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The DP must learn from the fall of the Tories

Published: 08 Jul. 2024, 19:59

The Labor Party has retaken power for the first time in 14 years with its landslide victory in the early general election. While the Conservative party won only 121 seats, the Labor Party took 411 seats in the 650-member House of Commons. Though the gap in the voter turnouts was 10 percentage points, the election nevertheless delivered the worst defeat for the Tories since the conservative party’s founding in 1834. Labor Party leader Keir Starmer became the new prime minister.

The British election results should be a rude awakening call to the Korean conservative party. The Conservative Party rooted in the Tories in 1678 is deemed the oldest conservative political establishment in the world. Conservatism based on the philosophy of Edmund Burke (1729-1797) upholding tradition and order has survived by adapting to the call of the times.

But today’s Conservative Party is synonymous with poor economic mismanagement and internal frictions. After failing to address the repercussions of Brexit, the party couldn’t handle the subsequent double whammies of the pandemic and the Ukraine war that resulted in a recession and skyrocketing prices. Prime Minister Boris Johnson had to step down after a series of scandals, including a drinking party during the Covid-19 lockdown. Successor Liz Truss spooked financial markets with her “mini-budget” containing unfunded tax cuts and became the shortest-serving prime minister. Rishi Sunak tried to make amends upon taking office in October 2022, but lost his power by gambling with a general election after his popularity fell due to the surge in immigrants and poor oversight in public services.

The Labor Party’s decisive turn to the center from the far left should provide a lesson for the ideology-driven majority Democratic Party (DP) in Korea. As Labor Party leader, Starmer scrapped the party’s long-standing platform of nationalizing water and energy companies. He even promised to freeze income and corporate taxes to win support from business owners and centrist voters.

Since winning parliamentary elections, the DP has been racing entirely on the left. Party members even call their boss Lee Jae-myung “our father” to pledge their blind loyalty. They press for impeachments on prosecutors and anyone else who can threaten their leader, but sidestep on sensitive issues like abolishing the comprehensive property ownership tax and the inheritance tax. The DP must pay heed to the voices of the moderates to win the next presidential election in 2027.

Britain is the birthplace of parliamentary democracy. The latest election results are a testimony that a party can fall upon losing the faith of the people and failing to defend national interests. This should be a sober awakening for politicians in Korea who are engrossed in fighting for partisan interests.