having won a landslide under Boris Johnson’s leadership in 2019. In the 2024 election it has been reduced to 121.
The Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn had 202 seats in 2019. Under new leader, Keir Starmer, it won 411 seats, an addition of 209 seats. This gives it nearly 63% of seats in Parliament and huge majority to change policy, bring in new laws and make life better for ordinary people.
There are altogether 650 seats in British Parliament. However the voter statistics tell a different story. In 2019, Boris Johnson, leading the Conservative party, won 43.6% of the popular vote with 13,966,454 votes. Jeremy Corbyn only had 32.1% of popular vote at 10,269,051 of the votes. In 2024, Labour had only 9,708,716 votes while Conservatives had 6,828,925 votes.
Democratically, this makes awkward maths. Jeremy Corbyn got more votes than the new leader Keir Starmer, but less seats at 202 while Starmer has 411! In 2019 Conservative Boris had more votes than the current Labour but had 46 seats less. Again the maths doesn’t add up.
Now let’s look at the Indian election. There are similarities. The NDA won 283,010,926 votes amounting to 44.29% of the total votes. INDIA coalition got 267,132,224 votes which amounted to 41.8% of the total votes. The NDA got 293 seats while INDIA 234. A good 59 seats for less than 2.4% gap in the overall vote!
Both countries have first past the post system of democracy with winner takes all. In fact India copied and took the system from Britain. Essentially India copied everything, with little if anything of Indian civilisation in its system of governance. The first past the post system served Great Britain well for a long time but it has now become out of date.
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Britain was more or less a single ethnic community with sub ethnicities such as Scottish, Welsh and Irish. Some of its regions claimed to have distinct ethnic character, such as Yorkshire and Cornwell, but that may be stretching the definition of ethnicity. Overall Britain was Christian, with a few Jews, and has had a single language, English, for a few hundred years.
The first past the post helped the establishment maintain its hold on the ‘democratic’ populace. Whichever party won, it had to fit into the establishment. In fact out of the few parties that make it into Westminster, all of them have to uphold tradition, Royalty and the establishment, otherwise they don’t get enough votes to reach the first past the post winning tape. Nationalist and Royalty still define a majority of the English. Without substantive seats in England, no party gets to become Government. A bit like the UP-Bihar hold on Indian politics.
But times have changed. Nearly 20% of the population is now ethnic, many with different religions, customs and languages. For many, Royals are an interesting ceremonial antiquity that adds flavour to the British. Very few can identify with the cultural fanaticism for Royalty within the English.
Together with this, many ethnic communities are unhappy with the foreign policy decisions of successive Governments. Adding to this is a growing number of White British who are now fed up with Royalty and want a republic.
Immigration is stretching resources and affecting supporters of both leading parties. Big and medium size businesses like immigration because they can hire cheap labour. The construction industry has many ‘illegal’ migrants working in the sector. As Big Business bankrolls the political parties, governments go big on rhetoric, but don’t actually do anything on issues such as immigration and housing etc. The electorate remains frustrated irrespective of the party that comes in.
There are similarities with the Big business and construction industry in India which also relies on cheap illegal immigrant labour.
Further the nature of modern issues is such that they can no longer be simply lumped in left and right. Climate change is not just a Left issue but many Tories (Conservatives) support it. Welfare is also cutting across parties. Housing is another issue that is cross party.
The current state of real British political issues is that no party can represent a block of interests that is enough to win. The parties rely on negative voting. When the electorate is fed up with the performance of a government, they vote against it, not for the other party’s manifesto. So they vote for the opposition to get rid of a bad government, only to find that a few years later, the party they voted in is also ‘bad’.
This is also what happens in India, many voted against the BJP, not necessarily for the INDIA bloc.
Such is the nature of ‘first past the post electoral system’. There is now growing call for a more sophisticated system in UK as exists in Scotland and in many European countries, called proportional representation. In this people vote for the party that most represents issues important to them and not against the party they want to keep out.
The proportional representation system could bring in a number of anti-Royalists (republicans), parties that really want a stop to immigration, parties that want positive action on climate change, parties that want housing to be sorted or parties that want big Business taxed more.
That will rattle the establishment and the big Capitalists who essentially control the media, influence the policies and treat Britain as a freeway to make large amounts of profits without investing in the country. Most of the money comes in and out of the city of London capital markets.
Hence, governments in Britain come and go but frustration continues. The streets are getting dangerous and conflicts increasing. The Government is scared to introduce higher taxes as the media moguls turn against them. Governments cannot stop immigration because the skill set isn’t there to fill the jobs from indigenous population or it is ‘expensive’. So extremism grows and grows.
Will the new Government with a whopping majority really change things. That question can be answered by Indians. Did BJP’s large majority in the last Parliament really change things for the better?
The poor remain poor in India. Those sleeping on the streets are still there generation after generation. Healthcare is still creaking. Corruption, despite BJP filled with sadhus and saints, is the one growing field. Climate related accidents are escalating with increasing number of deaths.
At the same time, just as in Great Britain, the wealth of the rich in India has increased manifold. The Ambanis and Adanis control the media and hence influence the narrative and policies. The parties are dependent on the largesse of the very rich, so they have to continue to keep taxes low, ensure policies benefit the few and overall nothing changes.
Communal conflicts during Congress party were high. They are still high during the BJP. They have simply taken different forms The poor got Ram Mandir and some a chance to beat up Muslims, while the rich climbed into the world’s rich list.
Why India with its diversity, many languages and many distinct cultures and belief systems as well as each region with its own issues chose the British first past the post system of democracy remains intriguing.
It is no wonder that both Britain and India face similar problems. Diversity of cultures and issue remain unrepresented. In both systems, the main beneficiaries are the very rich capitalists, who can manipulate both main parties and / or coalition of parties. In both, the main population remains frustrated and takes its anger on others.
There is a debate within the UK to change the system and make it more representative. It is time India too started looking at a more representative democracy. Otherwise the unrest only increases, disparity rises and governments come and governments go, without making a difference, except a few modernised roads, trains and education institutions which produce graduates with nowhere to go..
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