In a second article unpicking the general election results, Chris Bambery analyses Labour’s weakness, the threat of Reform UK, and the task facing the left in challenging both

‘A sandcastle majority’, was one memorable description of Labour’s landslide election win as the votes came in in the early hours of 5 June. Labour achieved a landslide victory and a three-digit Parliamentary majority with a vote share that is the lowest for a single governing party in electoral history.

Voters wanted the Tories out and voted in the way most effective to achieve that. Starmer took just a third of a vote against a government which had lost confidence in a way unprecedented in post-war Britain. That does not suggest a vote of confidence in the new government.

A University College of London survey of 10,000 voters, taken in the immediate aftermath of the election, concluded (forgive the terminology): ‘In 2019, Labour’s support ranged from 67 per cent with the most progressive segment of the population to just 9 per cent with the most conservative. Today that gap of 56 points has narrowed to just 27, with nearly a quarter of Backbone Conservatives supporting Labour. As a result, only about a third of Labour voters are from the more left leaning Progressive Activist or Civic Pragmatist segments, down from over half in 2019. Labour’s support fell around 17 points from 2019 among Progressive Activists – the most left leaning segment of the population, but rose 15 points with the more Cameronite.’

Nearly a third of Labour voters, 28 percent, said the main reason they voted Labour was to stop another party from winning. The report concludes: ‘Labour’s support is a coalition of valence [capacity to unite] not a coalition of ideology. Keir Starmer now faces the challenge of balancing the differing expectations and priorities of these different constituent groups.’

In plain language, there is a constituency of former Labour voters who are on the left who could not bring themselves to vote for Starmer and are looking for a new home. The contrast between the New Labour electoral win of 1997 and Sir Keir Starmer’s victory in July 2024 is interesting. 

1997 to 2024

In 1997 Blair achieved a majority of 179, taking 44.4 percent of the vote. In 2024, Labour won a total of 412 seats (to the Conservatives’ total of 121), an increase of 211 seats over the previous general election in 2019. But overall this was achieved on just 33.7% of the overall vote. This was lower than what Jeremy Corbyn achieved in 2017 and almost identical to that in 2019.

Turnout was 60%, down from 67% at the last general election in 2019. In 59 constituencies – including Manchester Rusholme, Leeds South and Kingston upon Hull East – less than half of the electorate turned out.

The five seats where Labour achieved its biggest increase in vote share were all in Scotland:

1. East Renfrewshire +31.3% 
2. Falkirk +31.0% 
3. Central Ayrshire +29.5% 
4. Alloa and Grangemout +29.3% 
5. Bathgate and Linlithgow +28.2%

Here circumstances were very different. People, including many independence supporters, switched from SNP to Labour to get the Tories out. Many were uninspired by the insipid record of the SNP-led Scottish government in recent years, and by the SNP leader, John Swinney, who was no symbol of change. Added to that mix is the court case potentially facing former First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, and her husband, Peter Murrell, former CEO of the party.

The five seats where Labour experienced its biggest decrease in vote share were all seats where independents, either won or came close to winning:

1. Bradford West -44.6%
2. Birmingham Ladywood -40.5%
3. Bethnal Green and Stepney -39.4%
4. Blackburn -39.3%
5. Dewsbury and Batley -36.2%

Turning to London, the lowest turn outs were in the poorer east of the capital:

1. Barking 45.7%
2. West Ham and Beckton 46.0%
3. East Ham 47.8%

In Barking, Reform came second (a long way behind Labour) and the Greens third. In both West Ham and Beckton and in East Ham, an independent came second to Labour but a long way behind, and the Greens third.

In 1997, Tony Blair increased his vote share in his Sedgefield constituency by 11%. In 2024 Starmer’s vote share in his constituency decreased by 16%. An independent, standing in support of Palestine, and in defence of the NHS, won 17 percent.

This was not a one off. The incoming Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, had a 6% decrease, Angela Rayner, deputy prime minister and levelling up secretary, 4%, Wes Streeting, health and social care secretary, 17% decrease, almost losing to a British-Palestinian and NHS worker, Leanne Mohammed, and David Lammy, foreign secretary, a 19% decrease.

In contrast, Gordon Brown won with 66% of the vote in 1997, up from 62.4%, Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, won in Livingston, with 54.9% of the vote up from 44.4%, deputy prime minister, John Prescott, won Kingston Upon Hull East with 71.3%, up from 62.9% in 1992, and Home Secretary, Jack Straw, won Blackburn with 55% of the vote, up from 48.4%, but Labour lost Blackburn to a pro-Palestinian independent in 2024. Overall, this was not a repeat of 1997. The turnout in a number of Labour seats was dreadful.

Labour’s weak position

The key question is how four or five years of a Starmer government will impact on the results in seats where Reform UK are already second to Labour. Less than a month into this new government that is already cause for concern.

In 1997, we regarded Blair as being the most right-wing leader Labour had ever had. However, compared to Starmer’s legislative agenda, he brought real reforms; the minimum wage, Sure Start, devolution in Wales and Scotland, an elected mayor in London, the Education Maintenance Allowance; increased spending on the NHS and education – while fostering creeping privatisation – and the revival of the Northern Ireland peace process leading to the Good Friday Agreement.

