Why are people saying it's a Labour landslide when Labour under Corbyn got more votes?

[Appalonia]

I think this is what's shocked me, there hasn't been a sudden swing to the Left, it's that the Conservative vote has been massively impacted by support for Reform. Ironic really, so many pp voting for a more right wing party than the Tories and Labour get in!

I think Labour will have to be very careful, they don't have the mandate they think they do. And think they've been handed a bit of a poisoned chalice, considering the mess this country is in. Will be interesting seeing how this plays out...

They have the seats they need to deliver. They were first choice in 412 out of 650 constituencies. That's a mandate.

It’s a landslide because of the number of seats they got. They got these seats with fewer votes (though a slightly higher percentage of a lower turnout) because they played the game by the rules. They targeted seats that they could win and neglected others, including some generally safe seats - which caused lower majorities (riskily so) for some candidates. They benefitted from a complete collapse in the Tory vote and the splitting of the right leaning vote by Reform.
But it’s a landslide because of the size of the majority.

They’re in government for a 5 year term and with that large majority they can push any legislation through virtually unchallenged. Vote share not relevant. It’s a landslide because of the large amount of seats they won

Because...

Do you really think the likes of mcfadden, macsweeny, starrmer at al, don't understand what you clearly do?

I think they understand the nature of their victory. And I believe they will govern accordingly.

This.

Their only real worry will be how they perform in time for the next election.

It's about time the right vote was split just as the left has been for ages. It makes it a more level playing field.

Look at the figures

It’s first past the post in each local areas. Labour have achieved this.

Because under the ‘First Past the Post’ voting system, the number of votes a party gets is largely irrelevant. The distribution of those votes & the number of seats they win is the only thing which matters.

The system rewards parties which concentrate their support in specific areas thereby finishing first in lots of seats. For example, in 2019 the SNP got 1.2m votes but won 48 seats.

It punishes parties which get a lot of votes, but they are distributed so widely that they don’t finish first in many seats. For example, yesterday Reform got 4.1m votes but only won 5 seats.

I agree OP. Our electoral system is so broken. We desperately need PR.
Clearly there isn't much enthusiasm for Labour. People just wanted the Tories out, and there was also a lot of apathy.
It upsets me that people say JC was unelectable when he had a much bigger vote share in 2017, and a similar vote share in 2019.
Labour just was fortunate this time that both the Tories and SNP were collapsing. Also Reform helped them by splitting the right-wing vote.
Apparently in Wales the Labour vote share is actually lower (than in 2019) about the same in England. It's higher in Scotland, and that's why it looks slightly higher overall.
I'm a lefty. I voted Labour in 2017 and 2019. I voted Green this time. I'm not alone in having done so.

Generally people only shout for PR when their side is losing. We had a referendum on it in 2011 and the country voted against moving to a PR system

We desperately need PR.

We have a form of PR in Scotland, which has meant the SNP being hamstrung by a minority party that no one directly voted for (got through on the list system). PR isn’t necessarily a great alternative to FPTP.

The system isn't vote share though.

If it was people would vote differently.

That wasn't for PR. It was for AV. They're not the same. It wasn't clearly explained, and the turnout was extremely low.
I've always supported PR. Even when I was a Labour voter, and it benefitted Labour to keep 'first-past-the-post'. Because I believe in fairness and democracy.
Yes, it would benefit The Green Party, for whom I voted this time. But, it'd also benefit Reform, which worries me. But, it's clearly the fairer system regardless.

It’s a landslide because Starmer has 412 seats in the House of Commons. He commands the confidence of the house (and does so decisively), which is the constitutionally important thing.

People are utterly deluded if they think Jeremy Corbyn could have won this election.

Reform would not have polled as well if he was still the Labour leader. Tory warnings about not voting for reform in case you let in Labour or give them a supermajority failed to land because Starmer is boring, unthreatening, competent and moderate. Voters were far angrier with the Tories than they were afraid of Starmer as PM. I just do not believe that would have been the case with Corbyn.

This Labour (and Lib Dem) campaign is a masterclass in how to win an election in a FPTP system against an unpopular incumbent. Labour sacrificed votes in their safe areas to target Tory seats aggressively, whilst putting minimal resources and effort into areas where the Lib Dems were able to mount a stronger challenge. The Lib Dems did the same, pouring all of their effort into Tory-held seats and devoting minimal resources to any Labour held ones. Keir Starmer didn’t need loads of tories to vote for him, he just needed to maximise the efficiency of the Labour vote. The extent to which he has done that is pretty incredible. Corbynistas in safe Labour seats staying home may have depressed the vote share but that is a price worth paying to be able to win the number of seats he has. It’s been a very very clever campaign, if a dull one.

It’s a landslide because of the number of seats they got.

This.

@Takoneko

Spot on.

The only thing I would add is that there is now so much information available to voters that they are very savvy about tactical voting and know how best to use their vote to get the Tories out. So, for example, if I lived in Cheltenham I would vote Lib Dem to beat the Tory, but if I lived in Loughborough I would vote Labour. And that’s exactly what happened across the country yesterday.

We did not have a referendum on PR in 2011.

We had a referendum on the Alternative Vote system, which is not a form of PR.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_United_Kingdom_Alternative_Vote_referendum

If England lose in the Euro 2024 quarter-final tomorrow, by 3 goals to 2, then they have lost under the agreed rules and scoring system and accordingly will be eliminated from the tournament.

The next quarter-final, to be played an hour later, might finish 1-0, in which case the team with one goal would progress. The fact that England played in an earlier game and scored more goals isn't relevant. They lost!

Why are people saying it's a Labour landslide when Labour under Corbyn got more votes?

All it means is that Corbyn piled up thousands of wasted votes in the big cities and university towns but didn’t make any inroads into the country generally. Which of course the main rule to success in the FPTP system. The Corbynisters always point to 2017 and say “We got 40% of the vote, which Blair got in 2001”. Yes but the 40% got Corbyn 262 seats whereas Blair’s 40% got him....412 seats!

Very interesting, thank you. I'm in a safe Labour seat and there was hardly any campaigning apart from a Vote Labour leaflet stuffed through my door the morning of the election!

Exactly the same here. Safe Labour seat and no visible campaigning at all. One Labour leaflet posted through the letterbox the night before the election. Time and effort on campaigning in my seat would have been a waste of resources.

Yes, given the electoral system, the vote share doesn't tell us much at all.

People vote for small parties as a protest.
They vote for small parties because they're in a safe seat so either no need or no point voting for who they really want.
They vote Lib Dem to get the Tories out when really they'd like labour.
They vote labour to get the Tories out when really they'd like Lib Dem
They vote reform to give the Tories a kicking.
They vote green because they're happy with a labour win, but because that was basically in the bag, they feel the space to support green issues.
And so on.

And of course it massively influences the way in which campaigns are run. Which in term affects the vote as well.

I don't remember this much scrutiny about the percentage vote share when Conservatives won the last 3 elections?

It's a handy narrative to spin for those that don't like Labour but they played by the rules of the game, which is in a FPTP system they concentrated on increasing vote share in the constituencies where it could make a difference.

They were strategic and it paid off, that's why they have 412 seats.

I'm not sure why this seems to be do difficult to understand and why we've had 20 odd threads today trying to spin this any other way than a labour landslide.

Are you really sure they co operated?

West Devon stayed Tory and SE Cornwall almost did because neither Tory or LD would stand aside, they both went for these seats & i suspect it was repeated elsewhere, it was the electorate that voted tactically.