According to one traditional measure of General Elections the Labour vote represents at its most basic a class vote- primarily working class voters. Labour got 412 seats on July 4th but less votes than Jeremy Corbyn got in 2017 (by some distance).
According to a survey if the entire UK population is taken as the base then the turnout was around 50% as opposed to the 60% of those registered to vote. Neither figure suggests Parliamentary democracy is in good shape. There are of course other means of democratic expression available. Sometimes protests work when Parliament doesnt.
One reason for the low turnout is likely to be the requirement of voter ID, which the Tories introduced to suppress voting. It did, but it didn’t help them. Democracy can be ironic.
The survey suggests that voting was highest in Constituencies with higher numbers of those over 64 and homeowners (that’s me and I voted in Tottenham, in person). That is perhaps those with some investment not perhaps in society as it exactly is but not alienated from. On the other hand numbers of those may have vote for Reform which suggests a different picture.
The vote for the two main parties combined was also amongst the lowest for years. Those who are alienated from ‘official’ politics did have somewhere else to go the Greens won four seat and candidates focused in part on Palestine won five seats. That is historically unusual too.
Further while Labour got a resounding majority senior figures in the Government such as Keir Starmer himself and Foreign Secretary David Lammy saw their majorities significantly reduced. That too is unusual
We might conclude that the times they are a changin’ but also protest and survive remains a good democratic principle
For another perspective see Nesrine Malik in the Guardian on who did and who didnt vote on 4th July
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