Starmer promises little or nothing, except increasing military spending and funding for Ukraine, stressing there is no money in the coffers. Back in 1997, we expected Blair would enjoy a short honeymoon. On that we were wrong. It was really only with the build up to the invasion of Iraq that his support fell away.

The biggest test for the new Labour government will be the NHS. More than half of all voters saw the Tories’ mismanagement of the NHS as their biggest failure. Concern for the NHS was also the top. Cutting NHS waiting lists is seen by 63% of all voters as the acid test by which Labour’s success or failure will be judged. The second test will be dealing with the cost-of-living crisis and ending a situation where people are ‘living to work and working to live’.

The UCL report concludes that Labour’s support in not stable: ‘Now that the Conservatives have been ejected from office, the desire to remove an unpopular Government will not be enough to keep Labour’s pragmatic coalition together. With a majority that is broad but precarious, fragmentation of the electorate means Labour will need to shore up voters both on its right flank who may be tempted back to the Conservatives and those on the left who are increasingly willing to vote Green or for independent candidates.’

Labour gained with over 40s nationally, but its vote among under 40’s fell compared to that of 2019. Among women under 35, it dropped nine points. Among men under 35, it remained stagnant. The Greens picked up 14% of the vote with 18-24 year olds, up 10 points from 2019.

Labour made significant progress with the most economically right-wing voters, climbing eleven, twelve and nine points with these groups. However, Labour dropped significantly among left-liberal voters, falling sixteen points when compared to 2019. The Greens were the largest beneficiary in this group.

The other difference with 1997 is that this election saw Labour lose to candidates to its left, amongst whom I include the Greens and Plaid Cymru, both of whom support a ceasefire in Gaza. The five seats that were won dramatically by pro-Gaza independent candidates are also among the most deprived constituencies in the country, the most ‘left behind’ parts of England, where all people have known is a Labour MP representing them: ‘… the vote for Gaza independents is about more than just Gaza, it’s a signal that they have had enough of their traditional party of choice overlooking their priorities … And while “Gaza independent” candidates did put Gaza at the front of their campaign … their appeal was broader than the conflict in the Middle East. People voted for independent candidates who were likely to be seen as proper champions for their community who would stand up for them better than the Labour Party.’

It is clear there is here the basis for a viable left alternative to Labour but moulding together a united bloc will not be easy, and the Greens have consolidated their position, meaning it’s a more crowded field: ‘Those who voted Green in this election are almost as likely to have voted Labour in 2019

as they are to have voted Green – although for many of them this election was their first time voting. Green voters predominantly voted for the Party because of their environmental policies, with 51 per cent of Green voters putting that in the top three reasons for their vote. This makes the Greens less of a single-issue voter bloc than Reform voters, 64 per cent of whom listed immigration in their top reasons. A fifth (23 per cent) of Green voters voted for the Party because of their stance on Palestine

and Gaza, and for 30 per cent it was simply a case of wanting something new.’

But whatever the difficulties for the left, we have entered new waters. An opportunity presents itself. It must not be wasted.

The threat of Reform

On 4 July, Reform UK won a higher share of the vote than the Liberal Democrats. But the latter won 71 seats, and Reform UK just five. The Liberal Democrat vote was heavily concentrated in just 35 seats, in southern England. It benefitted from people voting tactically to get the Tories out:

‘… the fact [is] that tactical and anti-Conservative sentiments appear to have united the Liberal Democrat coalition much more so than support for the Liberal Democrats as a Party.’ Reform UK’s vote was much more evenly spread across England, and to an extent Wales. In Scotland, it got its lowest vote with London in second place.

The typical Lib Dem voter lives in a well-off town or village in southern England who voted to stay in the European Union. The average Reform UK is a male living in a small town or village, but in rather different circumstances. They voted for Brexit and feel cheated.

The ten seats where Reform UK got the biggest share of the vote were:

1. Clacton 46.2%
2. Ashfield 42.8%
3. Boston and Skegness 38.4%
4. Great Yarmouth 35.3%
5. Barnsley South 33.2%
6. Makerfield 31.8%
7. South Basildon and East Thurrock 30.8%
8. Kingston upon Hull East 30.6%
9. Rotherham 30.3%
10. Castle Point 30.1%

Five of these seats they won, while In Barnsley South, Makerfield, Kingston Upon Hull East and Rotherham they came second to Labour; in Castle Point to the Tories.

Let’s return to turnout. In the northeast of England the three seats with the lowest turnout were:

1. Middlesbrough and Thornaby East 45.8%
2. Easington 49.5%
3. Hartlepool 49.7%

Each was won by Labour, but in each Reform UK came second. In Middlesbrough and Thornaby East the majority of the Labour left winger, Andy McDonald, was so big it would be unlikely he’d lose at the next general election. But in the other two seats, Reform UK would fancy their chances, because having overtaken the Tories, they would hope Tory supporters would switch to Reform UK to get Labour out.

