Tag: Jeremy Corbyn

Where is Labour heading?

Recently, a piece in the Guardian (I forget the details) stated that Starmer’s main task was to revitalise the Labour Party which was demoralised by the 2019 defeat. I suspect that in this statement ‘the Labour Party’ refers to the Parliamentary Party and/or the London Establishment. In this Westminster bubble-centred view, the 2019 result occurred because of Jeremy Corbyn suddenly losing support in a swath of previously safe Labour seats (the so-called Red Wall). This typically lazy view can only mean those who repeat it have not taken the (small amount) of trouble to look at the data – which shows over and over that in very many of those seats the Labour share of the vote had been declining in one election after another, dating back to the Blair era, when they were taken for granted and the Party focussed on gaining support in ‘middle England’. Interestingly, there was one election in which this trend was markedly reversed. That was of course 2017, and the Party leader was Jeremy Corbyn. They have to ignore that, because the message would be very different – that the way to go would be to present a genuine alternative set of policies under a leader who could be regarded as showing a different way forward.

The 2017 election, and the run-up to it, was very remarkable, for those of us on the ground. There was a massive upsurge in membership, which was reflected in the large number of people out canvassing and delivering leaflets. I recall one councillor, in a safe Labour ward, commenting that in previous elections he had to do it all personally, whereas now he was supported by teams of volunteers. And this was also noticeable in the enthusiasm of the voters, despite some who said they couldn’t stand Jeremy Corbyn. One memory stands out: when we were canvassing in one area, a passer-by stopped us to ask for a window bill – I’ve never had that happen before. Furthermore, a bit later he passed by again on his way back from the shop and asked for another – he had given the first one to someone in the shop who had asked for it. In the end the whole town was plastered with Labour posters.

We were ecstatic to win this seat, and we felt that, if there had been more support and enthusiasm nationally, we could have won the election. It seemed that some in the London establishment did not actually want us to win.

That feeling was even more apparent in 2019. My interpretation is that the establishment was frightened by the prospect of real change, in the country as well as in the Party, as it threatened their control of events, and their comfortable existence. They actually preferred Labour to lose, so they could regain control, even if it meant continuing to subject us to Tory rule. That was demoralising.

And what has Starmer done as a response? Suspended or ejected many active members of the Party, refused to allow us a free choice of candidates, and failed to come up with clear policies for radical change. As a consequence, attendance at branch meetings has collapsed, and we struggle to deliver leaflets or raise teams for canvassing. This is a strange way to ‘revitalise’ the Party. What is the point of it, if all we are offered is a (perhaps more efficient) imitation conservative government? Starmer may think he is doing well, with a substantial Labour lead in the opinion polls, but that is mainly driven by the unpopularity of the Tories. Unless he comes up with something that will really revitalise the Party – taking the water industry back into public ownership rather than just imposing fines, would be a start, and would have a lot of popular support – that lead could easily evaporate.

The ‘Red Wall’

The ‘Red Wall’

Something of a myth has arisen about the 2019  General Election,  that Labour lost because Jeremy Corbyn was unpopular, and the so-called ‘red wall’ seats turned suddenly away from Labour as a result.

In order to examine this, and why I regard it as a myth, it is necessary to look at the results in a collection of such seats, over a number of elections. This is not a scientific sample. But all the seats I have chosen are ones which used to have sizeable Labour majorities, and remained in Labour hands right through the period (apart from NE Derbyshire which changed hands in 2017). Not all of them were lost in 2019. The sample includes seats from NE England, Yorkshire, Lancashire, and Derbyshire (using old-style geographical designations). I am not going to consider the reasons behind any trends, which would involve speculation, but confine myself to the facts.

The first set of data shows the number of Labour votes cast in each seat. It is immediately apparent that in most cases the Labour vote held up well from 1974 up to 1997, irrespective of the overall outcome of the election. After 1997, the Labour vote declined in all of them – in some cases (e.g., Hartlepool, Bishop Auckland), a marked and steady decline; in other cases, rather more bumpy. In 2017, the decline was either arrested or reversed. There was clearly a marked drop in the Labour vote between 2017 and 2019, which gives the anti-Labour swing that the analysts focus on, but in many cases the 2019 result was comparable, or at least not markedly worse than the 2010 or 2015 results, and is generally consistent with the post-1997 trend.

Much the same story, although rather less marked, is apparent from considering Labour’s share of the vote in these seats, with a decline starting in 1997 and continuing through to 2019, with an upwards blip in 2017. Again, this does not support the concept that these seats suddenly turned away from Labour in 2019, but that this was, at least in part, a continuation of a longer term process.

However, there is no getting away from the fact that the 2019 result was a bad one for Labour. But how bad was it really? If we look at the number of Labour votes cast, we see the rather surprising result that there were more Labour votes in 2019, in England, than in 6 of the previous years examined. This includes 2001 and 2005 – in both of which Labour was the overall winner. If we take into account the size of the electorate and the turnout, by looking at Labour’s share of the vote, it was still higher than 1983, 1987, 2010, and 2015 (and the same as 1992) – and not far short of 2005. .But the distribution of those votes was somewhat less favourable in 2019 – so the number of Labour seats in England was rather less than in 2010 or 2015 – but still higher than 1983 or 1987. What made the 2019 result so much worse overall than in the years up to 2010 was the collapse of the Labour vote in Scotland, and, to a lesser extent, in Wales. In 2010, Labour won 41 seats in Scotland; in 2015, it was down to 1. After a small resurgence in 2017 (7 seats) it was back down to 1 again in 2019. In Wales, it reduced from 34 seats in 2001 to 25 in 205 and 22 in 2019.

The end result was that the number of Labour seats over the whole UK was the lowest for many years (although not far short of that in 1983) – but it is more complicated than just saying the ‘red wall’ turned against Jeremy Corbyn.

Click to access red-wall-figure-1.pdf

Click to access red-wall-figure-2.pdf

Click to access red-wall-figure-3.pdf