European and world newspapers gave prominent coverage to Labour’s landslide election victory on Friday morning, noting that Britain was bucking the trend of surging support for right-wing parties in other countries.
Many commentators claimed that voters had wreaked revenge on the Conservative Party. Some also claimed that Brexit was a factor in the party’s demise.
Deutschland
Die Welt declared on its website that “Labour has risen from the ashes” and that the Conservatives had been punished for their “miserable record in government”.
“Confidence in the Conservatives, who have plunged the country into a deep crisis in 14 years of government, has been shattered,” the centre-right newspaper added. “The national debt is the highest it has been for almost 70 years, taxes are higher than they have been since the Second World War, wages and productivity are stagnating. The National Health Service is grossly underfunded, prisons are overcrowded and demand on the housing market is so high that soaring prices are literally driving Britons on to the streets.”
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“When asked about Brexit, which was supposed to bring prosperity to the British people, the Conservatives just look down in shame. The promise to limit immigration has also proved to be a farce: more people are currently coming to the UK than ever before.”
Germany’s leading news magazine, Der Spiegel, wrote: “Large parts of the kingdom now see Starmer’s victory as redemption — not least because he is about as charismatic as a geography teacher. Starmer epitomises what has been missing from British politics in recent times: a minimum of seriousness. The clown show is over.”
Frankreich
French media were largely focused on their own general election, the second round of which is on Sunday, but commentators showed little enthusiasm for Labour’s victory, describing Starmer as an uncharismatic leader at the head of a nation in decline.
They predicted difficulty for Starmer and the same sort of distrust in democracy that has turned the French political landscape on its head. “Starmer definitely does not have the flamboyance of Tony Blair,” Le Figaro said. “The former lawyer behaves more like a notary.”
Gaspard Gantzer, formerly the spin doctor of François Hollande, the Socialist who was president of France between 2012 and 2017, said Starmer had an “image of competence and stability”.
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But with France having seen an unprecedented surge for the populist right in its own parliamentary elections, Gantzer warned that the strategy could leave voters “in an ideological fog dangerous for democracy” on both sides of the Channel.
Le Monde said Labour’s win was mainly the result of the Conservative collapse, which it attributed to “chaotic years in power, during which the revenue of the British has stagnated, public services … have been undermined by a drastic treatment of austerity and Brexit has isolated the country on the international stage and damaged its economic attractiveness”.
Italien
The left-wing daily La Repubblica suggested the UK was bucking the trend of populism seen in other countries. “While a right-wing wind sweeps through Europe, the UK turns to the left,” it said, adding that Starmer’s landslide victory is “the proof the left can win” and a model to follow.
The centre-left former Italian prime minister Enrico Letta claimed that Brexit was central to the election. “The vote punishes those responsible for a gigantic mess that we have all paid for,” it said. “It is no coincidence that Donald Trump arrived a few months after Great Britain voted to leave the EU.”
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La Repubblica quotes Starmer as saying that he is “working on a progressive front against populism with Europe’s centre-left parties”, and it cites the ambition of David Lammy, the potential incoming defence secretary, to seek strong defence pacts with EU states.
A commentator in the centrist daily Corriere della Sera was less convinced that the UK was shifting wholeheartedly to the left.
Beppe Severgnini wrote: “Has the right-wing wind that blows across the continent stopped at the Channel? Have the English, Scots and Welsh all become left-wing? Obviously not. The truth is different. If whoever rules disappoints, they are substituted. If the disappointment is great, the substitution is quick and aggressive.”
Severgnini said that the Tories were paying after being led by a generation of public school politicians who were “convinced that brilliant intelligence, rather than preparation, coherence or morality would allow them to do anything and be forgiven everything. The leader of this generation was Boris Johnson.”
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He added: “Outside the UK, few have understood how offended the British electorate was by the news of the alcoholic parties at Downing Street during the Covid lockdown.
