Britain’s election shows Hong Kong the flaws and strengths of democracy

The recent polls have shown the capacity of democratic elections to manage even-momentous political transitions. They also powerfully demonstrate the value of democratic processes in keeping political leaders modest, and providing swift, clear and brutal judgment when they fail.

But the process also delivered more subtle messages that might not easily have become visible without such an election. Labour’s gain came from a meagre increase in voter support from over 32 per cent in 2019 to 34 per cent last Thursday. Britain’s quirky “first-past-the-post” election system allowed Labour to win about 64 per cent of the seats in parliament on the back of 34 per cent of the votes.

Just as the Labour Party benefited from the quirks of the election system, other parties were spectacularly affected. The UK’s Green Party won 7 per cent of the vote – about a fifth of the vote share won by Labour – albeit just four seats.

The warning to the Conservative Party was clear: the civil war fought for the past decade within the party over Brexit and immigration is nowhere near resolved, and it may be unable to recover power until this critical intraparty war is settled.

The Labour Party should also beware: the right-leaning Conservative Party and Reform UK together won 38 per cent of the vote, a larger share than the Labour Party’s 34 per cent. Had Farage’s party decided not to compete in the election, Labour would probably not have won. Starmer has a long way to go before he wins the majority of voters’ hearts, even if for now he has managed to capture an astonishing number of seats in Britain’s parliament.

The other striking democratic quirk in the UK election sits with the centrist Liberal Democratic Party. Its share of the vote nudged