There’s a by-election in Hartlepool, north-east England next Thursday. For decades it was a Labour stronghold. Peter Mandelson was MP from 1992-2004 with massive majorities, over 17,000 in 1997. Not any more: Labour squeaked in 3,500 ahead in 2019. They’re projected to lose next week to the Conservative candidate, a farmer with no connection to the constituency.
Britain’s overwhelmingly Tory media will proclaim such a loss as a hammer blow to Keir Starmer’s leadership and his attempts to rehabilitate the Labour party after its catastrophic defeat in December 2019. Perhaps, but win or lose Hartlepool, Starmer’s chances of winning a general election in 2024 are remote. Rehabilitating the Labour party will not be enough.
At present Johnson is ten points ahead in the polls, benefitting from the success of the vaccination programme. Even if Johnson’s popularity slumps and Starmer ends up a few points ahead of him, it won’t be enough. Labour has been the chief casualty of the fundamental changes in British politics in the last five years. Many in the party (including its former Hartlepool MP and spin doctor Mandelson) are arguing that it’s not a matter of Starmer’s leadership, but a requirement for root and branch reform in the party to reconfigure it for the twenty-first century.
Here is the stark arithmetic. Labour used to be guaranteed sixty-odd MPs from Scotland. After devolution there are fifty-nine Scottish MPs. Labour has one. They’re not taking any off the SNP in the near future. In 2019 Labour lost six MPs in Wales, for many years a guaranteed source of Westminster seats. Like everywhere else it was Labour’s worst performance for decades. They now have 202 seats in Westminster, fewer than at any time since the 1930s, just below 1983’s dreadful defeat when they got 207 seats. It took a complete revamp – New Labour – and three general elections to come back from that.
It’s worse this time because they’ve been thrown out of Scotland. In order to win the next general election Johnson’s majority of 80 means Starmer needs to win 124 seats to get a majority of one. That’s a 10.5 per cent swing, more than Blair in 1997, and it would have to include 16 Scottish seats which won’t happen. Without 16 seats from Scotland he needs a 12 per cent swing which means winning Conservative seats in the south of England, including Johnson’s seat in Uxbridge. Fat chance.
There are alternative possibilities. Starmer could win 41 seats and go into a coalition government with the SNP. English voters would hate that and throw him out at the first opportunity. He could try a minority government if he won 41 seats, but it wouldn’t last and he couldn’t manage any controversial legislation such as improving Johnson’s awful Brexit deal.
There’s another problem. All those figures are based on the current constituencies. After the Boundary Commission report due in two years most election experts reckon Labour chances will be reduced even further. So, you’re facing Conservative governments for the next decade.
However, none of that means British politics remains static during that period. On the contrary, Labour’s difficulties simply emphasise the seismic changes afoot in British politics. Despite Johnson’s refusal to countenance a Scottish independence referendum, his nativist English governance will make one irresistible long before this decade is out. At present he has even managed to increase support for independence in Wales.
Similarly here in Ireland fundamental political change is under way. The next general election will be a contest between Sinn Féin and Fine Gael. Currently both of these parties are polling between two and three times the percentage of Fianna Fáil. Supported by a collection of left wingers and independents Mary Lou McDonald is likely to be the next taoiseach. Political and demographic changes, added to the calamity of Brexit, will make concurrent referendums on Irish unity just as inevitable as one on Scottish independence before the end of the decade.
