So Labour lost – and badly!
The Conservatives now have a clear, governing
majority of 66 seats.
Brexit can and will proceed.
Even after a week I have no stomach for the
centrist political analyses of the whys and wherefors. I go to the few people I
trust – particularly Paul Mason who, instead of dashing off an immediate
post-mortem, took the trouble to prepare a special 23 page folder called After
Corbynism – where next for Labour?
Labour gained
just 32% of the popular vote and lost 42 seats. Only one of the Tory held seats
we targeted in southern England fell to us; we lost heavily in the
former-industrial towns of the North and Midlands of England, plus 6 out of our
7 seats in Scotland.
The
simplistic narrative says: "we lost because our Brexit position alienated
the working class". If we examine the evidence, rather than the media
rhetoric, the defeat is the story of two swings:
• by Labour
voters in small-town England towards the Tories
• and a
bigger swing by Labour voters to the Libdems, SNP and Greens.
The stark
fact is that Labour lost 2.5 million votes while the Tories and Brexit party
combined picked up just 335,000 votes.
Table
1: party voting 2017 and 2019
2017
|
2019
|
Gain
|
Share
|
Seats
|
|
CONSERVATIVE
|
13,636,684
|
13,941,200
|
304,516
|
43.6
|
364
|
LABOUR
|
12,877,918
|
10,292,054
|
-2,585,864
|
32.2
|
203
|
SNP
|
977,568
|
1,242,372
|
264,804
|
3.9
|
48
|
LIBDEMS
|
2,371,861
|
3,675,342
|
1,303,481
|
11.5
|
11
|
Brexit
|
594,068
|
624,303
|
30,235
|
2.0
|
-
|
GREEN
|
864,743
|
339,000
|
1
|
||
PLAID
|
153,265
|
4
|
|||
Alliance (NI)
|
1
|
||||
DUP (N Ireland)
|
244,127
|
8
|
|||
Sinn Fein (NI)
|
181,853
|
7 (they never sit)
|
|||
SDL (NI)
|
118,737
|
2
|
Where did the rest of the Labour vote go? Take a glance at Table 1 (above) and it's clear. Allowing for the fact that some Tories switched to the Libdems, the polling analyst firm Datapraxis calulates that a maximum of 800,000 Labour voters switched to the Tories.
Meanwhile the Libdems gained at least 1.1 million votes from Labour, the Greens 339,000 and the SNP a quarter of a million.
Labour, in short, lost nearly twice as many votes to progressive pro-Remain parties as it did to the parties of Brexit and racism.
Once Farage stood down in 319 seats, the only thing that could have stemmed the Tory advance was (a) an electoral pact between progressive parties, (b) an unprecedented turnout by young voters, or (c) tactical voting, seat by seat, by three out of every four pro-Remain voters.
Young voters did turn out in large numbers for Labour and other progressive parties: 56% of under 24s voted Labour and 55% of 24-35 year olds.Tactical voting happened among progressives but not on the scale needed. In fact in numerous key seats - Stroud, Kensington, Chingford - votes for the so-called "Remain Alliance" of Greens and Libdems handed victory to the Tories. ….We were facing an alliance of the right and far right, with one relentless message. But the progressive parties refused any kind of tactical unity and fought each other instead.
The pamphlet goes on to explore where Labour should go under new
leadership and a programme which continues to reflect the values embodied in
the manifestos of 2017 and 2019
Recommended Reading
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