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

Now is the time for smaller parties like Lib Dems and Greens to push, but they too seem silent
 
3 things Labour could put on their manifesto and should be screaming loudly about now:

Recruit more police, build new prisons, harsher sentencing for violent crime, burglary etc.

House-building project to stop the rise in house prices and hopefully bring them down over time.

Improve access to doctors etc by hiring more medics and improving infrastructure.

The problem with Labour is that they're not making it loud and clear what they will do for us, if anything?
 
jon81uk said:
They should all be pushing to change away from first past the post. Working together to get a fairer system.
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Don't forget though that the Lib Dems did manage to force a referendum on the voting system as part of the coalition with the Conservatives. The electorate voted to keep the First Past The Post system by over two thirds.

Perhaps the case wasn't made why we should change it... let's face it, the FPTP system works for both Conservatives and Labour so they are unlikely to promote anything other than the status quo.
 
Alsty said:
Don't forget though that the Lib Dems did manage to force a referendum on the voting system as part of the coalition with the Conservatives. The electorate voted to keep the First Past The Post system by over two thirds.

Perhaps the case wasn't made why we should change it... let's face it, the FPTP system works for both Conservatives and Labour so they are unlikely to promote anything other than the status quo.
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I don't think the case was made well as to why it should change at the time unfortuantly. Also now we've got more ranked elections with more areas having mayors and similar maybe understanding of different methods could improve
 
FPTP used to work for Labour...it doesn't seem to have done so for the decade.
Not sure they will ever get elected again with an outright majority.
 
FPTP has historically been very favourable to Labour. It's the collapse of the Lib Dems and loss of Scotland that's swung it the other way.

On the subject of the Lib Dems, I've always maintained that the AV referendum result was a protest against them in particular. The campaign was dominated by anti Clegg/LD sentiment. Their coalition with the Tories is also the reason they collapsed to almost irrelevancy.

That's an interesting one because it's not only had a massive impact on Labour fortunes but it's also interesting how the Lib Dems see their time in government now. They saw it as a choice for the good of the nation to provide stable government and soften the right wing tendencies of the government. Here in the south west, their traditional strong hold, voters saw it as a betrayal. You can't gain Labour voters by spending 3 decades stuffing leaflets through peoples doors asking you to vote LD to keep the Tories out of power then be seen to be the enablers of getting them the keys to number 10.

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I always thought their main vote was teachers.
FPTP was kept because the majority of actual voters thought a clear "winner" party was better than coalitions, but the majority of voters overall however, could not be bothered to get off their arses and actually vote in the damn referendum!

Edited for clarity.
 
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jon81uk said:
There is a good article on what is wrong here https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2021/05/tony-blair-without-total-change-labour-will-die
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That’s an interesting article. Tony Blair definitely deserves to be listened to, considering he’s been the most successful Labour leader in relatively modern times. At the same time, all of these people from Labour saying they’re unelectable can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Tony Blair saying that they’re unelectable isn’t going to help them to get elected. Particularly as his article is slanted against Labour in quite a one sided way. He’s cherry picked the statistics that put them in a particularly bad light, for example concentrating on seats rather than their percentage of the vote. In the last election Labour did do badly out of the first past the post system. UKIP collapsed and the Lib Dems haven’t managed to regain trust/credibility from the coalition. Although I accept that to an extent you have to judge the player by the rules of the game.

In terms of it being a self-fulfilling prophecy, it’s like when the Labour MPs gave Jeremy Corbyn a vote of no confidence because they said he was unelectable. It became a circular argument.

“Why have his MPs given him a vote of no confidence?”
"Because he’s unelectable”
“Why is he unelectable?”
“Because even his own MPs don’t support him”.

That’s an over simplification, but the point still stands.

Everyone in Labour wants unity, but the idea they want everyone to unify around is their own idea. I suspect the Labour party is going to struggle to agree on Brexit. They may struggle to agree on Scottish independence. What they need are some strong policies that most Labour supporters can agree on. At the moment it is hard to know what they do stand for.

Whilst I think that Tony Blair does have some valid points, you could also argue that some of Labour’s problems do go back to New Labour. For example, you could argue that they opened up the freedom of movement to new EU members too quickly and this heated up the anti-immigration movement that led to Brexit. Labour did introduce Sure Start Centres and EMA, which are generally considered to have helped deprived areas. However, they also relaxed gambling laws leading to large numbers of betting shops in working class areas. They allowed pay day loan companies like Wonga to thrive. They also carried on selling off social housing stock. New Labour’s legacy in deprived areas isn’t an entirely positive one.
 
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Sure Start flopped because it was often taken over by the middle classes, instead of those in need.
Labour failed to increase taxation when Blair got power, to fund better housing and infrastructure, and job creation with it.
They should also have renationalised energy supply and transport, buses and rail, and built social housing, but they abandoned their voters and remained essentially a right wing government, after the massive (Big One first drop style) lurch to the right, and downhill all the way from Thatcher for the less well off.
 
Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t Blair have a lot of radical spending policies during his time in government, that critics of Labour argue were “spending money that the country didn’t have”, and that “we’re still paying for now”?

A lot of my older relatives won’t vote Labour because they believe that Labour aren’t able to be responsible with the nation’s finances like the Conservatives are.
 
Matt N said:
Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t Blair have a lot of radical spending policies during his time in government, that critics of Labour argue were “spending money that the country didn’t have”, and that “we’re still paying for now”?

A lot of my older relatives won’t vote Labour because they believe that Labour aren’t able to be responsible with the nation’s finances like the Conservatives are.
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Labour were in power for an extended period when the sun was very much shining, but they made no hay.

Rightly or wrongly there is a perception that they can not be trusted with finance; that they tax highly to pay for public services but are wasteful when they do so, primarily by funding an overly generous welfare state which rewards those who don't fancy working.

Two huge things stick in the minds of those who were there at the time.
Gordon Brown selling the country's gold at a record low price.
The outgoing treasury leaving a note that there is no money as they left office.

Both things we are very much still paying for now.

Not helped by a host of other things which would undermine peoples confidence in their financial abilities such as Gorden Browns 'end to of tory boom and bust' before overseeing a mighty boom and bust, Diane Abbots general incompetence, Blairs proliferation of PFI (again, still paying for now), Corbin's free broadband and cupcakes for all. It does not instil confidence.
 
To start off with, New Labour were reducing the national debt. Then they embarked on two expensive wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the debt started increasing again. Were we right to go into those wars? Did Blair lie about the ‘weapons of mass destruction’? Should we have spent longer trying to work with the UN? Was war unduly influenced by oil? Are Afghanistan and Iraq better off than they were before? These are all complicated questions, although the Conservatives did support the war.

The Conservatives were the ones who deregulated the banks, although Labour could have reversed it. The Conservatives also supported the banking bailout.

It does feel like the Conservatives supported most of Labour’s big financial decisions, and then got away for blaming them for all the problems. Two wrongs don’t make a right, but this is where I think a lot of the media clearly are biased.
 
Matt N said:
Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t Blair have a lot of radical spending policies during his time in government, that critics of Labour argue were “spending money that the country didn’t have”, and that “we’re still paying for now”?

A lot of my older relatives won’t vote Labour because they believe that Labour aren’t able to be responsible with the nation’s finances like the Conservatives are.
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That's what I meant about not raising taxation.
Rates of income tax and VAT should have been raised considerably when they came in to power to pay for the intended spending.
They didn't.
 
Labour falling over themselves over the Howard Beckett suspension. What a mess. It is interesting to see how the various groups respond to actions from those in other factions. So many folks who have called on various people people to be sacked over minor indiscretions or ill-judged Tweets are now perhaps starting to see the error of their ways as it begins to affect people on their own side.

A great slice of Pie explains this brilliantly ... amusing the video is nearly a year old but the first ten seconds could have been written and recorded today.

