Well, the results are in (or at least, mostly, as I write this!). The country has spoken: Sir Keir Starmer will be our next Prime Minister, and the Labour party will form our next Government. At the same time, in a result predicted by almost everyone, the Conservatives endured a torrid night, suffering massive losses up and down the country, with losses for many prominent figures, including Penny Mordaunt, Jacob Rees-Mogg, and the former Prime Minister Liz Truss.
At CARE, we do not support any particular party (or indeed, any particular candidate). Amongst our team, we have a wide range of views and political leanings; and I rather imagine that it would be the same among our supporters too! So as we process the results, I suspect that we might be experiencing a range of emotions.
For lifelong Conservative voters, the last couple of years have probably been rather depressing, as they have looked ahead to what seems to be the unstoppable prospect of electoral oblivion. Whatever the Tories did, it couldn’t shift the dial.
At the same time, those who support Labour will be excited by the prospect of change, after 14 consecutive years of Tory government; the time has come for change, Keir Starmer says!
And then there will be many of us who just do not know quite what to think. Amid low voter turnout (the second lowest in a century), and a genuine ambivalence towards Labour (their 35% of the vote is lower than the 40% Jeremy Corbyn achieved when his Labour party lost the election), it felt like this was an election were so many just did not know who they wanted to vote for.
But whether you are Conservative, Labour, or even just unsure what you think, as you process the election results , here are some thoughts which I hope will prove helpful.
1. Be thankful we live in a democracy at all
If you are feeling discouraged today, there is still much to be thankful for. The privilege of being able to vote isn’t something which can be taken for granted in a world where so many do not have it.
In his victory speech in his constituency in the early hours of this morning, Jeremy Hunt, acknowledging the tough night for his party, said this, which I found helpful:
“A message to my children, who I sincerely hope are asleep now. This may seem like a tough day for our family as we move out of Downing Street, but it isn’t.
We are incredibly lucky to live in a country where decisions like this are made not by bombs or bullets, but by thousands or ordinary citizens peacefully placing crosses in boxes and bits of paper. Brave Ukrainians are dying every day to defend their right to do what we did yesterday and we must never take that for granted.
Don’t be sad, this is the magic of democracy.”
We can give thanks to God that this election has passed peacefully and fairly; that despite threats of violence, no candidates have been injured; and that we have a voice which is listened to, even if just in a small way.
And we can be thankful that our choice of candidates is generally between decent, hard-working people, who want to serve our country and their constituents, even if the one we voted for lost.
I cast my own vote in Battersea constituency for a candidate who did not end up winning (or, realistically, have much chance of winning!); but the candidate who did win is a lovely Christian lady, Marsha de Cordova; praise God for that!
2. No party has a monopoly on Jesus
It can be easy – particularly if the party we support hasn’t been elected – to despair when the results at election-time don’t go the way we wanted them to.
With an incoming Labour government, we might be worried as Christians about what they might do about some of the issues we care about most, whether that be abortion (given it is a couple of Labour MPs who are currently leading the charge for its decriminalisation), or assisted suicide (where Keir Starmer has made it clear that he is in favour of changing the law), or transgender issues (on which Labour has always seemed decidedly iffy). If that is you, I sympathise, because I worry about those things too!
At the same time, I worried about the impact of certain Conservative policies too; and there are particular policy areas on which Labour (and indeed, other parties) seems, to me, at least, to be more in line with God’s heart than the Conservatives as well. I found the Conservative decision to provide less money on foreign aid a few years ago pretty depressing. At CARE, we have consistently warned about the impact of the Conservatives’ Rwanda policy on vulnerable people, and in particular, vulnerable women, who have been trafficked.
You might care about different policy areas, such as education, or the environment, or the economy, but the point is this: Jesus Himself would not have been a card-carrying Conservative, or singing ‘The Red Flag’ at the Labour Party Conference. That’s not to say that we can’t be members of, or indeed, stand for, political parties, but the point is that no party (even those which claim the name of Christian!) perfectly represents Jesus.
In all parties, I am sure, Jesus would have found things to affirm, from the Conservative emphasis on personal responsibility, to the value that Labour places on representing the vulnerable (or even to the Green Party’s desire to steward the environment). And in all of them, I am even more sure, he would have found things to critique. No individual, even the best of us, can perfectly represent Jesus.
All political parties have, embedded in their core values, some sort of political theory, a lens through which they view the rest of the world, whether it be authoritarianism or libertarianism or Marxism or something else.
