Labour has lost 65 per cent of the council seats it was defending, off the back of what were underwhelming results for the party in 2021. This was the worst set of local election results for a new prime minister on record.
The party has dropped 10 percentage points in the polls since last year’s general election, and Keir Starmer’s personal ratings have nosedived.
Over recent days, Labour canvassers have reported back from the nation’s doorsteps. The words they use to summarise the public’s feedback are stark: “unpopular”, “broken trust”, “betrayal”, “alienated”.
Former Cabinet minister Louise Haigh has made a forthright intervention by calling for an economic reset which involves “ripping up our self-imposed tax rules” and “a serious programme of investment and reindustrialisation”. It is a thinly veiled and justified attack on Chancellor Rachel Reeves, whose policies are the root cause of Labour’s predicament.
We shouldn’t put up taxes on workers on low pay or even those on an average wage, but for the very highest earners – the top few per cent earning more than MPs – yes, they could afford to pay more. The income tax plans Labour had in 2017 (which only hit the top 5 per cent of earners in a manifesto described by Starmer as “Labour’s foundational document”) would raise enough to reverse the cuts to winter fuel allowance and cancel the proposed cuts to disability benefits.
square ANDREW FISHER
To stop Farage, both Badenoch and Starmer need to go
Read MoreAs Haigh lamented, “How many times have we heard on the doorstep that Labour does not like pensioners or disabled people? These are not the enemies that we should be defining ourselves against.”
Doncaster’s victorious Labour Mayor, Ros Jones, had a similarly scathing assessment, again highlighting the damage done by the cuts to winter fuel payments and the proposed slashing of disability benefits.
Neither Haigh nor Jones are figures on Labour’s left – they both come from the centre-left – but they are echoing what many figures on the socialist wing have been saying too.
Former shadow chancellor John McDonnell MP has written about the damage that cuts targeting pensioners and disabled people has caused, and criticised the Chancellor’s self-imposed fiscal rules on borrowing. South Shields MP Emma Lewell has excoriated the leadership for breaking public trust, concluding: “What is needed is a change of plan.”
Starmer’s tin-eared response to the results – “We’re moving in the right direction, but people must feel the benefits of change. I will go further and faster to make that happen” – has further inflamed people, including those who had remained loyal.
His statement is reminiscent of the hapless Jim Hacker in Yes Minister who declared, “When a country is going downhill, it is time for someone to get into the driving seat and put his foot on the accelerator.”
The question now is whether the left and centre-left of the party can force a change of direction, or whether Starmer continues to drive Labour “further and faster” to oblivion.
It might seem counter-intuitive when Reform has just won the council elections to suggest moving left, but there are two good reasons why Labour should.
Firstly, Labour voters are switching to the Greens and Lib Dems in far greater numbers than to Reform. A recent poll showed 43 per cent of Labour voters in 2024 might vote Green, compared to just 9 per cent tempted by Reform. If Labour wants to take on Reform it needs to stop haemorrhaging voters on its left.
Secondly, YouGov polling shows why Labour voters are abandoning the party, with the top five reasons being: removed winter fuel allowance; not reduced cost of living; not improved public services; broken too many promises; and not stood up to the rich and powerful.
square ANNE MCELVOY
Reform has what Labour used to have: momentum, and now the middle classes
Read MoreThere is a real opportunity here for the left and centre-left of Labour, mobilising members and unions too, to work together and shift the party back to where its voters expect. If Labour does not address the concerns of its own base, then the impetus for change will come from outside the Labour Party.
Already there are frustrations within the Greens that they have not fully capitalised on the collapse of the two main parties.
Deputy leader Zack Polanski has announced he will challenge Carla Denyer and Adrian Ramsay for the Green Party leadership later this year, on what he calls an “eco-populist” platform because “when Green party policies are polled, they are frequently the most-liked policies”.
Labour has vacated the popular social democratic policy platform with which Starmer won the leadership in 2020. Even Reform has recognised this to some extent with its calls for the nationalisation of both steel and water.
If the Greens (or even a new force driven by independent left figures) can pick up that mantle with sufficient energy and persuasiveness there is no doubt that there is an opportunity for the left outside of Labour to advance – as they did at the 2024 general election.
Labour is now at a crossroads: it can rediscover its identity or it will die – and will deserve to.
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