“Now an orphan of Elizabeth and anxious about the royal family, the UK needs to rediscover its self-confidence. This is the fuel of a nation — if it runs short, you don’t get far.”
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Spanien
The front pages of Spanish newspapers were dominated by the news of Labour’s victory, with their main photographs showing Starmer and his wife Victoria.
El País’s coverage under the headline “Historic Labour triumph” said that the Conservatives had “suffered a hard punishment”. It noted that turnout was 8 per cent lower than in previous elections, and that Nigel Farage and his Reform party “have finally managed to enter the British parliament, with four MPs”.
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The headline of ABC, a conservative newspaper, said: “Labour celebrates a devastating victory.” La Vanguardia, a Catalan newspaper, declared: “The British start a new era with an overwhelming Labour victory.”
The Spanish newspapers noted the damage caused by Brexit to the British economy and the UK’s deteriorated standing in the world.
Lluis Foix wrote in La Vanguardia: “The Brexit elites have fallen back into the trap of belittling the EU. That flight from the European Union broke with the pragmatic and realistic principle of British governments since imperial times.”
However, it was not Starmer’s personality or programme that won him victory, opined Ramón González Férriz for the website El Confidencial: “It was the fact that the Conservative Party has been led by the most inept generation in its history.”
Israel
The Jerusalem Post found room for the story on its front page, underneath the latest attempts to find a ceasefire in Gaza.
Australia and New Zealand
Anthony Albanese, the Australian prime minister, was among the first world leaders to congratulate his “friend” Starmer on his election win.
Albanese said on Friday that he expected Starmer to visit Australia in the coming months and praised the Labour leader’s “resounding election victory”.
However, under the headline “Starmer called upon to fix ‘broken Britain’ after landslide win” the national broadsheet, The Australian, said that a wary and bewildered British public had given “carte blanche to Sir Keir’s big tax socialist state”.
Writing for The Sydney Morning Herald from London, the Australian-born writer Kathy Lette said of Britain: “For the first time in 14 years, this population of pessimistic Eeyores is wondering if perhaps optimism is not an eye disease.”
Of Starmer she wrote: “He’s cautious, a bit bland and with no big vision, but he’s finally ousted the crooked Conservatives. Putting broken Britain back together again will require a labour of love. Literally.”
The Australian Financial Review said that Albanese and Starmer had much in common.
“The two leaders are both from the progressive side of politics, with a similar project: to entrench the centre-left in office. Starmer has made a point of talking to, and learning from, Albanese’s 2022 election win, and the Australian Labor Party’s subsequent governing style.”
Christopher Luxon, New Zealand’s conservative prime minister, also welcomed Sir Keir’s victory, saying that New Zealand and the UK were great friends and could do so much more together.
Japan
Japan’s Asahi Shimbun newspaper paid tribute to Starmer’s “humane” side.
Six years ago an Asahi journalist was at the Labour conference in Liverpool when Starmer was on the shadow front bench. A man accosted him, saying he was going to leave the party.
“Starmer could have walked away. There were no British journalists around. Yet still, he listened to the man and offered his card saying, ‘Before you leave the party, please talk to me’.”
Vereinigte Staaten
President Biden has called Sir Keir Starmer to congratulate him on his election victory, the White House said. “This is a special relationship between our countries and the president conveyed that he looks forward to working closely with the prime minister on the full range of critical issues that the United States and the United Kingdom are engaged on,” said Karine Jean-Pierre, Biden’s press secretary.
“The president told the prime minister that he is committed to deepening US-UK cooperation in many areas of our shared interest. President Biden looks forward to welcoming the prime minister to Washington DC next week, during the Nato summit.”
The New York Times said on its front page that the vote “reflects anger with [the] economy, healthcare and immigration.”
Donald Trump, the former president, said: “Congratulations to Nigel Farage on his big WIN of a Parliament Seat Amid Reform UK Election Success. Nigel is a man who truly loves his Country! DJT.”
