Executive summary:
When the Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn was backed into a corner and compelled to agree to the wishes of Prime Minister Boris Johnson to hold an election for the 12th of December 2019, he was hoping it would kickstart the process of dislodging the Conservative Party after 9 years of rule. What transpired instead was the heaviest defeat for Labour for almost 100 years, and the Conservatives won with a resounding majority of 80. Traditional Labour strongholds in the Midlands and the North such as Bolsover, Don Valley and Workington, areas that for almost a century have voted red, switched to the blue side, as it appeared Boris Johnson’s ‘Get Brexit Done’ pledge was seductive. So, the support for Labour among working class towns that was deteriorating over the years was compounded in this election. This apace with the patriotic sentiments that were liberated contributed to the bloodbath, and as the race for Corbyn’s replacement advances, an awareness of the scale of the problem and the challenges the party will face is paramount.
Analysis:
The working-class disengagement:
The pre-election predictions were centered on the Labour ‘red wall’, the areas in the Midlands and the North of England which traditionally always vote Labour, and many of which overwhelmingly voted to leave the European Union in 2016. It was there where analysts said the election would be decided. That turned out to be the case. Labour lost 60 seats in total, and 52 of those were constituencies that voted leave in the 2016 referendum.
Blyth Valley was one of the first areas to be declared on election night and it set the tone. The Conservatives ended 69 years of electoral failure there as they removed first brick off the red wall. When other places like Wrexham, Bishop Auckland and Don Valley, all robust Labour seats for several decades collapsed, it was clear Labour were in for a drubbing. The postmortem requires asking whether these traditional working-class seats abandoned Labour once for a set purpose, in this instance finalizing Brexit after three years of dithering and ambivalence, or whether it was the start of a realignment of the British political landscape and the beginning of the end of one of the major political parties.
Whilst Brexit was critical in swaying voters, it would perhaps be too simplistic to pinpoint it as the sole factor. Rather, Brexit was the nail in the coffin and the process that accelerated the abdication of Labour. Commentators often trace the sentiments of despair and disengagement held by those who deserted Labour to Corbyn’s leadership of the party. That would suggest that prior to his introduction, those who left were staunch paid up members brimming with infatuation for the party.
But the trends of the last few decades would suggest otherwise. During the Conservative Margaret Thatcher’s tenure as Prime Minister, the steel, shipbuilding and mining manufacturing industries were mercilessly decimated. Thatcher’s closest political friends argued that British industry was ‘overmanned’ with ‘too low earnings and too little profit and too little investment’. The answer, according to them, lay in shedding factory workers, which would make industrial companies leaner and free up labour for new businesses.
But these factories were the bedrock of many Northern towns and villages and the beating heart of many of the communities. Thatcher’s attacks on industry dealt body blows to the old, industrial working class. Well-paid, secure, skilled jobs that people were proud of, which had been a linchpin of working-class identity, were eradicated.
As a result of their obliteration, the north suffered the worst of the deep recession and high unemployment of the early years; and it benefited least from the eventual boom of the late 1980s.
This boom was part of Thatcher’s transformation of the City of London, where the exchange controls were lifted as part of the deregulation of the Stock Exchange, as foreign capital flooded into Britain. Then followed privatisations and an economic policy geared towards a housing boom. Such measures helped create the new internationally focussed City. Consequently, while the deindustrialisation of the North was ongoing, the South was developing financial systems and enabling the region to become the concentration of economic power, and this prompted the regional inequalities and the North-South divide.
Thatcher famously asserted ‘If we try to discourage development and economic growth in large parts of the South of England, in the hope that it will happen in the large cities in the North, we risk losing them altogether,’ and her policies embodied that approach.
But Thatcher was just the start. When New Labour and Tony Blair burst on to the scene, the principles of Thatcherism were never really challenged. Rather, Blair’s project was an enthusiastic continuation of Thatcherism, with a stern determination to build up London as a financial centre and orient policy around Conservative swing voters in the south. The message those in the north were receiving was that the gaze of whoever held office in Westminster was firmly planted in the south.