Christians are to begin with a different lens: that of the Bible (and of Jesus). A couple of years ago, Christopher Watkin wrote a book entitled “The Bible as Critical Theory”. His premise is fairly simple: that the Bible is the lens through which we view the rest of the world, and by which we are able to affirm and to critique what we find there.
None of our political parties have a monopoly on Christian truth. And that should lead us to be cautious about either rejoicing too much or despairing too much, in the aftermath of some fairly one-sided election results.
3. This is the situation into which God has called us
We were chatting in our team about election results a few weeks ago. Someone rightly pointed out that we can spend so long thinking about election day that we lose sight of the fact that the more significant thing is the years which follow. It’s one thing for Labour to achieve a landslide victory; what matters more, is what they do next. Indeed, in recent years we’ve had a perfect example of that; when the Conservatives won the 2019 General Election with such a strong mandate, no one would have expected the utter carnage which has followed since!
When my wife and I were preparing to get married last year, one of the key pieces of advice people gave us was that it’s easy to get so distracted preparing for a single day, the wedding day, that we can lose sight of the more important thing: the years of marriage which follow. It struck me that elections can be a bit similar: we can become so preoccupied with the results of the vote that we lose sight of all the work to be done afterwards.
But this isn’t just relevant to the ruling party. For us as Christians, our work doesn’t just end when we cast our vote; it also matters what we do next.
When I was reflecting earlier, I was reminded of Paul’s teaching about a change of status in 1 Corinthians, and thinking about what he would say to us about an election today. Paul’s primary concern was not whether people were married or unmarried, whether they were circumcised or uncircumcised, or whether they were slave or free. Similarly, his primary concern might not have been whether we had a Conservative government or a Labour government,
What Paul was far more interested in was how they acted in the circumstances in which they found themselves: “Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing. Keeping God’s commands is what counts. Each person should remain in the situation they were in when God called them.” (1 Corinthians 7:19-20).
That is not to say he would not have wanted us to vote: he says to the slave, “if you can gain your freedom, do so.” (1 Corinthians 7:21). When there was an opportunity to pursue change, the Corinthians were not just entitled to do so, they were encouraged to!
But Paul’s point was that the situation in which we find ourselves is the one God has called us to. When we are under a Labour government, that is the situation to which God has called us for the present time; when we are under a Conservative government, then that is the situation to which God has called us for the present time.
In either case, his instruction to us is the same: “each person should live as a believer in whatever situation the Lord has assigned to them, just as God has called them” (1 Corinthians 7:17).
In other words, our call is to be faithful, whoever is in power: for some, that might look like working directly with our political leaders to support them in their work. In other cases, it might look like holding them to account. In all cases, it will at least look like praying for them (1 Timothy 2:1-4).
4. God will work his purposes out…whatever they may be!
It can seem almost trite sometimes to say that ‘God is in control’, particularly if the election results haven’t gone the way we wanted them to, and we are worried about the damage that might be done as a result. (And if that is the case here, how much more so around the world, where political situations are far worse than ours.)
Sometimes, people can be really worried about what is to come. I remember while I was at university, some of my left-leaning friends were genuinely anxious about the impact of things like the 2015 General Election (coming after years of austerity) and the Brexit vote.
But however much it is said, that does not, ultimately, make it any less true. God will, we trust, work out his purposes.
Sometimes those purposes might be confusing to us. Within the Psalms, we have plenty of examples of people who did not understand what God was doing. David sang, “How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me?” (Psalm 13:1-4).
It might seem like the incoming Labour government or Keir Starmer is in control; and in one sense that is true, for God has, graciously, delegated authority to human kings and governments. And yet at the same time, they cannot truly direct the course of history, any more than the greatest of kingdoms and empires which came before them.
For we also know that God is absolutely sovereign: there is nothing outside of his control. And one day, when we reach eternity’s shore, we will look back and see the way all his plans and purposes coalesced, even the ones which didn’t seem to make sense at the time.
And so, whether you are downcast this election-time, or excited at the prospect of change, we would all do well to remember to cast our eyes upwards to the one who does hold history in the palms of his hands. And one day we will see that all things, all all seasons, and all governments have worked for His glory.
“God is working this purpose out, as year succeeds to year; God is working this purpose out, and the time is drawing near; nearer and nearer draws the time, the time that shall surely be: when the earth shall be filled with the glory of God as the waters cover the sea.” (Arthur Campbell Ainger)
