Richard Toye: Exeter University Professor of Modern History on the predictions of a historic Labour victory

The countdown to the UK election is being dominated by predictions of a historic Labour victory. 

Parties have been making their last pitches to voters, with reports Keir Starmer is projected to head the largest majority since 1832. 

But University of Exeter Modern History Professor Richard Toye told Mike Hosking that Starmer isn't being complacent when it comes to pushing people to the polls.  

He said there’s a slightly odd situation in which other parties have been saying that Labour is bound to get an enormous majority, so people should vote Conservative in order to keep that majority down, while Labour is sort of saying it’s not in the bag yet. 

Voting opens at 6pm today our time. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So they're wrapping it up. Just hours to go until
the polls open in Britain. The final words from Kiyostama.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
If people don't go out and vote, people who want change,
who need change, or entitled change, don't go out and vote,
we'll wake up. Imagine it on Friday morning with five
more years of a Tory government feeling entitled, emboldened that
they can get away with anything. Imagine that and fight

(00:30):
against that all the way through to ten o'clock tomorrow evening.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
The final words from Rushi Sunek.

Speaker 3 (00:37):
It is only US Conservatives that ultimately can stand up
to the Labor Party. So I say it again, we
have twenty four hours left. We do not surrender to Labor.
We will fight for every vote, we will fight for
our values, and we will fight for our vision of Britain.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
Now Professional of Modern History, University of Mister Richard toys back. Well,
there's Richard. Very good morning to you and to you
the snap election aspect of this. How unusual is a
snap election in Britain?

Speaker 4 (01:10):
Well, they come along every so often, so we famously
had one in twenty seventeen when Theresa May thought she
was going to get a big majority and then lost
a majority. There's been previous examples going back to in
nineteen twenty three February nineteen seventy four, so you know,

(01:31):
it is the case that prime ministers always trying to
time elections if they can to sort of gain maximum advantage.
I think that in a sense Ritchie Seine probably did
it this time, where people speculate but perhaps he wanted
to keep the right wing Reform Party put them on
the back foot. There's speculation that he wanted to do

(01:52):
it because otherwise he would face a change to his
own leadership within the party.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
Is there any evidence any of that's happened. I've looked
at the Pole the whole time. They seem to have
been broadly speaking unchanged. The Tories we're going to lose,
are going to lose, Labour is going to be swept
to power.

Speaker 4 (02:09):
I think that's almost certainly the case. I think that
Nigel Farage deciding that he would come back essentially enclose
himself as leader of the Reformed Party, which is actually
really a kind of a private company rather than a
normal political party, sort of prevented Sunak from gaining any
advantage from a snap election. He's also made various missteps.

(02:31):
I would say there's not a huge amount of enthusiasm
for labor. I mean, the irony is perhaps that at
the moment, if the pols Is believe, be believed, they'll
get about forty percent of the vote, possibly slightly less,
possibly slightly more, but nevertheless come out with an absolutely
enormous majority, very probably the largest majority that they've ever had.

Speaker 1 (02:53):
Is history instructive on that matter. In other words, if
you hand too much power to too few people, you're
asking for true.

Speaker 4 (03:02):
Well. I mean, this is certainly a general problem with
the British first past the post system. That does create majorities,
which can be whether they're the left or right, they
can be problematic. Of course, it becomes problematic for the
prime minister to control that majority. In some ways. They

(03:23):
obviously get a lot of legislation troot they want, but
also people then feel well, it doesn't really matter too
much if I rebel, so I might as well, which
can create sort of longer term problems for part of unity.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
Do you believe what's going to one for the legiservation poll?
I looked at a couple of hours ago, suggesting the
Tories are going to end up with sixty four seats,
They're going to blow blairs lead out of the water.
And with the libdim's sixty one sixty four to sixty one,
the Tories will barely be the opposition. Is history about
to unfold?

Speaker 4 (03:53):
Well? I mean, it certainly is, irrespective of the precise
number of results. I mean, on the assumption that the
Conservatives get at the minute, they're about twenty two percent
in the polls, if they get less than thirty, I mean,
to get thirty in itself would be a complete catastroph
catastrophe for them. How things fold out unfold in terms

(04:15):
of seats is of course, really quite unpredictable. I think
that I would probably be, if I were a Conservative,
a bit more optimistic. I wouldn't quite think that it
was going to go down to them only getting sixty seats.
I think they might get somewhere in the region of
one hundred. The Lib Dams probably will do much better
than in the last few elections, but I'd be amazed.

(04:38):
I mean, if they became got so many seats that
they became the official opposition, that would be everything that
happened is going to be historic, but that would be
It would kind of a once in a century type event.

Speaker 1 (04:52):
What's your sense of turnout? Is the complacency at play?
He had given it's a foregone conclusion.

Speaker 4 (04:58):
Well, I don't think the Labor Party itself is complacent.
I think that they realize that there's dangers to that
if their voters don't turn out. They also think that
they might lose some votes to the Reform Party, and
so I think that they know it is a slightly
odd situation where the Conservatives have been kind of really saying,

(05:22):
well that the Labor Party is bound to get an
enormous majority, so as the Scottish National Party for example.
So the Conservatives is saying that Labor is bound to
get an enormous majority, you ought to vote conservative ort
to keep that majority down and Labor and sort of saying, oh,
it's definitely not in the bag yet. I would be

(05:42):
not surprised if if turnout was low, maybe voters may
assume that he's all done and dusted. I don't think,
at least on the Labor side, that they are thinking that.

Speaker 1 (05:53):
Richard Joy your expertise very much. Richard Toy, professor of
modern history at the University of Exeter with us this morning.

Speaker 2 (06:00):
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