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Why has the Labour Party struggled so much in recent UK elections?

Matt N

Matt N

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Hi guys. As many of you will know, the local elections occurred in Britain yesterday, and it’s looking like they might represent a thumping victory for the Conservative Party, one of many in recent years. The Labour Party just seems to be struggling a lot lately, and I was wondering; why?

Here in Britain, the two main parties are the Conservative Party and the Labour Party. It used to be quite an even two-horse race between the two for a number of years, but I’d personally argue that in recent years, the race has become more one-sided. Since 2010, when David Cameron won 306 seats and started the hung parliament with the Liberal Democrats, the Conservatives have only increased in popularity, and they’ve had a very easy ride compared to Labour. To recap the results of all the elections since 2010:
  • 2010: Conservatives, led by David Cameron, win 306 seats, while Labour, led by Gordon Brown, win 258 seats. Coalition government formed between Conservatives and Liberal Democrats.
  • 2015: Conservatives, led by David Cameron, win 330 seats, while Labour, led by Ed Milliband, win 232 seats. Conservative Party gains a modest majority in parliament.
  • 2017: Conservatives, led by Theresa May, win 317 seats, while Labour, led by Jeremy Corbyn, win 262 seats. Conservative majority lost, and confidence-and-supply deal is formed with the DUP.
  • 2019: Conservatives, led by Boris Johnson, win 365 seats, while Labour, led by Jeremy Corbyn, win 202 seats. Conservatives gain a landslide majority in parliament.
  • While it’s too early to call yet, the news would also suggest that Labour, led by Keir Starmer, might also be on for a damning result in yesterday’s local elections, as well as the Hartlepool by-election.
Looking at this, the thing I can conclude is; in spite of some glimmers of hope for the Labour Party (they gained significant ground in 2017), none of their leaders have been able to hit hard enough to gain even the control of a hung parliament, and while time will tell whether Keir Starmer is able to reverse this trend, the recent local elections and current opinion polls would certainly suggest that the Conservative Party is still only gaining popularity, even after 11 years in various forms of government, and even in spite of the fact that the Conservative Party has had some scandals of its own.

I’ll admit I’m racking my brains as to why this is. I initially thought it was because left-wing politics is growing less popular in Britain, but the fact that Keir Starmer, a more centrist candidate, still seems to be struggling would suggest that that might not be it. I’m very unsure; is it that the Conservatives themselves are becoming more centrist (based on their COVID response and things like the furlough scheme, I think this is arguable)? Is it that the policies the Conservatives stand for are simply more popular? I’m really struggling to work it out, I’ll admit.

So my question to you is; why do you think that the Labour Party has struggled so much in recent elections? Do you think the trend is reversible, and how do you think they could go about reversing it?
 
I don't like wading in to politics too much as it never ends well and you get judged very quickly. I'm no expert but it appears to me there is a lot of division in and around Labour between the left of the party and the more centrist element of the party. To bring in a theme park comparision, it seems a bit like Thorpe Park where they can't actually decide what their strategy is and keep changing it.
 
In Hartlepool's case, there was a non-Labour majority last election, just this time as Brexit "is done" all the right wing votes went to the Tories instead of being split between Conservatives and Brexit party.
It could have happened years ago if UKIP hadn't split the right-wing vote away from the Tories.

In more general terms, Labour hasn't done well since before Thatcher. In the late 90s Tony Blair did well, but his politics were different to old and current Labour.

We would all be better off if first past the post voting was reformed and we got some kind of proportional representation though. Labour would do well to work with Lib Dem and Greens to try and make reforms to the political system, otherwise I think British politics is slightly broken.
 
Prevalence of right wing media (hatchet job on Miliband eating a bacon sandwich) which in turn seems to plug any leaky holes or problems within current government doesn't help.

I'd say the main factor is the number of "serious" left wing parties outnumbering the right. What did the Tories do when UKIP threatened to take votes away? Brexit vote. Kept then from losing their voters while the left side bicker and fight internally rather than think "we need to change the system".

Tribalism also plays a part. Which is why a lot of "scandals" especially recently seem to not do anything for numbers or people. Years ago some of these scandals would've seen sackings at minimum. Now they just carry on and people still vote for their "team" because that's what they've always done or some such nonsense.

Politics across the world has become truly poisonous.
 
Benzin said:
Tribalism also plays a part. Which is why a lot of "scandals" especially recently seem to not do anything for numbers or people. Years ago some of these scandals would've seen sackings at minimum. Now they just carry on and people still vote for their "team" because that's what they've always done or some such nonsense.
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I think a number of Labour's issues at the moment stem from the opposite of what describe, the Labour heartlands have been lost and the red wall has fallen, because the electorate is less tribal, former mining areas decimated by Thatcher have now voted Conservative, in some cases for the first time ever.
 