NSFW or youth



Also, this is a great article by Phil Wilson who held Sedgefield from Blair's resignation until the 2019 election, I read it in Morrisons before in the actual paper - not sure if it's available for free online. "If it wasn’t for the Labour Party, we’d probably have a Labour government" - a lot of truth in that headline alone.
 
Blair is s swear word in the Labour party these days. Anyone who dares speak fondly of him is swiftly bullied and abused.

But the fact remains that he was an incredible orator, electioneer and strategist whatever anyone thinks of his record in government or of his personal beliefs. There was a saying in the party in the late 90's that said "New Labour is better than NO Labour". I've read his memoirs and the reason he adopted so many of his policies is that he was haunted by the 18 years Labour spent in the wilderness - his fear of losing elections was always at the forefront of his mind.

There's this nonsense being slung around within the party that you can't be successful and have principles and I think that's an insane argument and is exactly why the party is so broken. I was proud to be in a party where Tony's Blair and Benn could coexist. What is a political party if it isn't a collection of ideas and belief's that go in to a melting pot to create a vehicle for power United behind a common goal?

There are old fashioned right wingers within the Tory party who are champing at the bit to privatise the NHS, despise Borris' lockdown measures and hate Sunaks current spending spree. Yet they know that if they're to get anything they want then they need power and power is what they've got.

Labour needs to become an election winning machine and it can only do that by accepting differences of opinion and focussing on what unites them. It's not a socialist party, it's not a goody goody party, it isn't a green party, it isn't a pro EU party, it isn't an SJW party, it isn't a social hand out party, it isn't a liberal party and it isn't a Tory Light party.

It's a party created by trade unions to stand up for hard working people regardless of disability, gender, race etc to be paid fairly and be able to live a good and prosperous life. It's policies are a product of those overarching aims (whether those policies are right or wrong) and I believe they don't define the party. It's the party that the trodden on should be able to turn to for representation and that's what people in it should be uniting behind.

Anyone who has such strong socialist, liberal, conservative, nationalist or globalist views that are more important than the core purpose of the party should bugger off to the numerous other parties that stand for these things. The clue is in the title of the party. The party should be whatever the people it was set up to represent need it to be.

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BarryZola said:
3 things Labour could put on their manifesto and should be screaming loudly about now:

Recruit more police, build new prisons, harsher sentencing for violent crime, burglary etc.

House-building project to stop the rise in house prices and hopefully bring them down over time.

Improve access to doctors etc by hiring more medics and improving infrastructure.

The problem with Labour is that they're not making it loud and clear what they will do for us, if anything?
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I completely agree on authoritarian stance towards crime, there's a gaping opportunity and land grab available there. I'd also add hard immigration tones also. I am not sure how that would come about in reality however, given the London-centric and generally socially liberal party at member and committee level.

With regards to housebuilding, the Tories sit on that 'build more houses forever' land. Labour need to wake up and admit that there are thousands of empty properties in inner city areas. There is a surplus of houses in this country. Materialistic and vanity-driven demand does not constitute a housing shortage. Labour should try saying they would put a ban on new housebuilding in many areas, and mandate a mass programme of renovation. The Tories will p-off as many as they satisfy with plans to mass housebuild with fewer regulations - there is an opening here for Labour.

Alas, nothing will happen though other than more navel gazing and infighting.
 
We need someone to bring in a radical new set of policies to solve the housing crisis. We need to end the right to buy and build up the social housing stock. We need tighter regulations on landlords/letting agents/estate agents in terms of what counts as a fair contract and how properties are advertised. There should be an independent ombudsman for the property sector, run by the government. Property companies should be excluded from donating money to political parties (as they are in some other countries). They need to build Trading Standards up again and make it possible for the public to make complaints directly to Trading Standards.

Public policy has been bent so strongly in favour of the property sector, inflating property prices, putting the poorest people into greater poverty and allowing the rich to get richer by exploiting others.
 
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