In the general election held in the United Kingdom, the current Prime Minister, David Cameron's, Conservative Party has won and achieved a majority to form the government alone. This process can be regarded as the continuation of the Conservative Party's victory at the previous election.
Labour Party's Ed Milliband, who repeatedly expressed Prime Minister David Cameron should resign if he failed to form a majority on its own in the Parliament for the next Conservative government, announced his resignation after the election results were declared.Nick Clegg, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, also announced his resignation within 52 minutes after the election results were finalized. The period in which the leaders announced their resignations was referred to as “52 minutes that shook Britain."
This shocking picture that shook Britain actually had become a routine for British democracy, but it is not an instance that can be witnessed in Turkey. As already known, the leaders of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and the Republican People's Party (CHP), which were defeated at every election they joined since 2002, have never considered resigning after their failure. Conversely, they were inclined to evaluate their defeat as success and tried hard to make themselves believe this. The main opposition leader even represented a slight increase in its vote rates as a success.
On the eve of the general election, the CHP leader, who is making promises that are hard to believe on every subject, cannot promise turning out to be the first party at the election. He makes promises about anything but winning the election. His greatest dream is to achieve 35 percent of votes, and he cannot accept that this rate is not enough to come to power or cannot even make the CHP the first party in the face of the Justice and Development Party (AK Party). So, why would one believe in an opposition leader who scatters promises around despite accepting his defeat beforehand? But this should be another topic of discussion.
The election results in the U.K. undoubtedly have some other dimensions. Particularly in terms of Turkey and the AK Party, the Conservative Party is one of the considerable founding members of the Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists (AECR) in the European Parliament, where Turkey is also a founding member. A stable channel for the relations between the U.K. and the AK Party, which is predicted to be the first party at the upcoming election, has already grown stronger.
The election results also have significant dimensions in terms of domestic politics. At the referendum held in Scotland in September 2014; 55 percent of the Scottish public voted against the independence of Scotland, siding with maintaining the 300-year-old union. Throughout this process, the Labour Party, which is quite influential in Scotland, also engaged in propaganda favoring the maintenance of the union.
The election results also indicate that the outcome of the Labour Party's propaganda in Scotland was negative since the Labour Party only had one seat in Scotland this term, while it won 40 seats last term. On the other hand, the Scottish National Party (SNP), which circulated propaganda for independence at the referendum, has increased its number of seats from six to 56 since the last term. The authorities of the Labour Party think that this result is the direct outcome of the referendum campaign; however, they try to relieve themselves by remarking that they have only lost an election in this case and they would have lost the country if the “yes" side had won at the referendum.
The Labour Party can be said to have enabled Scotland's adherence to the center in a sense. It is also striking that the profile of the Labour Party in Scottish politics has nearly perished when the election results are considered.
It can be thought that the election results are completely different from the referendum results, but the SNP does not interpret the results from this perspective. The SNP leader remarked that the reason of the Scottish people's favoring the SNP is a stance against austerity policies and demand for more social expenditures. In this sense, the SNP leader can be said to have adopted a quite positive level of political rhetoric.
On the other hand, parallel to his remarks at his electoral campaign, Cameron announced that the reforms regarding decentralization and devolution of authority to Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland would be implemented as soon as possible, which can also be regarded as another domestic outcome of the election.
The election results particularly interest the EU. In 2013, Cameron had said that if he won the 2015 election, he would hold a referendum to question Britain's EU membership in 2017. Cameron emphasized this promise of his during his electoral campaign. He anticipates a new negotiation process with the EU and wishes to receive back some of the authorities delegated to Brussels and introduce some limitations to the migrations in the EU countries. During his campaign, Cameron promised to conduct a campaign favoring the maintenance of the EU membership, if the EU positively approached his demands. However, the EU bureaucracy, particularly Germany, is quite skeptical about Cameron's demands.
This aspect of the election results might be seminal for Turkey, which conducts membership negotiations with the EU. The EU is not the sole and indispensable target of Turkey anymore. Acting responsibly towards the requirement of an equal relationship is the right of both Turkey and Turkish people.
