Labour lost the Gorton and Denton by-election by coming third to the Greens and Reform. The Mayor of Manchester, Andy Burnham, applied to contest the seat on behalf of Labour, but was thwarted by a ruling from Labour’s national executive committee. Reform had expected to win the seat, but received only 28.7% of the vote compared to the Greens 40.7%. Labour had held the seat since 1931, in the election after the fall of the second Labour govt under Ramsey MacDonald.
Why has Labour consistently held that staying in the centre wins elections, and what is the origin of that belief?
The Lib-lab pact
On September 6th 1903 at Leicester Isolation hospital, a strange meeting took place between Jesse Herbert, the political secretary of Herbert Gladstone, the Liberal Chief whip, and Ramsay McDonald, the secretary of the tiny Labour Representation Committee (LRC).
The outcome was the Lib-Lab pact of 1903 which set the Labour party on the path to a duopoly with the Conservatives, which has lasted for a century. Liberal history contends that they would have won the landslide election of 1906, which is probably true, but in 1910 the Liberals certainly needed the Labour party as the Labour Representation Committee became known, to keep power after two general elections in 1910.
The double-edged sword of centrism
Since then, the Labour party has been like a kite, tethered to the centre ground because experience (1983 and 2019), and myth says cleaving to the middle ground wins elections, and that straying too far from the centre means disaster.
But, like all myths, it depends on circumstances. Badly-run elections with unsustainable policies will be found wanting by the public; but, on the other hand, as in 1945, well-run elections with policies designed to meet the public’s priorities of the hour following the publication of the 1942 Beveridge Report, might win through, even if they are not focused on the political centre. Governments lose elections, oppositions don’t often win them, except in 1945.
But where is the centre?
Up to 1979, the public knew that the centre lay in Butskellism in which both main parties accepted the post war status quo by having similar economic policies, which offered similar policies, dressed up in the different colours of the Labour and Conservative parties. But, in 1979, that all changed.
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The centre veered rightwards as Thatcherism took hold, and has continued on that track as the Conservative party tacked rightwards by adopting free market policies and privatisation of state-owned industries and services. Before 1979, these had been seen as radical non-centrist ideas, held by those who had read and imbibed Frederich Hayek’s Road to Serfdom. Afterwards these ideas became mainstream.
One nation centrist conservatism has melted away. In the 2024 general election, Labour were let in because conservative voters defected to Reform and the Liberal Democrats. The Badenoch leadership policy has been to try to out Reform. This means that moderate conservative voters have nowhere to go except to whoever is least extreme.
Just in the same way as Labour misunderstood its “red wall”, the Conservative party has misunderstood its “blue hinterland”. Boris Johnson could meld the two wings of the Tory party because, though he said radical things, he was basically a centrist by inclination. This is how he became Mayor of London. Sunak was a cautious mainstream conservative, but Truss and Badenoch are only happy by being radically right. Conservative voters with that viewpoint saw that Reform was the authentic right-wing party, and those voters on the left and centre of the conservative party sought reassurance from the LibDems and Greens.
For Labour to hold the centre, it too tried to tack to the right, but in the process left many voters and MPs bereft of a political home. If mainstream politics lean to the right, then where is the new centre? The further right politics goes, the further right the centre follows.
This centrist approach was shown wanting, as the Green party won the Gorton and Denton by-election. The winner, Hannah Spencer, a plumber by trade, spoke with conviction based on solid community-based politics, which is something Labour used to stand for.
For example social housing has been reduced to delivering housing only for the poorest in society, leaving many struggling to rent on low incomes to rent in the private sector.Labour still has not ended the right to buy or at least suspended it, which means that while new social houses are being built, often the best of the existing social housing stock is being sold off at a discount. Having some Labour MPs as multiple landlords is problematical.
Starmer harming the polls – ineptitude from left to right
Starmer is getting poor polling results, mostly because many are questioning whether he is even up to the job. Labour has become the party of the obtuse; instead of doing things by conviction, they try to pander to what other, non-Labour voters, might want. Beyond the obvious Reform-pandering, this means they are also shown as ‘flaky’, jumping between whichever political narrative that might suit them, and not seeing anything through.
A clear example of this is the labelling of Palestine action as extremist, and arresting pensioners carrying placards supporting the organisation, something Volker Türk, UN Human Rights Chief, described as a “misuse” of justice and an infringement on human rights. Thankfully, this has now been overturned. Additionally, the mere fact that Mandelson was appointed as ambassador to the US, is evidence enough of Starmer’s ineptitude.