In South Wales, Reform UK came second in Merthyr Tydfil and Aberdare, and with about half Labour’s vote in Rhondda and Ogmore and Swansea West. All told, Reform UK came second in 98 seats, of which 89 were won by Labour. The top results in those 89 seats were:

1. Barnsley South 33.2%
2. Makerfield 31.8%
3. Kingston Upon Hull East 30.6%
4. Rotherham 30.3%
5. Easington 29.8%
6. Barnsley North 29.3%
7. Normanton and Hemsworth 29.2%
8. Houghton and Sunderland South 29.1%
9. Washington and Gateshead South 29.1%
10. Blackpool South 28.6%
11. Rawmarsh and Conisbrough 28.6%
12. Llanelli 27.6%
13. Sunderland Central 27%
14. Cannock Chase 26.9%
15. Jarrow and Gateshead 26.9%
16. Leigh and Atherton 26.9%
17. Dudley 26.4%
18. North Warwickshire and Bedworth 26.1%
19. Rhondda and Ogmore 26.1%
20. North Durham 25.7%
21. Thurrock 25.5%
22. Neath and Swansea East 25.3%
23. Tipton and Wednesbury 25.2%
24. Tamworth 25.1%
25. Telford 24.8%
26. Stockton North 24.6%
27. Hartlepool 24.5%
28. Stoke Upon Trent North 24.4%
29. Dagenham and Rainham 24.2%
30. Stoke Upon Trent Central 24.2%
31. Spen Valley 24.1%
32. Newton Aycliffe and Spennymoor 24.0%

In Scotland, where Reform UK did not campaign, they took 14.6% in Aberdeenshire North and Moray East which the SNP won from the Tories, and 9.8% in Glenrothes and Mid Fife.

Just to go through that list is to come across former mining communities, shipyard, engineering and textile towns. In Rhondda East at the 1945 general election, the Communist Party general secretary, Harry Pollitt, almost took the seat from Labour; with 45.5% of the vote compared to Labour’s 48.4%. Easington, where Billy Elliot was set, was a mining town and was under siege by the police during the 1984-1985 miners’ strike, producing some of the most iconic images of that dispute.

Reform UK won votes from Tory supporters, but their vote was much more broadly based. Less than a third (31%) of those who voted for Reform UK say they might otherwise have voted Conservative. The remaining two-thirds say they would have backed other parties – almost as many say they would have backed some combination of Labour, the Liberal Democrats or Greens. Others would not have voted at all. The 31% who switched from the Tories are the most likely to say they will never vote Conservative again.

This should be situated against a wider cynicism towards politics and a sense of futility that the

mainstream parties cannot deliver for ordinary people. Three in four (74%) of the public now believe that Britain is rigged to serve the rich and influential.

A key factor driving Reform UK’s vote is immigration, but it comes amidst a context that their communities have been left behind for years and suffer from a feeling of insecurity. So, with immigration the first driver of Reform UK support, the second was distrust of both Starmer and Sunak, and a sense that the two mainstream parties were just as bad as each other. Third, they saw 

Nigel Farage as a politician who ‘says it like it is’ and has potential to shake up the system.

In, at least, the 89 seats where Reform UK came second to Labour we have a problem, if Farage can keep the band together (its falling apart is not so unlikely). If in four or five years’ time, where the contest is seen as one between the sitting MP representing an unpopular government and Reform UK, the chances are that the latter will prevail.

Task of the left

Here we have to address the fact that the far left is in the worst state it has been in my lifetime – Counterfire is the exception. The Trade Union and Socialist Coalition stood forty candidates, gaining 12,901, with a UK-wide vote share of 0.04%. This was less than the Yorkshire Party who stood fewer candidates, 27, but who got more votes, 13,663, 0.05% of the poll.

Two far-left groups stood candidates as independents in Stratford and Bow in East London and 

and Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough getting 4.1 percent and 8 percent, far below what was achieved by independents standing on a clear left programme: Leanne Mohammed in Ilford North gaining 32.2%, Michael Lavalette in Preston 21.8% and Andrew Feinstein in Holborn and St Pancras 18.9%.

The left to the left of Labour has no presence in northeast England between York and Newcastle – certainly in holding regular meetings – nor in Barnsley. I state this not with sectarian glee but to simply point out the far left is much weaker than even twenty years ago.

In places like Barnsley and Easington, opportunities will arise to challenge the Labour government, in defence of the NHS, over further military adventures alongside the US and so on. But if there is no left presence, Reform UK are opportunistic enough to take advantage.

As I have tried to indicate, Reform UK voters in these seats would, likely, rally behind a campaign to defend NHS services. That potentially would allow us to be active alongside them but challenging their views on immigration as we do so; however, the key word there is potentially.

So, there are two challenges ahead. First, can we build on the success of the independent candidates on 4 July. The second is to build a left alternative in those working-class communities who feel abandoned. 

To steal an analogy from an old teacher, for the first we need a big axe which, even if the blade is blunt, has the weight to chop through. For the second we need a small axe, but with a sharp blade of ideological and strategical clarity together with tactical nous.

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