The consequences of New Labour’s policies fed into that narrative too. Blair oversaw a sharper decline in manufacturing than anything witnessed under Thatcher, as it became clear that the architects of New Labour favoured a shift from industry to services. Indeed, Mr Blair saw the party’s future as the party of the professional middle classes, those who embraced liberalism and free markets.
Hence, whereas Labour traditionally offered an alternative and had the interests of the working class at heart, the Blair years and the neo-liberal strategy paved the way for people to rethink traditional political party loyalties and this was palpable in the vote share of a lot of the traditional Labour seats. From 1997 to 2010, for every voter Labour lost from the professional classes, it lost three unskilled or unemployed workers, and the figures accentuate this. The Labour majority in Hartlepool sank from over 17,000 in 1997 to 14,000 in 2001, and then from 7,000 to 5,000 between 2005 and 2010. In the same period, the Sedgefield majority dwindled from 25,000 to 8,000, and Darlington from 13,000 to 3,000.
These were the very seats which by the end of the next decade, Labour had lost completely. But whilst for the last 30 years it was post-industrial economic growth in the south, at the expense of their communities, which accounted for their resentful tendencies, once the 2016 referendum took place, that became the defining issue.
The exasperation, combined with a fraying social fabric and long-term corrosion of economic opportunity, inflicted on them by the Westminster elites, triggered large swathes of the working-class population to vote leave. It was a vote against the status quo. The first past the post voting system in elections was often a hindrance and several votes were rendered irrelevant. But this was one vote, one voice. They wanted radical changes to their predicaments, and exiting the EU represented exactly that for them.
Therefore, with a sizeable amount of the Labour electorate already alienated and drifting away, Labour’s Brexit strategy aggravated the situation. Labour’s official Brexit policy for the 2019 election was to hold another referendum, with the options being a Labour negotiated ‘soft’ Brexit which incorporated staying in the customs union versus remaining in the EU. For the millions who voted to leave and had historically backed Labour, this was seen as a threat to democratic legitimacy, and an attempt to disregard the will of the people. More importantly, for many north of the capital, it was yet another example of how meaningless their voices were, because they had come out in droves to vote, yet the political class had failed to carry out their wishes.
For those who flocked from Labour, this was reinforced when the Peoples Vote campaign gathered momentum. It was born in London, and a plethora of London based shadow cabinet Labour MP’s came out with full pledged support for Remain, from Keir Starmer to Emily Thornberry, to Diane Abbott to Dawn Butler. After playing an enabling role in ripping the heart and soul out of northern communities, Labour were again displaying an inconsideration for the north by ignoring their vote and ploughing ahead with trying to reverse the referendum result. Meanwhile, the Conservatives were adamant on ‘getting Brexit done’.
Ostensibly, that was the image in many Labour supporters’ minds. While Labour’s economic programme would go some way in reversing the deindustrialisation which had ravaged the region, their stance on Brexit was unforgivable and appeared to confirm for many that Labour no longer represented the working class. Corbyn inherited a party with a fragile support base and on the biggest issue in Britain’s history, ended up dissuading them further.
Nationalism unleashed:
But it was not just the fact that the result was being overlooked which made Brexit so dear to those in the heartlands. It was what it embellished too. The anger that had built up after years of neglect and economic decline became wedded to anger at immigration. And for them, Brexit became a vehicle that would hasten the process of limiting migration.
Anti-immigrant rhetoric was a mainstay in the 2016 Brexit vote. The British Election Study conducted interviews with a substantial number of respondents to identify, in their own words, what mattered the most when it came to deciding the referendum. Sovereignty, borders and control were often referred to. But the one word which surfaced more than any other, was immigration.
The Brexit vote unleashed a patriotism that had been curbed for years. But again, this was not a sudden spike nor a reactionary thought. Anti-immigrant sentiments had been intensifying for several years.