The division between rich and poor has widened since Thatcher and the "Greed is good" mantra.
Those with even modest amounts of capital no longer seem happy to share it through realistic taxation.
Blair followed Thatcher and co with no real rise in taxes, and he failed to bring any of the privatised industries back to state control, so the shift to the right was maintained.
I can't see any other "serious" left wing parties, if there was, I would vote for them!
And politics across the world have always been truly poisonous.
Politics means power and control, it has always been abused by the despots, through history.
 
This is a local election and not a general one, so people do vote differently as they are not voting for a party to run the country. With a general election, you will get a lot of tactical voting.

I don't feel that Keir Starmer is a strong opposition leader, I personally think that Emily Thornberry would have been a better opposition leader. It seems like Labour mildly oppose everything that the Tories do and when the Tories do a U turn, they still oppose it. Starmer just comes across very meek
 
I was never a full Corbyn convert, but at least he had ideas, presence and at least for a while, galvanised quite a broad cross-section of the country. Starmer is bringing absolutely nothing to the table and cannot compete with the ruthless Tory divide-and-rule tactics (scandal distractions, culture war nonsense), nor their increasing, terrifying new move to deny any culpability or accountability.

Local elections don't necessarily reflect local public feeling on Westminster, but given some of the scandal we've endured in the last year, I'd want even my cuddliest local MP on the chopping block. I think the vaccine is the only key narrative people are connected to now, and on that front, the government has managed to score.
 
I was actually a member of the party way before the whole Corbyn thing. The most serious problem the party faces is the fact it's massively split. I left over all the poison as it was becoming clear I was not welcome.

You don't have to look very far to see how terrible it is inside the party and it's not just left winger's Vs centrists, there's a massive hard left inside the party who are incredibly tribal. Labour has always been a mix of hard line socialists, social democrats and centrists and only win elections when they unite. It started when the PLP repeatedly tried to assassinate Corbyn as leader (although there was far more going on behind the scenes).

Whilst they're split and can't listen to one another, it's left the party with very little purpose. The SNP have stolen their clothes in Scotland, and are now using that as a spring board to pursue their nationalist agenda. Labours completely shambolic Brexit policies (or lack of) and failure to connect with anti globalisation feeling in the heartlands has alienated their core vote. Then Borris launches the most moderate Tory manifesto of my lifetime at the last election, allowing many core labour voters to cross the conservative box with their noses held.

Labour have no solutions. They've talked very little about anything the past year other than social justice, as nice as that sounds it does very little to solve the problems of many people who traditionally vote for them. If you're a remain voting Scot, you may as well get what you would've wanted from the labour party from the SNP now. The Tories seemed to have suddenly found their magic money tree this past year. If you're an ardent remainer or left wing you still have the choice of the Lib Dems or Greens should you wish to vote for them. Don't forget also that, although it's the case in some consistencies that the left vote is split, in the south the collapse of the Lib Dems means they can't hold back Tory seats standing in labours path like they used to.

There's loads they can and should do in response, but they can't do anything until they stop in fighting.

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Can't blame Corbyn, Labour won Hartlepool twice when he was in power.

I get the feeling that the voters are still punishing Labour for their stance on Brexit even though we have now left.

Despite an atrocious handling of the pandemic, the Tories have won votes with regards to the success of the vaccine roll out. I feel both Labour and Lib Dems both lost the plot a bit when they wanted to prioritise the school teachers above the vulnerable in the vaccine roll out and the Lib Dems wanted to also send our vaccines supplies out to other countries after the first 4 million people have been vaccinated. I felt they didn't understand the science of the roll out and that there were still many unvaccinated vulnerable people who were at high risk from catching Covid in the remaining groups up to group 9. If they had it their way, Jess and I would have certainly still be shielding and our stats would still be high and we might have ended up with a 3rd wave with the variants.

To be honest, I never have and would never vote for the Tories, but what other option do we have? All the political parties have their pros and cons.
 
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It's a perfect storm really. Yup you can sit and blame the media, but the fact is the infighting needs to be stopped before any of the other stuff is addressed. The hard fact is that the UK is ultimately a right leaning country, which is why the centrist Labour party of old did so well. You can't just flick a switch and move so far to the left, which is one of the issues that faced Corbyn and even over in the US, with the shouts of communism to strike fear into voters. Unless the hard left of the party start to understand that and realise that it's a fruitless pursuit to go down that route and come up with some policies that can be sold to the voting majority, Labour will never be in power.

They will continue to lose the right leaning sections of the party to the tories and others to the Green Party. We saw last night a number of seats go to the tories on account of the left vote being split between Labour, Lib Dems and the Greens, simply because former Labour voters just don't know what they're voting for with the current party.

Sure the media play a part with their negativity, but if they keep being fed ammunition from said infighting, nothing is going to change. They need to be better on the campaign front, they've been frankly pretty terrible at it in comparison to the Tories up here in the north east. On the national stage, they need to be quicker and bolder in their responses to the government failings. It's no good simply repeating attack lines or have pointless publicity photos. For example, the wallpaper photo was a cheap shot over the "flat gate" fiasco, seemingly taking aim at Johnson's choice of decor. It did absolutely nothing to push the root of the issue - that favours could be being dished out in exchange for those flat refurbishment donations. That photo simply galvanised the narrative being pushed by the Tories that Labour were kicking up a fuss over nothing about a bit of house redecoration. They need to be far more nimble in their decision making and come up with policy based responses to the government's failings. People want solutions and alternatives to issues, not just constant shouts of disagreements.

