HANNAFORD: Sadly, Great Britain's Conservative Party had it coming

That the British Labour Party won an enormous victory in yesterday’s British election is unarguable. At time of writing, the party of barrister Sir Keir Starmer had achieved his party’s largest-ever electoral score — 410 seats out of the 650 in the Westminster parliament — and ground the Tories down to 131 seats, they having suffered their worst defeat since 1832.A win is a win, of course.However the vote was more a rejection of the awful, stumbling-in-a-fog Conservative Party government than an enthusiastic endorsement of Labour ideals. For although Starmer may have two thirds of the seats, he got it with little more than a third of the votes cast. And this in an election that recorded the second-lowest voter turnout for a British election, ever. Labour received only about two percent more votes than it did during the Great Jeremy Corbyn Disaster of 2019. (Mostly in Scotland, see below.)Bottom line: Great Britain didn’t go Labour. It dumped Great Britain’s Conservative Party. Final results were not available at publication time, but that’s the big picture.But if the Conservative votes didn’t go to Labour, where did they go? What just happened here?Answer, votes went to Nigel Farage’s Reform Party, which received 14% of them..Sadly for Farage, that didn’t translate into 14% of the seats in Westminster; it looks like he won about a dozen seats.However, if you add Reform’s 14% back to the 24% the British Conservatives actually held on to, you have a more realistic idea of popular feeling in Great Britain — 38% in favour of some sort of conservative option, compared to about 36% for Labour.Only in Scotland, where the separatist Scottish National Party was reduced from 43 seats to six (or possibly seven) did the Labour vote substantially increase.In other words, and as if the ‘Reform’ name wasn’t a clue already, what happened to the mother country’s party of Sunak is what happened to the daughter dominion’s Progressive Conservative Party of Joe Clark, Brian Mulroney and Kim Campbell 30-odd years ago. Actual conservatives, feeling let down — betrayed even — by conservatives-in-name-only, looked for what they hoped would be more authentic conservatism.Thus, Preston Manning’s Reform Party, the Canadian Alliance, the Conservative Party of Canada and the solid administration of Stephen Harper for nearly ten years. Thus — perhaps — the Reform vision of Nigel Farage and whatever can be built upon it at some future time.It is far too early to call that one. The personally charming and charismatic Farage is good at raising important questions and illuminating old hypocrisies. He has had no opportunity to show what he would do with actual power.However, the chastening of Great Britain’s conservative moment at the hands of Farage was necessary. It is unfortunate that along with some un-conservative Tories, the nation will also be denied the services of some — Jacob Rees-Mogg for example — whose ideas have much to contribute to a rebirth of principled British conservatism (by whatever name it returns.)Great Britain being one of the remaining pillars of democracy (and decency) in world affairs, we nod approvingly for the declared aspirations of Sir Keir Starmer — that “whether you voted Labour or not — in fact, especially if you did not —I say to you directly: my government will serve you.”It was not that it was so original. But as gracious as Suni Rishak’s concession was — and it was a classic of its kind, with generous acknowledgements to the incoming party — so was Starmer’s accession humble and not without hope. He promises to govern "unburdened by doctrine." In the case of Great Britain's Labour Party, may it be so... please.Soon enough will come the time to judge his performance. The outgoing Conservatives did not take the country’s problems with them as they left. They were formidable and now they are all Starmer's.But as a conservative, I say with sadness — this needed to happen. It is why we have democracy, to now and then clean up the mess of the last lot.As in Canada, in 2025, by the way.