Between 2004 and 2014, immigration from Eastern bloc countries heightened. There are now over 800,000 Polish people in the UK, about 175,000 Romanians and about 65,000 Bulgarians. The public rhetoric was for years opposed to Eastern Bloc migration, which was seen to have a negative impact on the British labour market.
Common statements in places like Bolsover and Ashfield were that the low wage jobs which replaced coal and mining ‘should have gone to ex-miners, not to foreign workers’. In their towns, many felt like foreigners, and they felt it was because of the EU’s freedom of movement that ethnic faces increasingly infiltrated their areas. Irrespective of whether such attitudes were misguided, it is what the locals felt. And over the years, Labour was dismissive of their concerns.
It was under Blair’s Labour that economic migration expanded. The Department for Education wanted more international students, the Treasury wanted more high skilled migrants, the Department of Trade and Industry wanted more IT specialists and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office wanted to build relations with Central and Eastern European nations. These weren’t thought of as a tangent collective, but they were all driven by the same third-way logic. As a result, this increased migration contributed heavily to the emphasis of Britain, especially in the south, as multicultural.
However, it went against the fundamental areas of concern of ardent supporters. The first signs of disapproval from historically steadfast Labour supporters was synonymous with the rise of UK Independence Party (UKIP) – the Euroskeptic and anti-immigration party which had a comprehensive distrust for mainstream politicians. And they were successful in attracting significant Labour voters from 2005 onwards, evinced by its runner up showings in Barnsley, Rotherham and South Shields, all part of the Labour red wall.
That illustrated that there was a small right revolt in the Labour Party, where some were taking the steps to pivot away. UKIP’s victory in the 2014 European Parliament elections emphasised that the right side of the spectrum was becoming an attractive outlet, even for those on the left, as they robbed the Conservatives and Labour of 150 seats. This foreshadowed what was to come.
For Labour, it was a damning indictment. Their policies of continued deindustrialisation coupled with increased immigration estranged their core support base. With Corbyn at the helm promising a radical overhaul, the opportunity was there to hearten that base. But nothing of the sort materialised. Instead, Labour dithered when it came to freedom of movement. In their 2019 election manifesto, on an issue as urgent as freedom of movement, Labour had nothing remotely radical to offer. Corbyn refused to commit to Labour continuing freedom of movement whilst concurrently refusing to rule it out. He promised that Labour would ‘allow a great deal of movement’ but it was too vague and indecisive. It did not help when prominent members of his cabinet like John McDonnell and Diane Abbott came out in defence of freedom of movement. It was precisely what the leave-voting northern Labour voters did not want to hear.
Contrastingly, the Conservative message was clear and concise. End freedom of movement once and for all. It was a phrase that was employed in abundance throughout the election, which coupled with their desire to sort Brexit out, for many Labour voters, were pledges they had been demanding from their party for years. They were being listened to for once, and the extent to which they desired that, was palpable when they broke traditional party boundaries in the polling booths.
The media factor:
The above aspects illustrate that the rebuilding of the Labour Party is a herculean task. Anger has been building for years at the lethargy and aloofness displayed by every Labour leader in the last two decades, and Corbyn was the metaphorical straw that broke the camel’s back. But a component which compounded matters in the election and continues to be a thorn in the party’s side is the media apparatus in the country. Researchers at Loughborough University analysed and examined the press coverage of the two parties throughout the election period. Their findings show that press hostility to Labour in the 2019 election was more than double of that identified in the 2017 election and was overwhelmingly negative, meanwhile pessimistic coverage of the Conservatives halved.
The academics stipulated that the extent of the negativity towards Labour was ‘far from business as usual’, thus hinting the intensity was unprecedented. Indeed, their research showed that the attention of voters peaked in the last week, and it was in this period that the coverage of Johnson’s Conservatives markedly improved. In addition, the press ensured Brexit, the issue the Conservatives wanted to be central, dominated again in the last week, with the data indicating such a method proved ‘consequential’.