Of course, there's lots of things out of Labour's hands which have also helped. For example, the money being pumped into the north east has helped the Tory mayor do a hell of a lot up here, and he's kept his promises made at the last election. That's secured his re-election, but that success also then trickles down to benefit local candidates too. Despite the "bodies pile high" comments, the vaccine bounce and recent lifting of restrictions has helped massively as well.

You have to remember too, with the likes of the furlough and other job support schemes and grants the current government have actually laid out a considerable number of socialist-style policies in the past year. Of course, they'll never be sold as that by the Tories, but the benefits of those policies also mean more votes going to the them over Labour.

Just a note on Corbyn "holding" Hartlepool - that's not really on the basis of Labour votes. If it weren't for the Brexit Party last time round splitting the right-leaning vote, Hartlepool would've been lost by Labour last election. The Brexit Party and Tories combined got 54.7% of the vote in 2019 vs Labour's 37.7%. Even going back to 2015, Labour only won because UKIP and the Tories split the right wing vote. It's been a close fought race up there for most of the years since Peter Mandelson quit in 2004.
 
Part of It I think in recent times is reactionary against what is perceived 'woke culture' ..... and that of traditional liberal and left leaning people drifting central.
Labour used to be much more central-left, but under Corben it has drifted further left - and this divides people! and Labor has become tribal amongst themselves, I know this as I know people involved in labour in Bristol!

Another complex problem is this past year the Left has vilified 'straight white men' .etc.... with a lot of anger towards that demographic..... forgetting that there are hell of a lot of straight white men in the country! And therefore one doesn't have to work out why that demographic might vote a certain way! there's been a lot of anger this last year, but unfortunately that does nothing to change hearts and minds! People will be less likely to admit it openly - and let their polling card do the talking.

Not saying that right, I just observe things from a psychological perspective.
 
The labour party is the Thorpe Park of politics. It doesn't know what it is or what it wants to be. It is saddled with the rements of misguided efforts over a number of years and doesn't know how to deal with them. It is currently a mess.
 
I've been happy to vote Labour the last few times, but honestly I have no idea what their position is any more.

I imagine they're holding off on signature policy announcements until the 'feel good' factor of the present circumstances wares off.

pluk said:
The labour party is the Thorpe Park of politics. It doesn't know what it is or what it wants to be. It is saddled with the rements of misguided efforts over a number of years and doesn't know how to deal with them. It is currently a mess.
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Is there an analogy of the year award?
 
emmerse2891 said:
Another complex problem is this past year the Left has vilified 'straight white men' .etc.... with a lot of anger towards that demographic..... forgetting that there are hell of a lot of straight white men in the country!
Click to expand...

I agree that Labour's problems in the 'red wall' areas might be related to a percieved woke culture, although ironically, has Labour ever had a leader who's not a straight white male?
 
The fact of the matter is Labour haven’t won an election since the 1970’s, Blair the war monger was more Tory than the Tories which is why he won 3 elections, that was his strategy and it worked.
England is by a considerable margin centre right in its politics and to win power you have to tap into this.
Also for all his failings Boris is a popular person, he has charisma and majority of people like him because he has these faults the same as most of us do.
 
No identity.

I'd strongly disagree that the UK is right-leaning on the whole. At all recent elections, including 2019, a 'left alliance' of Labour, Liberal Democrats, Green, SNP and PC votes would achieve well over 50% of the vote.

Proportional representation is desperately needed in this country, but in the meantime Labour need to actually stand for something, not just offer a lukewarm opposition to Tory policy. Corbyn actually stood for something, like him or loathe him, and the Greens, Lib Dems, SNP all have headline policies that will attract particular groups of voters. Labour have nothing.

I voted Green in the local elections this time around.
 
Do we think the trend is reversible?

I think it could be reversible, personally, as it’s worth remembering that the Conservatives went through a similar lull while Tony Blair and Gordon Brown were in power. In fact, I think they had even less seats than Labour has now; didn’t they have some ridiculously low number like 165 seats at one point during Blair’s reign?

Also, I don’t necessarily think that Britain is a right-leaning country that would never vote for a left-wing Labour Party. The USA is arguably quite similarly politically leaning to Britain, and they recently voted in a very left-wing president in Joe Biden (at least, a number of Biden’s policies are very left-wing, anyway). Even with Biden’s left-wing policy, he still has a reasonable approval rate (well over 50%) 4 months into his presidency.

It’s also worth remembering that some of the issues may be out of Labour’s control. Rightly or wrongly, I think Boris Johnson is very, very popular among the British electorate, and his government and the Conservatives are extremely popular due to their policies possibly being more what the country wants right now than Labour’s policies.
 
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