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| Labour Party leader Ed Miliband (C) and his wife Justine Thornton arrive at Labour Party headquarters in London on May 8, 2015, the day after a crushing general election defeat. (AFP Photo/Justin Tallis) |
LONDON — Three party leaders announced their resignations Friday as the Conservative Party swept back to power in Britain’s parliamentary elections.
Labour’s Miliband, Lib-Dems’ Clegg and UKIP’s Farage all quit, after a crushing general election defeat
Labour’s unexpected and humiliating defeat was a personal blow for its leader Ed Miliband and the 45-year-old was quick to step down.
Labour took a beating, mostly from energized Scottish nationalists who pulled off a landslide in Scotland.
“I’m truly sorry I did not succeed,” Miliband said. “We’ve come back before and this party will come back again.”
Still, he vowed that he would “never give up” on fighting for the Great Britain he believed in.
Victorious Prime Minister David Cameron’s partner in the outgoing coalition, the Liberal Democrat Party, crashed to just 8 seats from 57, losing most of its support as punishment for supporting a Conservative-led agenda since 2010.
Party leader Nick Clegg did hold onto his seat, but quickly announced he was quitting as leader. He called the party’s losses “catastrophic” — the “most crushing” blow the party had ever suffered.
And United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) leader Nigel Farage, who had promised he would step down as leader if he himself did not win a seat, proved as good as his word. “I’m a man of my word,” he said Friday. “I am standing down as leader of UKIP.” Over the summer, though, he said, he would consider running again for the job.
The right-wing UKIP won 12% of the vote nationwide, but only one seat in parliament, and Farage failed for the seventh time in his own quest to become an MP. He said he would welcome the opportunity to spend more time with his family, having devoted all his attention to UKIP for 20 years.
In announcing his majority Conservative government, Cameron signaled a conciliatory tone, paying tribute to Clegg and Miliband.
“We can make Britain a place where a good life is in reach for everyone who is willing to work and do the right thing,” Cameron said. He promised to counter the rise of Scottish nationalism — the Scottish National Party won 56 seats in Scotland, a near clean-sweep north of the border — with more powers for Scotland and Wales, saying he would govern as the party of “one nation, one United Kingdom.”
Cameron announced his new government after meeting with Queen Elizabeth II. It came much quicker than expected; pre-election polls had shown the Conservatives locked in a tight race with the opposition Labour Party, raising the possibility of days or weeks of negotiations to form a government.
In fact the Conservatives won an outright majority in the 650-seat House of Commons. With all 650 constituencies counted, the Conservatives had 330 seats to Labour’s 232.
The surprise victory ushers in a new era in British politics, as more than a dozen veteran lawmakers found themselves on the sharp side of voter anger over politics as usual. The new class inherits a country divided by negative campaigning and infighting about the future of the United Kingdom.
The election was fought over the economy and the question of whether the Conservative-led government charted the right course through the aftermath of the 2008 economic crisis, the worst recession since the 1930s. Cameron argued his party needs more time to cement successes after five years of budget cuts designed to shrink the deficit and bolster growth.
Miliband focused the debate on inequality, saying the recovery hasn’t trickled down to the poorest in this nation of 64 million. Heaping further pressure on the working poor has been an influx of thousands of migrants from the European Union, particularly from the former eastern bloc countries that have recently joined the 28-nation free-trade zone.
Miliband’s awkwardness as a candidate, however, was summed up in a photograph of him unattractively eating a bacon sandwich — an image much reproduced in Britain’s right-wing press during the campaign.
He stumbled following a televised debate and then unveiled a giant slab of stone etched with his key pledges in what was mocked as his “Moses moment.”
A father of two married to environmental lawyer Justine Thornton, Miliband put living standards at the heart of his election campaign, insisting that an economic upturn under the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition has not reached ordinary people.
Born to Jewish immigrant parents, a Marxist academic father and a campaigning activist mother, Miliband grew up in a London household where left-wing intellectuals from around the world came to dinner.
He became active in student politics while at Oxford University and after a stint as a journalist quickly rose through the ranks of the Labour party.
Miliband later served as energy minister and Treasury advisor in successive Labour governments.
In 2010 he alarmed many in the ranks of the party by standing against his own brother, David Miliband, in the party’s leadership contest. David, a protege of former prime minister Tony Blair, was seen as less left-wing than Ed.
David left politics and moved to the United States after his surprise defeat to his younger brother, who cast his victory as a break from the market-friendly “New Labour” of Blair and a return to the party’s left-wing roots.
Miliband has since said their relationship is “healing.” But the challenge, seen by some as “an almost biblical act of fratricide” according to Miliband’s biographers, has not been forgotten.
In an interview during the campaign, Miliband was relentlessly questioned about his character and his ability to withstand the challenges ahead. “I’ve been underestimated at every turn. People said I wouldn’t become leader and I did. People said four years ago he can’t become prime minister,” he said.