Director of Public Affairs, Christine Quigley, examines what's next for Labour.
In 1997, Labour’s election campaign song was the upbeat Things Can Only Get Better by D:Ream, which buoyed activists as the party won a landslide; 22 years later, after Labour’s worst General Election result since 1935, the optimism is gone, but the sentiment remains apt. Many party members are feeling that the party’s electoral situation can’t get much worse. But what will Labour members be saying to Jeremy Corbyn – Bye Bye Baby, or Don’t Leave Me This Way?
Over the coming days and weeks, Labour’s leadership, its half-million members and the media will be dissecting what went wrong. Activists across the country have been reporting for weeks that Jeremy Corbyn was a problem rather than a selling-point on the doorstep, with the antisemitism scandal penetrating into voters’ consciousness and the party’s triangulation on Brexit also a contributing factor. While the party’s vote held up in Remain-voting areas like London and Liverpool, Leave-voting areas in the Midlands and North of England turned their backs on the party, manifesting in Labour losing seats like Leigh, which it had held since 1922, and Wakefield, a Labour constituency since 1932. The party’s collapse in Scotland will also be closely examined, particularly as it mirrors closely the 2015 result north of the border. On both occasions, Ian Murray is left as Labour’s sole MP in Scotland.
A key challenge for Labour this time around was a poor targeting strategy, leading to an inefficient vote distribution. 16 Labour MPs racked up majorities over 30,000, including London heartlands like Hackney North and Hackney South, Tottenham, and Walthamstow as well as several Liverpool and Leeds seats. At the same time, Labour lost seats by small margins to the Tories, including Bury North with 105 votes, Kensington with 150 and Bolton North East with 378 votes. Part of this may be ascribed to the attrition of experienced Labour campaign staff in recent years and an over-estimation of the effectiveness of the party’s social media campaign.
So what happens next? Jeremy Corbyn has confirmed today that he will stand down in the “early part of next year”, which would be later than some members would like, but earlier than the timetable Unite’s Len McCluskey has previously floated. As Labour no longer has a Deputy Leader in post, there isn’t an immediately obvious interim leader if Corbyn were to step down early, and the party’s Shadow Cabinet and NEC would have to vote to appoint an interim leader. The longer Corbyn stays in post, the more time that the party’s left will have to mobilise around an alternative left-wing candidate for leader who would continue the Corbyn project. A leadership election begun in the next few weeks would have more chance of capitalising on members’ frustration at having lost four elections in a row and prompting a change of direction.
Labour’s soft left may well be the kingmakers in a future leadership election. A candidate from the Blairite or old right wing of the party is likely to find it difficult to cut through with the larger membership, as evidenced by Liz Kendall’s poor performance in 2015, while many members will be wary of adopting a new leader who might not appeal to the wider electorate. A candidate looking to win votes from the party’s hard left while retaining the confidence of the right is likely to focus on Labour heartland issues like education, housing and the NHS, build on the recent declaration of a climate emergency to concentrate minds on green issues and maintain policies popular across Labour’s membership like renationalisation of rail, energy and water.
For those of us who are Labour activists, last night’s result was a difficult one to process. But in the immortal words of Yazz, in a song released the year after Labour started regaining seats in the 1987 General Election, The Only Way Is Up.
