The morning after the night before
The early hours of this morning brought the seismic change in the UK political landscape that everyone predicted.
Labour has won a massive majority and it proved to be a record-breaking night of losses, with the Conservatives losing more seats and more deposits than ever before. In Scotland, the SNP saw their support collapse, winning only 9 seats (as of 8am with 3 Scottish seats still to declare) and the political map turning from yellow to red. We witnessed a significant shift of vote away from the Conservatives but not necessarily to Labour, who’s share of vote only marginally increased, with the lowest ever share of the vote for a winning party. Noticeably, the overall turnout was 59.9 %, down 7.4% on the 2019 election.
Across the country the political ‘swingometers’ were in overdrive as votes shifted from the Conservatives and the SNP. The Liberal Democrats won 71 seats, their best performance since 1923. But it was the shift of votes from the Conservatives to the Reform Party which surprised everyone with Nigel Farage’s party taking 14.5% of the vote share, and with Mr Farage finally becoming an MP at his eighth attempt.
This morning, we congratulate the incoming Prime Minister and his colleagues as they assume their seats in the House of Commons. We also congratulate the new Cabinet and other Ministers as they are revealed today and over the coming days, and we look forward to working with them. Our job, as the oldest accountancy professional body in the world, is to work with whichever government is in power, and to act in the public interest, a commitment at the heart of the Royal Charter which established us in 1854.
This is why just over two weeks before the election, we published our five keys asks of the next government. In this we urged a new UK government to prioritise the long-delayed audit and corporate governance reform and introduce mandatory, corporate sustainability reporting. We’ve seen an unacceptable lack of action from the UK government in bringing forward proposed audit and corporate governance reform which has been at least six years in the making.
We also called on the new government to invest more in the tax system, broaden access to the accounting profession by strengthening apprenticeship programmes and different routes into the profession, and increasing funding for college and university courses. Lastly, we asked for the new government to collaborate with us to improve regulation, to make sure it’s fair, proportionate and purposeful. You can read more about our key asks in the link at the bottom of this page.
Our attention now turns to those who will make their way to Downing Street after the much-awaited call from their new boss, Sir Keir Starmer. We’ll write to those new Ministers with a focus on the issues that are important to us, our members and the public interest, as they are announced, and later, to new committee members, when the new structures are formed.
Before the election, we wrote to 50 high profile candidates, who we thought might win seats, so we’ll keep a close eye on what happens to them over the next few days and weeks. Like everyone else, we’ll work to develop our relationships with new decision makers and their advisers and to introduce ourselves to the many, new members of the House of Commons.
As always, we’ll pursue an agenda based on the ICAS strategy, the views of our members through feedback from our annual survey, and from the interactions and contributions of members on the many ICAS panels, committees, boards and our council.
For now, we need a good sleep after the all-nighter many of us pulled last night, before re-starting our stakeholder engagement in earnest next week.