The UK results are in. The pollsters could
not have been more wrong. The expected result was a close vote and a hung
parliament. Instead, Labour and the Liberal Democrats got pounded. Here are
the Final Tallies from the Guardian.
In a surge of nationalism that will likely lead to a call for another
independence referendum, the Scotland National Party (SNP) won 56 seats of 59
seats.
Nigel Farage did not win his seat, but he will be around. So will UKIP. It
appears UKIP did not take votes from the conservatives, but rather its
anti-immigration platform took votes from Labour.
Major Outs
- Ed Milliband - Labor Leader - Resigned
- Nick Clegg - Liberal Democrat Party Leader and Deputy
Prime Minister - Resigned
- Ed Balls - Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, Labour -
Not Reelected
- Jim Murphy - Scottish Labour Leader - Not Reelected
- Douglas Alexander - Labour Campaign Manager - Not
Reelected
- Vince Cable, Liberal Democrat Business Secretary - Not
Reelected
- Danny Alexander, Liberal Democrat Treasury Chief
Secretary - Not Reelected
- Liberal Democrats - Lost 49 of their 57 Seats
Wow
How could the polls have been so wrong?
Clean Sweep Masks Huge Rifts
The Financial Times reports David Cameron Sweeps to Victory in UK Election.
David Cameron, UK prime minister, has swept back into
Downing Street after a dramatic election victory, winning an outright
majority for his centre-right Conservative party.
Britain faces an unprecedented strain after triumph for leftwing Scottish
nationalists who won all but a handful of Scotland’s seats, becoming the
third-largest party in Westminster just eight months after losing an
independence referendum.
The election result also sets the stage for a bruising fight over Britain’s
membership of the 28-member EU. Mr Cameron has promised to hold a referendum
on continued EU membership and wants to win back more control over some
issues from Brussels.
Meanwhile, Mr Miliband told supporters he was stepping down because the
Labour party needed an “open and honest debate about the right way forward”.
The centre-left party won 232 seats in a crushing defeat for Mr Miliband,
whose campaign to make Britain more equal failed to capture the nation’s
imagination.
Mr Clegg, who served as deputy prime minister in the coalition, stepped down
as Lib Dem leader after his party suffered devastating losses across the
country with the number of seats plunging from 57 to eight.
He said the results were “immeasurably more crushing and unkind than I can
ever have feared”.
Nigel Farage, the charismatic leader of the UK Independence party, quit after
failing to win the South Thanet seat, despite the anti-EU party becoming the
third-biggest in terms of national support. It won just one seat under Britain’s
first-past-the-post voting system.
The Scottish National party won 56 of Scotland’s 59 seats, up from six in the
last election in 2010, sweeping senior Labour figures from office in the
party’s traditional heartland and setting the stage for a deeply divided
parliament.
“The Scottish lion has roared this morning across the country,” said Alex
Salmond, the party’s former leader, who won the seat he was contesting and
said it was “inconceivable” for any Westminster government to ignore the
united voice of Scotland.
Despite losing the Scottish independence referendum by 55-45 per cent last
year, the SNP surge at this election could lead to further demands for a more
federal settlement in the UK and add to pressure for a second referendum.
Milliband Resigns
The Guardian reports Ed Miliband Resigns as Labour Leader
A devastated Ed Miliband has resigned as leader of the
Labour party, saying he is truly sorry for the scale of the party’s crushing
defeat.
In an emotional speech, Miliband said it was time for someone else to take
over as leader, but called on the party to keep fighting, rather than give in
to despair.
“I take absolute and total responsibility for our defeat. I am so sorry for
all of those colleagues who lost their seats,” he said on Friday.
Ending on a defiant note, he said: “This party has come back before and will
come back again.”
Miliband’s close staff are said to be deeply upset, struggling with the
disappointment made deeper by opinion polls that led them to believe they had
blocked Cameron from beating a clear path back to Downing Street. Miliband
described the result as very difficult and disappointing, adding that the
party in Scotland had been overwhelmed by a surge of nationalism.
Some union leaders will be questioning whether they should break from the
party, or at least demand major changes on electoral reform, Europe and
immigration. Labour will be concerned over signs that Ukip is establishing a
secure foothold in the north of England and Wales.
In many respects Miliband had presented the agenda the unions wanted on
issues such as workers’ rights, tax and regulation of markets. But some union
leaders will argue that the party’s problems are deep-seated, dating back to
the period of New Labour, when it lost touch with its working-class base,
reflected in the surge of support for Ukip.
The former Labour cabinet minister John Reid said: “There is no point
changing the captain on the bridge if the ship is heading in the wrong
direction.” He said elections were not won or lost in a short campaign, but
over years, calling for the party to return to issues of wealth creation,
as well as wealth distribution.
Goodbye Labour
Any party that campaigns for higher taxes and wealth redistribution deserves
to get trounced. And Labour did get trounced. Liberal Democrats all but
vanished as UKIP became the third largest party with more votes than SNP.
Yet, SNP has 56 seats, Liberal Democrats 8, and UKIP one.
SNP still wants independence. And UKIP still wants out of the EU. The
"clean sweep" by the Tories masks those problems. Meanwhile,
pollsters have to be wondering "how the hell did we get this so
wrong?"
Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
