The tectonic plates of British politics have shifted as they do only once every couple of decades. In one parliamentary term, Labour has gone from defeated hard-left rump to landslide centre-left victor. Its breakthrough reflects, in truth, more a humiliating rebuke across the UK of the Conservatives’ 14 years in power than an enthusiastic embrace of Sir Keir Starmer’s party. But the scale of the majority it has secured under Britain’s electoral system bestows on Labour an extraordinary opportunity, and a great responsibility: to rebuild integrity in UK politics, and to demonstrate that competent, moderate government can still deliver for voters.
Labour’s 400-plus seats give it a crucial opening to sweep away years of chaotic and self-serving rule, particularly in the final Tory term under Boris Johnson and Liz Truss. A period of calm stability, of respect for convention and rule of law, of what Starmer called government “unburdened by doctrine”, could begin to unlock the investment so vital to rekindling growth. The party’s parliamentary strength gives it room to enact its programme without being in hock to its hard-left wing.