By Andrew Firmin, CIVICUS Editor-in-Chief, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report
The political tide has turned in the UK – and civil society will be hoping for an end to government hostility.
The 4 July general election ended 14 years of rule by the right-wing Conservative party. The centre-left Labour party has returned to power, winning 411 out of 650 parliamentary seats.
Behind the headlines, however, there’s little reason to think the UK’s spell of political volatility is over, and the impacts of the deeply polarising 2016 Brexit referendum continue to ripple through politics.
Keir Starmer has become prime minister as a result of the UK’s most disproportionate election ever. The country’s archaic electoral system means his party won around 63 per cent of seats on just 34 per cent of the vote, up only around 1.5 per cent on its 2019 share and less than when it came second in 2017.
Read on Inter Press Service News