No one is interested in his foreign policy wins, such as they are. No one cares that the Tories left the country in disarray when they left office. They want to see action. That means potholes filled, water companies brought to book, energy prices down, and the NHS more productive. In a YouGov poll immigration comes top, but the cost of living and the economy are also important. At the current time with the war in the Middle east raging, it is possible to deduce that cost of living and the economy are uppermost in the public’s mind at the moment.
The sooner the PM and those in his circle realise this, the sooner things may begin to turn in Labour’s favour.
But let’s get back to the centre.
Reform’s loss In Gorton and Denton
Is the centre where the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph say it is?
With the Telegraph having headlines like ‘Greens stirred up hatred against Hindus in Gorton and Denton’, and the Mail with headlines like ‘Police urged to probe “family” voting fraud in sectarian by-election’, it seems that the reason Reform did not win the by-election was anything but their candidate, dog-whistles, or racism towards anyone without a pure anglo-saxon heritage.
What frightens voters more than some aspects of immigration, is cosying up to Putin, letting big oil call the shots, and having a balaclava wearing goon squad, a UK version of the US ICE paramilitary, arresting and probably assaulting citizens going about their lawful activities, merely because of their politics, creed, or race.
Increasingly this is what Reform seems to stand for. In a recent poll of Reform members, it was found that “most Reform members believe non-white UK citizens born abroad should be forced or encouraged to leave”.
Reform’s deflections
Enter the Democracy Volunteers and ‘family voting’. For those unaware, the Democracy Volunteers are observers who look out for ‘wrongdoing’ at polling booths. In the Gorton and Denton election, they claimed to see an uptick in ‘family voting’ – a term that describes people going into the booths together, and possibly pressuring one another’s vote.
However, the problem with volunteers is they sometimes get over-enthusiastic, and misinterpret what they may or may not have seen. At each polling booth there are staff who ensure that voting takes place according to law. The volunteers are supposed to flag incidents to the returning officer – but no reports were made during the day, nor when they were ‘not busy’.
This has not stopped some journalists and Nigel Farage from claiming a fix – sounding eerily familiar to Trump’s own claims after his loss to Biden. Reform and Tories report ‘family voting’ allegations to watchdog. We will see if Reform’s complaint is sustained, but it does speak of a Trumpian style of ‘I lost because you cheated’, rather than admitting their own failing campaign. Trump is a bad loser, and Farage appears also to be so.
The results from the Gorton and Denton by-election show the Greens won comfortably with nearly 41% of the vote, and so unless there is substantial evidence of mass vote rigging, the impetus is on Farage to provide extraordinary evidence to sustain an extraordinary claim.
So what can we deduce from this by-election?
Sir John Curtice claimed that “Greens’ win means future of British politics is more uncertain than ever”. I must agree. This could be a 1903 moment for the Green party, or it may just be a flash in the pan based on a peculiar set of circumstances, but Polanski’s Greens seem to be making their mark.
It shows Reform is not an all-powerful juggernaut and can be stopped in its tracks, if there are sufficient voters of all kinds who are prepared to coalesce and defeat what is becoming a rather more pointedly divisive party.
The Conservative party often seems to be at rock bottom, but then produces a result which is in Monster Raving looney party territory at less than 2%. The party has to decide if the Badenoch blue Reform strategy is worth the pain, or should it let Badenoch go, and return to One nation Tory principles. The forthcoming Local elections should see if there are any green shoots of regrowth, or will the tories find nothing but dead cactus leafs for their efforts.
Certainly, the departure to Reform of the Tories’ particularly right-wing members, such as Suella Braverman and Robert Jenrick, may do more harm than good for Reform, and the Tories may find a release if more on its right did the same. If this happened, it might be likened to a submarine releasing ballast to enable it to float to the surface.
The big question however is Labour. How bad do things have to get before the persons in red suits show Starmer the door? Is there anyone who could do better? Burnham probably, and perhaps Labour should take a leaf from the Greens and appoint a leader outside of the party, as with Polanski, to evangelise for Labour, until a suitable constituency becomes available.
Labour makes a big thing about its constitution, but often it’s only used to thwart insurrections from below. The persons in red suits are likely to come from the Trade unions, who may not be all powerful, but are very influential.
If Starmer has any sense, and so far he has been disappointing in using his sense of direction, he will pick on a dog whistle policy area, which would unite the nation and not involve immigration. The one policy that might do that is to derive a scheme to take back the water companies into public ownership. It would cause consternation in the treasury and the city, but if Starmer took the Admiral Farragut approach of “damn the torpedoes”, it might cut through, and wrong foot his critics on the right and the left.
He has nothing to lose, as he is probably beyond saving anyway, if he persists with his safety first, reverse course at the first obstacle policy. But the question remains – even if he did try to win back his voters, would they forgive him?
