This is not smart politics.
In Anushka Asthana's book about Morgan McSweeney, Labour's chief strategist, she sketches out the thinking behind the strategy. First is the assumption, ironically shared with the Leader of the Opposition, that the Tories lost because they didn't keep their promises about immigration. McSweeney also blames this for the retreat of the centre left cross Europe and why the extreme right are on the march. Where the centre left does well, with Denmark's Social Democrats as his poster child, it's where there are tough entry requirements on the borders and immigration is falling. Reducing the numbers and delivering on the rest of Starmer's modernisation effort will win the re-election, so it goes.
This is the path to disaster. While it is understandable that the Tories should shift right to consolidate their vote after a severe trauma, it makes no sense whatsoever for Labour to do so. They have Reform to thank for disproportionately stealing votes from the Tories and letting dozens of Labour and Liberal Democrat challenges come through the middle, but McSweeney's job now should be about keeping hold of the coalition the party assembled and deepening it. For instance, as this polling by Focaldata demonstrates, there is a big overlap between Conservative and Reform support. Labour and Reform support? It's marginal. To put that in numbers' terms, polling by Compass found that 48% of Labour's voters in July would consider supporting the Greens or Lib Dems next time. The figure for Reform or the Tories was just 23%. Before the election YouGov polling found immigration was the top issue for Reform and Tory voters, but was joint seventh - with education - for Labour voters. And, there are big age gradients when it comes to who finds immigration troubling. No prizes for guessing who the most concerned are.
It doesn't matter how much Labour bangs on about immigration. They can form their anti-immigration caucuses, mock the Tories for being "too liberal", boast about suspending asylum claims from Syria now that Assad has fallen, and put up billboards around the Midlands and the north about how deportations have increased and migrant flows have come down, it won't make a blind bit of difference in winning over reactionary right wing voters. For one, lots are not Labour people in the demographic, sociological sense. And second, it would do Labour well to remember it never had a political monopoly on the working class. Ever since the advent of mass suffrage, it has been entirely normal for significant layers of the working class to support the Tories. Never a majority and perhaps not even a plurality - despite the smoke and mirrors surrounding Boris Johnson's victory - but proletarian conservatism has always existed, has always been hostile to Labourism, and will never support the party that was set up to represent their collective interests. Fast forward to 2024 and these layers still exist. They tend to be older, maler and whiter than average, and they are more likely to be attracted to Reform than the Tories. But that, ultimately, is a problem for Badenoch and her hapless shadow cabinet - not Labour.
There is nothing wrong with trying to win over voters who support right wing parties, but there are ways of doing it. I would suggest banging on about immigration and scapegoating the right's latest folk devils is unwise because it demobilises and disperses Labour's existing coalition. Stopping winter fuel payments is not the only reason why Starmer's ratings have tanked and Labour have plunged to polling scores not seen since the divisions over Brexit in the summer of 2019. Again, consolidating Labour's vote now is the path to victory in 2028-29. The thin election result was a consequence of not doing this from opposition. Refusing to in government is suicidal.
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8 comments:
More broadly, Starmer’s mob have failed to give any hope. They’ve alienated all sorts while talking like the boss everyone hates. They’re in such a bubble they can’t relate to normal people, let alone have conversations with them.
All very interesting, but yet again Westminster and voter sentiment is considered purely through the lens of English politics. Of course in this unequal union of nations England always decides Westminster government, but it would be nice to at least to acknowledge this context. Most of what you say is not applicable in Scotland, for example, where voter sentiment is typical of a noticeably more progressive society - one that increasingly feels out of place controlled by an English Westminster.
Your analysis lacks evidence. The latest you gov poll carried out on 25th November showed that 69% of the British public think that immigration is too high, only 6% is that it is too low (are you one of the 6%?). If Keir Stammer can be trusted to keep his word (a big ask) then clearly substantially reducing immigration down to say 100,000 per year would be an incredibly popular policy and the man is in sore need of some popularity.
I would like you to make a case as to why mass immigration short of 1 million new people per year is good for a densely populated island, with crumbling infrastructure, poor labour conditions, low union density, housing shortages and stretched public services and why you think giving capital the access to a worldwide reserve army of labour (and their dependents) will drive working conditions up and living conditions up?
What's pertinent is the *depth of feeling*.
For instance, most people would agree with taxing the rich more. But how many vote for a party that has that as its central plank? Not many.
Similarly, while most would like immigration to fall comparatively few have that as their main focus. Particularly Labour voters.
It's worth noting Andrew that Reform have been doing quite well in Scottish council by-elections, and are on between 13% and 21% in Scotland depending on the pollster.
Your criticism lacks both coherence and relevance. Of the 69% who want immigration to fall, some of them WOULD ALREADY vote Labour and some of them WOULD NEVER vote Labour, and any effort or political capital that is spent on chasing those voters is wasted. So that number by itself is irrelevant. If only x% of voters would switch to Labour based on perceptions of Starmer being tough on immigration, but y% of voters would switch away from Labour based on the same messaging, and y > x, then it's a losing strategy unless the former group are much more concentrated in marginal seats (and also a sure bet to vote in 2029 at a rate sufficient to keep their positional advantage over the second group).
As for your demand that Phil make the case for high immigration, you seem to have missed the fact that the article is about Labour positioning on immigration, NOT about the pros and cons of immigration itself.
What's their ceiling, though?
As you've emphasised many times, voters skew very old in second and third tier elections. They should flatter Reform, being as it is chiefly a party for those voters whose mental faculties are in serious decline or were never up to much in the first place.
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