In July, both the United Kingdom and France held national elections. In both countries, parties representing “labour” or working class perspectives did better than expected.
In the UK, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, from the Conservative Party, lacked credibility with the public and faced growing public discontent. Much of this was fueled by extremely high prices, with inflation over 11 percent at one point, and only dropping recently. This has been one of many impacts of the British exit from the European Union, or “Brexit” as it was commonly called.
Sunak had pledged to crack down on immigration by boat to the UK, an island nation, and had largely failed. But he and his party had succeeded in attacking the rights of workers, including limiting the right to strike.
In the election held on July 4, Sunak and his party had their biggest loss in history. The Labour Party, a center-left party led by Keir Starmer, won the largest number of seats, and Starmer is now the new Prime Minister. Labour has promised stronger protections for workers and a higher minimum wage for many workers. They have also pledged to tighten rules for corporations and to provide more protections for renters. Additionally, Labour intends to gradually renationalize the passenger rail network as contracts expire with private companies.
Following the announcements of the party’s initial plans, the president of Unite the Union, Sharon Graham, said, “The forthcoming employment rights bill is key to rebalancing the relationship between employers and workers, making work fairer. As always, the details will be important. Given the sheer scale of the challenge facing the government after a decade and a half of neglect, Labour has to be ready to deliver the transformation and change that workers and communities need.”
In France, President Emmanual Macron called for parliamentary elections after his own centrist party did poorly in elections for the European Union parliament in June. In those elections the racist, anti-immigrant National Rally party (RN) far exceeded expectations. He called parliamentary elections to clarify the direction for French government policies. The French elections happen with a primary and a run-off in short succession. After the primary, it seemed likely that the RN would do well in the final vote. However, a coalition of left political parties, called the New Popular Front (NFP), won the largest bloc of seats instead. The NFP campaigned on raising the minimum wage, lowering the retirement age to what it was before Macron’s 2023 “reforms,” lowering the voting age to 16, and investing in public services. However, the NFP did not win a full majority. Macron’s centrists hold the second-largest number of seats, and the RN came in third.
This has left the 577-seat parliament incredibly divided. In another twist to this process, the speaker of the National Assembly will remain the same centrist as it was before, despite the NFP’s larger proportion of seats. It is unclear when Macron will name a new Prime Minister, and what that person’s political affiliation will be.
Following the first round of the French elections, the LabourStart podcast interviewed Judith Kirton-Darling, the General Secretary of IndustriAll Europe, which unites the continent’s manufacturing unions. Kirton-Darling said that it’s important for unions to distinguish between people agitating around far-right themes and those who are voting for far-right candidates. Some of those voting for far-right groups are young workers entering an economy that has left little opportunity for them, as well as middle-aged workers who have been left behind by the lack of planned industrial policy in most European countries.
As the elections in both these countries showed, those who are loudly taking up space with anti-worker, protectionist ideas are not winning the most votes when people actually go to the ballot box. Kirton-Darling noted that this is an important time for unions to be reaching out to their members to make sure they understand the bad implications for working people if far-right leaders come to power.