Superwahljahr 2024: A Landslide for Labour in the United Kingdom – But Many Open Questions Remain

The Labour Party’s landslide victory in the UK’s general election on July 4 brought an end to 14 tumultuous years under the leadership of the Conservative Party – and five different Prime Ministers. Sir Kier Starmer and his Labour Party won 412 of the 650 seats in the House of Commons and enjoy a stable majority, which should allow the new government to implement its agenda, while the Tories lost 250 seats.

Voters hope that the new Prime Minister and his party will rejuvenate the country during the five-year term it has won – and some pundits are already talking about a second term. But, a recent report released by the Institute for Public Policy Research thinktank found that just 52 percent of UK adults took to the polls on 4 July. This is the lowest turnout by share of the population since universal suffrage was introduced in 1928.

Join the ACG for a virtual discussion with award-winning German journalist Annette Dittert as part of our Superwahljahr 2024 series. She has been based in London since 2008 and serves as the London Bureau Chief and Senior Correspondent of the German public broadcaster ARD. She will help us understand the election results and the path forward for the United Kingdom

Annette Dittert is the London Bureau Chief and Senior Correspondent of the German public broadcaster ARD. From July 2001 to July 2005, she was the ARD’s Correspondent in Warsaw. From 2005 to 2006, she traveled through China, India, and Africa for a four-part documentary Abenteuer Glück, which received an Adolf-Grimme Prize and a nomination for an International Emmy Award by the International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in 2006. From 2006 to 2008, Ms. Dittert was the Bureau Chief and Senior Correspondent for ARD German TV in New York. She has been based in London since 2008 and serves as Senior Correspondent and Bureau Chief for ARD German TV. In 2019, she was named “political journalist of the year” for her report on Brexit.

She studied Political Science, Philosophy, and German at the University of Freiburg and the Free University of Berlin.