Such a strategy from one arm of the media, in this instance the press, during the election is emblematic of its day to day relationship with the Labour Party. Throughout Corbyn’s tenure at the helm, much of the coverage has been unfavourable and there have been instances when the Conservatives have profited from a lack of scrutiny.
The anti-Semitism saga has been looming over Corbyn and his party for several years now, and is an issue which has prevailed in the media. When the Chief Rabbi intervened during the election and accused Corbyn of allowing a ‘poison sanctioned from the top’ to take root in Labour, claiming British Jews were anxious about the prospect of a Labour government, the coverage was unparalleled. Radio stations, television channels, newspaper headlines and the rest dedicated substantial amounts of time to the issue. It fuelled the idea that had long been circling that under Corbyn’s watch the party was increasingly anti-Semitic and only added to the uncertainty about whether Corbyn was fit to lead the country. Meanwhile, the coverage appeared to have the desired effects, as research from the prominent polling company YouGov shows that the biggest factor for voters who defected from Labour was Jeremy Corbyn and his leadership, whereby just 21% of voters held a favourable view, compared to 46% who did after the 2017 election.
By contrast, when anti-Semitism and its standing in the Conservative Party emerged, the coverage and inspection was not as vivid. Labour called for three Conservative candidates to be suspended because of their anti-Semitic tendencies. But there were no vigorous enquiries into how Johnson had allowed anti-Semitism to infiltrate the party from the media. In fact, two of the candidates were victorious in the election despite having a wretched history of engaging in anti-Semitic tropes.
. Lee Anderson took the seat of Ashfield while Sally-Ann Hart was successful in Hastings & Rye.
The lack of accountability is a common theme when it comes to the media and the Conservatives. Jeremy Corbyn appeared on ITV’s This Morning programme and was forensically questioned by Philip Schofield and Holly Willoughby, especially on anti-Semitism. Schofield twice interrupted Corbyn mid-sentence to compel him to apologise for the party’s handling of anti-Semitism. By contrast, later in the week Boris Johnson was on the same show but there was a more cordial feel to the interview. After grilling Corbyn on anti-Semitism, the pair failed to ask Johnson one question on the Conservatives handling of Islamophobia in the party. The presenters even took a smiling selfie with the prime minister and were slammed by the public for ‘cuddling up’ to him.
Perhaps what best illustrates the placid approach from the media towards the Conservatives was when the BBC came under fire for editing news footage of prime minister Johnson for a news bulletin. He appeared on Question Time: Leaders Special on BBC One on a Friday evening. During the show, the audience laughed and jeered when he was asked a question about how important it is for people in power to tell the truth. But the laughter was absent from a cut-down version of the exchange on a lunchtime news bulletin the following day, which made Johnson look a lot more proficient.
But this is not just a problem that Corbyn’s Labour have encountered. Labour have been hammered in the media for decades irrespective of the leader. The symptoms are reinforced with the fact that the right-wing tabloid paper The Sun has only endorsed one Labour leader in recent times. That was Tony Blair in 1997, and in that period their endorsement is associated with significant increase in readers’ support for Labour, approximately 525,000 more votes. And he remains the sole Labour leader to win an election since the late 1970’s. So, as the Labour leadership contest progresses, the frosty and detrimental relationship with the media may well be identified by the candidates as another factor which requires tackling.
Conclusion:
All in all, it is clear the problems in the Labour Party are deep seated. The next general election is likely to be in 2024, which will benefit Labour because the profound modifications needed will not come overnight. The challenge is to alter the party’s reputation and ensure that the election in 2019 was merely a case of borrowed votes, as opposed to hitherto loyalists finding a new political home. But with impassioned sentiments provoking the unprecedented switch coupled with an unaccommodating media structure, the hurdles will not be easy to overcome. Years of apathy from the party hierarchy has now left the party facing the potential of a total wipe out and locked in a checkmate, with the next move an incredibly important one.
