This is the week that could spell the beginning of the end for the Labour Party. For a century, Labour has been one of the two parties with a near-total grip on British politics. It has united figures as different as former prime minister Tony Blair and former energy secretary Tony Benn, and attracted voters spanning the spectrum from die-hard socialists to enthusiastic capitalists. It has endured periods of unpopularity. Third, fourth and fifth parties have risen and fallen. But there has never been any successful challenge to the position of Labour as the hegemon of the British left.
Tomorrow, voters will go to the polls in the Gorton & Denton by-election – a Labour stronghold for decades. No more than 40,000 will turn out, and of course, a sample that small cannot decide the fate of a country of nearly 70 million. But there is a real danger for Sir Keir Starmer that, if things go wrong for Labour, not only will his own career be left hanging in the balance but so will the chances of his party reviving any time soon.
Every government experiences reversals of fortune and periods of struggling in the polls; that is nothing new. Pretty much every government loses by-elections. What makes this contest different is that Labour is being squeezed from left and right, by two surging populist parties, both equally keen to portray Starmer as the exemplar of an old style of politics no longer fit for our times.
The rise of Reform UK is obviously tricky for Labour: many of the seats being targeted by Nigel Farage are in the post-industrial heartlands of the old left, and it looks likely that Labour will be pushed down to third place in May’s elections for the Welsh Senedd as Reform vies with Plaid Cymru for the top spot. But what the Gorton by-election shows is that Starmer’s response to Reform may be misguided. He wants to take a twin-track approach: tacking to the right on immigration and crime, while also hoping that Reform takes votes away from the Conservatives and allows him to present Labour as the last bulwark against Farage.
For Reform to win in this suburban Greater Manchester seat would be a blow to the Prime Minister. What makes it especially concerning, however, is the threat of the Greens. It has been clear for some months that the Greens are on the rise under the leadership of Zack Polanski. This means that Labour must pay as much attention to its left flank as to its right. And in Gorton, the Greens have a real chance of winning.
If Reform does win instead, moreover, it will be to a great extent because the left-of-centre vote is split. That explains why both the Greens and Labour are talking up their own chance of victory – a reversal of the usual expectation management ahead of a by-election – to try and win over voters whose main priority is beating Reform.
Starmer, so often accused of being weak, has taken the gloves off. Labour researchers have pumped out a stream of revelations about the dubious views expressed in the past by Reform’s candidate, progressive academic turned right-wing pundit Matt Goodwin, while also getting increasingly aggressive in their attacks on the Green policy of legalising most recreational drugs. “Polanski would unleash a drugs epidemic across Britain that would see our parks and playgrounds turned into crack dens,” policing minister Sarah Jones said last week in an outburst made to be slotted into tabloid headlines.
Because a strong showing by the Greens would obliterate the Starmer strategy. He wants to convince voters who are fed up with Labour but desperate to block Reform that his party is the only viable opposition to Farage in the long run. To lose to a left-wing challenger, or see the anti-Reform vote split, would show that it is not true.
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We have seen in Wales where that can lead. Labour has been dominant west of the border for 100 years and is now clocking in at barely 20 per cent in opinion polls, thanks to the strength of Plaid.
The knowledge that Labour’s ancient enemies, the Conservatives, are already in this dire position will provide little comfort. The race in Gorton could confirm that five-party politics is here to stay, fatally undermining both the grand old parties which benefited from their duopoly.
Of course, Labour could still win. Reform campaigners whisper that the incumbents’ vote has been holding up surprisingly well, and Starmer’s visit to the constituency this week is surely a sign that he thinks a victory is possible. There is a long way to the next general election, and in our volatile political landscape, nothing is inevitable. But defeat in this rock-solid seat will surely make the nation ask – what is the point of Labour?
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