Series introduction

This is the first in a series looking at the challenges and opportunities for each of the 7 main Great Britain parties in turn. Before looking at the situation for Labour in detail, we will review what happened in the 2024 election

UNS is dead

In recent elections, we have seen Scotland having very different elections than the rest of the UK. In 2024, this widened with a large divergence in different areas of England as well, which helped to deliver an extraordinary result for Labour – a Blair-style landslide on only 35% of the vote.

It has been widely noted that Labour had a challenging election in seats with a significant number of Muslim voters, however, Labour’s problem extended more widely to all their safe seats. For example, in Bootle (of PB fame) Labour lost 11 percentage points, while in Hackney North they lost 10 percentage points. Perhaps most astonishing of all the incoming Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer lost 17 percentage points in his own seat of Holborn and St Pancras.

What I would argue here is a Corbyn unwind effect. Jeremy Corbyn added lots of new Labour votes in 2017 but these were mostly in safe seats

In the Red Wall, Labour only had modest gains in votes but picked up seats due to a massive swing from the Conservatives to Reform. For example, in Leigh and Atherton Lab only gained 5 percentage points, but the Conservatives lost 28 percentage points.

A couple of observations:

• In many of the Red Wall seats, the Labour total is still less than Con + Ref
• The Labour vote share in the Red Wall is still much lower than in 1997

This says to me that we will still be talking about the Red Wall going forward, although it will likely be Reform rather than Conservatives who are the main threat.

Finally, there were 2 types of seat where Labour strongly increased their vote share:

• Commuter towns, e.g. Hertford and Stortford (up 15 percentage points) Macclesfield (up 14 percentage points) and a near miss in John Major’s Huntingdon (up 11 percentage points)
• Seaside resorts e.g. Suffolk Coastal (up 10 percentage points), Poole (up 11 percentage points)

I would argue we are seeing a COVID effect. The pandemic led to greater home working, which led people to move out of London and the big cities. They then took their politics with them.

In Scotland, Labour had a strong election winning a majority of seats again.

In Wales, the result was an even more extreme version of the UK result. Labour lost vote share but gained almost all the seats. For example, in Vale of Glamorgan, Labour lost 5 percentage points, but they gained the seat as the Conservatives lost even more

Where to defend.

The biggest challenge for Labour is that the changes have reset the traditional board. Swindon South is now a safer Labour seat than Pontypridd. Macclesfield is now safer than Ilford South, and Basingstoke is safer than Preston.

By winning big with such a small share of the vote Labour now have to defend in a huge number of places – the key marginals vs. the Conservatives, the Red Wall vs. Reform and the Inner Cities vs. The Greens and independents.

If we look at Labour defences in 2029 vs Conservative defences in 2024, what really saved the Conservatives is the large number of seats which needed a 20% plus swing (although they still managed to lose 3 of their top 10 safest seats). The risk for Labour is if they suffered a 2024-style swing against them, they would be down to double figures.

The Hartlepool and Hackney problem

This is one of the longer term challenges for Labour. Traditional supporters in places like Hartlepool are economically left wing but socially conservative. In inner city areas like Hackney, there has been a surge of radicalism leading to voters taking strongly left wing positions on issues such as immigration and trans rights. This means that it is very hard to keep both groups happy.

This was reflected in 2019 when Labour lost the red wall to the Conservatives. The danger is that Labour get trapped in a pincer movement, where Reform target the Red Wall, while the Greens focus on the Inner cities.

Scotland and Wales

Both countries pose varying challenges.

In Scotland, the SNP tend to have a very flat vote share across the country. This means that in good years Labour can clean up but in bad years they can be nearly wiped out.

There also seems to be a high level of volatility and a lower level of party loyalty since the referendum. A good example of this is Glasgow NE, which has changed party every election since 2015.

Glasgow NE – Lab vs. SNP – 2010-2024. Source: Author’s own work.

In Wales, Labour have been in power in the Senedd non-stop since 1999 and they are now running Westminster too. While memories of Thatcher make it hard for the Conservatives to win in Wales, Reform don’t have the same baggage. Reform had a strong result in Wales in 2024 and came close to winning Llanelli.

A recent Find Out Now MRP showed an astonishing scenario of near wipe out for Labour (only holding the 4 Cardiff seats and Blaenau Gwent)

The double-edged sword of the manifesto

Labour won such a large majority by following a Ming Vase strategy that was successfully used by Anthony Albanese in Australia. The problem with being so cautious is that Labour won a big majority but have now boxed themselves in financially.

The government will need to raise money at the next budget but have ruled out most of the large taxes. This means breaking the manifesto or going after small amounts which will be unpopular but not raise much money. The danger is whatever they choose could just end up leading to further unpopularity.

Immigration and the small boats

An error that many people in Westminster make is to think of the small boats as solely being an immigration issue. I would argue that it is also a fairness issue.

There are people coming to this country illegally who are being given free accommodation in nice hotels, free food, free clothing, free healthcare etc, while the Government have been making cuts for the elderly and disabled.  An IPPR report last year claimed the cost of housing asylum seekers has risen to an astonishing £41,000 per person.

Labour are cutting visas for carers but I’m not sure that it will help them as much as they think, if they are reducing immigration from people who perform a vital service (and presumably pay their own way), while the numbers crossing in small boats continue to rise.

The leadership

Finally, it seems extraordinary to say it but we need to talk about the Labour leadership. In normal times, a majority the size of Labour’s should see the winning leader safe for 5-10 years.

However, the nature of the loveless landslide and early mistakes mean that Labour has not had a honeymoon.

If we look at the polling graph for the 2019-2024 parliament, the Tories were very unpopular by the end, but they actually experienced a fairly gentle decline over 5 years (barring a big dip when Liz Truss was PM).

By contrast, Labour’s polling has relatively speaking fallen off a cliff, with them losing over 10 percentage point in less than a year. Astonishingly, they are polling worse than the Conservatives 2024 vote share and would be in third, if the latter weren’t also plummeting.

Opinion Polling charts for 2019-2024 and 2024 onwards. Source: Wikipedia

What may save Starmer is that any would be PM would have to challenge him directly. Without the Conservative’s vote of no confidence procedure, it is impossible for someone to become PM without getting their hands dirty. There’s also the matter of the membership getting involved (which saved Jeremy Corbyn, when he was challenged by Owen Smith in 2016).

Based on the above, Starmer ought to be safe, however, the 2026 elections could be a bloodbath for Labour with the possibility of finishing 3^rd in both Scotland and Wales (behind the respective Nationalists and Reform).

Next time – Plaid Cymru

Gareth of the Vale