The Observer view on Labour’s performance in last
week’s elections
Observer
editorial
Keir Starmer must decide who the party exists for and
then persuade them to vote for it
Keir Starmer: ‘It is always difficult for a leader of
the opposition to get heard so soon after the election of a new PM.’
Sun 9 May
2021 06.00 BST
The
national mood is critical in determining the outcome of elections. Usually, we
apply a calculation of economic satisfaction: has life got harder or easier in
recent years and who do voters hold responsible? But in the extraordinary
circumstances of a pandemic, the public sentiment towards the government has
been understandably shaped by what voters make of the way it has handled
matters of life and death. Right now, there is a palpable sense of relief as we
appear to be re-emerging from the trauma of the past 16 months, with its
terrible death toll and painful lockdowns. The vaccine rollout is continuing
apace and far more successfully than in many other countries, infection rates
are low and it feels as if life is gradually approaching something close to
normal.
The
Conservatives were always going to benefit from this shift in the national
mood; so have the Scottish and Welsh incumbent governments, with the SNP and
Welsh Labour generally regarded by voters to have handled the pandemic well.
While the Tories may have been in power for more than a decade, the country
returned an 80-seat majority for Boris Johnson just 18 months ago, based on his
“get Brexit done” campaign and his appeal as a fresh start, running as much
against his Conservative predecessors as the opposition. Why would the voters
who supported him change their allegiance so soon? The vaccine bounce has
eclipsed concerns about the fumbled handling of the pandemic, Johnson delivered
Brexit as promised and voters may feel it is too early to judge the
government’s success on the other things that motivated them to support him.
That is the
context in which Labour’s performance in the local and mayoral elections in
England should be evaluated. It is difficult for a leader of the opposition to
be heard so soon after the election of a new prime minister to whom voters
delivered a resounding majority and who is broadly considered to be performing
well. The expectation that Labour could transform its fortunes just 18 months
after its historic 2019 defeat, its worst showing in almost 100 years, was
always unrealistic.
But neither
do the results suggest that Sir Keir Starmer has started to address the reasons
for defeat, beyond succeeding a deeply unpopular leader in Jeremy Corbyn. The
challenges facing Labour in England are immense and long pre-date Corbyn or
Brexit. Labour has been losing support among working-class voters more quickly
than among professionals for two decades. Initially, many of those voters
stayed at home or lent smaller parties support, but since Brexit the
Conservatives have successfully attracted them to their electoral coalition.
Age and
education level have become increasingly salient as predictors of voting
behaviour in the last decade: younger university graduates are more likely to
vote Labour, older homeowners on average incomes to support the Tories. Brexit
has accelerated this realignment of English politics but is better understood
as a symptom than a cause. Labour cannot win under first past the post without
building a broad electoral coalition, but the divisions within that historic
coalition – between socially liberal voters more likely to have supported
Remain and socially conservative voters more likely to have supported Leave –
have become more significant than their shared values on the economy. There was
no position on Brexit that would have avoided losing the party votes.
And Labour
is more disadvantaged by this realignment than the Conservatives, because its
votes tend to be concentrated in cities such as London, Liverpool and
Manchester, whereas the Conservatives have become a competitive electoral force
across much bigger parts of the country that include swaths of former Labour
heartlands. There are no quick fixes to this conundrum. But, worryingly, under
Starmer’s leadership these trends appear to be continuing to erode the Labour
vote. There is evidence of a squeeze on both sides: Labour also lost votes to
the Greens and Liberal Democrats in some areas. While our first-past-the-post
electoral system will prevent a dramatic implosion, Labour could have further
to fall; across the continent, many social democratic parties are engaged in a
struggle for survival.
It is early
days, but Starmer has not made enough progress in edging Labour back to electability.
Externally, he should have been able to show voters that he understands why so
many rejected Labour in 2019 and their aspirations and concerns in 2021: this
is the first building block in the articulation of an alternative vision for
the country. But Starmer appears to be a poor communicator who lacks an
instinctive touch; the same can be said for too many of his top team. His
attempt to adopt the patriotism of the flag came across as inauthentically
formulaic; like Ed Miliband, too much of his language is technical and wonky
rather than resonant. Internally, in the name of party unity, he has shied away
from addressing hard truths with his membership about the need to speak from
beyond the activist comfort zone. These are the things he needs to prioritise;
without this foundation, Labour’s attempts to set out what it stands for are
bound to fall flat. That one of Starmer’s first actions was needlessly sacking
Angela Rayner last night as party chair, one of Labour’s most senior women and
more able communicators, calls into question his judgment.
The
Conservatives have a dreadful track record in government; the Brexit they have
delivered risks widening regional inequalities and making people’s lives more
difficult in the years to come. But Labour needs to earn the right to set out
an alternative in the eyes of voters and Thursday’s results show it has not yet
achieved that on anything like the scale it needs to. The existential questions
that hang over Labour – who does the party exist to represent and how can it
build a sufficiently diverse electoral coalition of voters to win under the
Westminster electoral system as the electorate realigns – are not new but they
are ones Starmer needs to make a better start at answering. No government can
defy electoral gravity forever: eventually, the public mood will shift against
Johnson’s Conservatives. What is by no means guaranteed in a shifting
electorate is that that support will automatically transfer to Labour. Starmer
must do more to explain to the public what a Labour government would achieve
for Britain.
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário