Wipeout for Labour in Hartlepool

[EmbarrassingAdmissions]

Given the landslide in Hartlepool, will anything make Labour think again about the way in which they've alienated their core voters (including women)?

2017: Ambitious left wing manifesto under Corbyn - huge win. But nationally 317 Tory seats to 262 Labour
2019: Ambitious left wing manifesto under Corbyn hampered by unpopular Brexit policy - win. again nationally 365 Tory seats to 202 Labour.

Left wing doesn't win elections in the Uk, and Labour are insane if this is the route they take.

2017: Ambitious left wing manifesto under Corbyn - huge win.
Closet Brexit supporter Corbyn against dull Remainer turned half-hearted Brexiteer May. Not such a huge win in the context of what was achieved under Blair in any case.

2019: Ambitious left wing manifesto under Corbyn hampered by unpopular Brexit policy - win.
Closet Brexit supporter Corbyn against charismatic Brexit figurehead Johnson. After the previous PM though, voters weren't quite yet ready to trust Johnson so also backed Tice of the Brexit party.

2021: Much more centrist leader makes big show of distancing party from Corbynism and says nothing ambitious at all - massive loss.
Dull Continuity Remain figurehead Starmer against charismatic Brexit figurehead Johnson. There's no longer a question of whether Johnson would actually follow through on his central promise because he has achieved it. Instead of "please trust us to do what you want", it's "look - we've gone ahead and done it".

If Labour use that as any kind of evidence and move further left they are truly stuffed.

2019 election results for Hartlepool, top three candidates
Labour - Mike Hill 15,464 votes, 37.7% of the vote
Conservative - Stefan Houghton 11,869 votes, 28.9% of the vote
Brexit Party - Richard Tice 10,603 votes, 25.8% of the vote

2021 by-election results for Hartlepool, top three candidates
Conservative - Jill Mortimer 15,529 votes, 51.9% of the vote
Labour - Paul Williams 8,589 votes, 28.7% of the vote
Independent - Sam Lee 2,904 votes, 9.7% of the vote

Source: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Hartlepool_by-election

Looks to me like the Brexit Party won Labour the seat last time, by splitting the vote.

@andyoldlabour

HecatesCatsInFancyHats "I think Labour's increasing share of the vote in the wealthy shires and the Tories increasing share in post industrial ex labour heartlands says a lot about the direction of travel of the Labour Party."

Plus the 46 seats in London, more than any other party. They have become increasingly "Londoncentric", leaving the traditional heartlands feeling abandoned. Now, the heartlands are abandoning them.
I wonder if and when the penny will drop?

London centric, if you mean for people to come to London and make money out of it before fucking off, maybe. Londoner centric, most definitely not.

Also, a significant proportion of Londoners live in the outer suburbs. These parts of London don't tend to vote for Labour (and Labour definitely doesn't centre or even ever think of, them). Not since Tony Blair.

Looks to me like the Brexit Party won Labour the seat last time, by splitting the vote.

Yes and Brexit party votes likely went to the Tory candidate this time.

And you, like the Labour spin machine, conclude from this that Labour's problem is Corbynism and being too left wing, and they must remain centrist where the votes are? That simply contradicts any honest reading of the evidence.
It's historically been a labour safe seat.
The town overwhelmingly voted brexit.
In the election before last the centre right and right vote was split between the Brexit Party and the Conservatives. If anything Labour held onto Hartlepool because of the split vote to the right (just like some other constituencies hold Tory because the left of centre vote is split between Labour, Lib Dem and Green).

It's a problem of the first past the post system.

Unfortunately the fact that the Corbyn element of the party (FWIW I supported some of his policy changes, but I understand that anyone who doesn't worship Corbyn is viewed by one faction of the party as being tories in disguise, party spin etc) aren't willing to acknowledge that they didn't do a good enough job to sell their vision to the country, and took their former safe seats for granted.

Until some elements of the Labour Party lose the arrogance and start reflecting then they're going to struggle to gain support, and the Overton window of British politics risks being moved irreversibly to the right.

@HecatesCatsInFancyHats

So wait Fifteentoes - you think Hartlepool voted Tory because Labour was too centrist?

No, I think they voted Tory because Labour was not anything much so there was no reason to vote for them.

Why do you think it was?

My point was only that the idea they lost because they are too far left, and they need to avoid being too far left, makes no sense when they recently won the seat twice with a much further left image, and now lost it with a more centrist one.

I'm just trying to be honest about the data here. All the time Corbyn was in power we kept hearing about how he was ruining Labour by taking it too far to the left. So now they've reversed that direction . . . and they're doing worse.

@Dervel

The left in every country has an existential problem is that if they do genuinely tackle poverty and people elevate their economic circumstances then they tend to become more politically conservative, and this the left if they are competent will actually diminish their own votes. That’s why all of this commitment to social justice is a godsend as they can virtue signal, criticise the right till the cows come home, but not really contribute to meaningful change. I’m not just bashing the left for the sake of it. Policies like the NHS have been an absolute godsend to all of us for which we should all be eternally grateful to Labour for securing. However the Labour of old is long gone and for it to be relevant again they need to have more substance beyond mere activism and attempting to generate maximum grievances between the haves and the have nots.

I think that's a large part of the truth of it. Most people are wealthier now so can manage better under the Tories. And the underclass that experience most of the really bad suffering from them are less likely to vote anyway.

But a lot of those people are still sentimentally attached to the idea of a fair and humane society so they prefer to blame the Labour party for not providing the perfect alternative for them to vote for. They couldn't vote for Blair because he was a sell-out who wasn't left wing enough. And the couldn't vote for Corbyn because he was an idealist who was too left wing. And they can't vote for Starmer because he's a sell-out who isn't left wing enough...

But we did vote for Blair in droves, huge landslide, so Labour can do it.

It wasn't that all of Corbyn's policies were the problem. Obviously some weren't very popular with the public, but really it was the man himself that was the issue. Him and momentum. Aggressive, intolerant, militant. And, the racism and perceived sympathy towards terrorists including the IRA. Not nice and not vote winning.

@PronounssheRa

2017: Ambitious left wing manifesto under Corbyn - huge win. But nationally 317 Tory seats to 262 Labour 2019: Ambitious left wing manifesto under Corbyn hampered by unpopular Brexit policy - win. again nationally 365 Tory seats to 202 Labour.

Left wing doesn't win elections in the Uk, and Labour are insane if this is the route they take.

But (a) this thread is about Hartlepool and the specific local factors involved in that election. And (b) Labour did very badly in the local elections all over the country (with the exception of Wales). So the point still stands: On the evidence we have so far, of Labour's polling and this round of local elections, moving to the right under Keir Starmer - accompanied by image-conscious gestures like sacking Rebecca Long Bailey and removing the whip from Corbyn - has resulted in Labour's popularity going down, not up.

Why are people so unwilling to confront this fact, and insistent on falling back on platitudes about the superiority of centrism even when they are contradicted by the evidence?

It may just be that they need more time of course, as the Labour spin has it. I suppose we'll see.

But here's a question: If "sensible" centre-left politics is such a sure route to success in the current climate, why were the lib dems practically wiped out in 2015 and been unable to rebuild since?

Blair was more Conservative than some of the Conservatives. Very right wing indeed when it came to disabled people and the welfare state cuts reforms.

I think he did a lot of damage to the Labour Party. It was his government that first turned what people refer to as trad Labour voters away, and it was because of him that the party ended up with the extreme of Corbyn. It was Blair who made politics about style over substance, and it was Blair who first really pushed the divisive identity politics we have today.

By the time he got in people were ready for a change. I think it was a relatively easy win.

My point was only that the idea they lost because they are too far left, and they need to avoid being too far left, makes no sense when they recently won the seat twice with a much further left image, and now lost it with a more centrist one.

I think there's been a long drift away from Labour in post industrial areas where there's no longer a core vote galvanised by the union/s and where there's been an increasing disillusionment with the EU (encouraged by rapid social change in some places) and distance from a metropolitan party leadership. In Hartlepool specifically 69.9 % of voters backed Brexit - between 2017 & 2019 Corben managed to preside over a drop in support from a 52.5% vote for Labour to a 37.7% vote for Labour. Mainly accounted for by voters backing the pro Brexit independent, who was also quite right wing on crime etc. As has been pointed out by numerous commentators before the 2017 vote Labour promised to uphold the Brexit vote and by 2019 they were backing a second referendum and now they see the Tories as the party promising to get a positive Brexit done, restore pride, get Britain back on the front foot and money back in people's pockets.

@MarshaBradyo

But we did vote for Blair in droves, huge landslide, so Labour can do it.

At the beginning, yes, on the basis of a platform in 1997 which was as left wing as Labour's recent offering. But when you read people saying why they can't vote Labour any more, one of the most common themes is the idea that Blair & Brown sold out true Labour values, didn't rebuild industry in the north, fucked over the working class by allowing too much immigration etc.

Part of this comes down to what I said at the beginning: that there are many different reasons people give for rejecting Labour, many of which directly contradict each other. It's literally impossible to satisfy all of them.

This being an example of exactly what I mean:

Blair was more Conservative than some of the Conservatives. Very right wing indeed when it came to disabled people and the welfare state cuts reforms.

I think he did a lot of damage to the Labour Party. It was his government that first turned what people refer to as trad Labour voters away, and it was because of him that the party ended up with the extreme of Corbyn. It was Blair who made politics about style over substance, and it was Blair who first really pushed the divisive identity politics we have today.

@Tealightsandd

It wasn't that all of Corbyn's policies were the problem. Obviously some weren't very popular with the public, but really it was the man himself that was the issue. Him and momentum. Aggressive, intolerant, militant. And, the racism and perceived sympathy towards terrorists including the IRA. Not nice and not vote winning.

So now they have a leader who is the exact opposite of all that. Knighted, respected, professional and successful. Soft spoken, reasonable, analytical. Swiftly and decisively dealing with the anti-semitism issue.

Much more "nice", but still not vote winning.

Vote losing, in fact, it would seem.

How much was Ed’s loss down to Ed rather than preceding Blair government?

I know it’s brought up a lot but I still think David M was a better fit for people voting

That's a good question Marsha
I think a huge amount of it was down to Blair. It was also similar to when Blair won. People then were ready for a change and voted Labour. By the time of Ed, it was the other way round. It didn't help that the media didn't like Ed (one of Starmer's biggest problems).

Yes the media easily got Ed and it worked

I don’t know about Starmer and the media, they seem to be ok with him it’s more what he says isn’t always landing and also pandemic is a really hard time to be opposition leader.

Idk if he’ll improve though after it subsides.

And David M was the continuity Blairite candidate so would have been fatally tainted with all the objections to New Labour's legacy already discussed.

But yes, Ed was obviously another one people "couldn't vote for". Particularly when it comes to important things like bacon sandwiches.

Do you think David M would have lost too Fifteen?

I’m not sure but Ed got a rough time

I don’t know about Starmer and the media, they seem to be ok with him it’s more what he says isn’t always landing

Er... the media is OK with him BECAUSE what he says isn't landing. The media will never tolerate a leader from the left who threatens to actually change anything.

Have people seriously missed the fact that the media is, by and large, a propaganda mouthpiece of the Tory party?

But (a) this thread is about Hartlepool and the specific local factors involved in that

The failure in hartlepool i suspect was in part down to parachuting in a leave supporting candidate in a remain town.
Generally though there are a lot of issues people still worry about, including momentums influence on Labour, a reluctance to listen, some very aggressive activists and they have a lot to do to win back Jewish votes.

The last time Labour swung to the left it took 3 leaders before they were electable again, it takes a lot of time to change perceptions.

Left wing politics on its own doesn't win general elections, so Labour have to be pragmatic and appeal to the centre ground.

why were the lib dems practically wiped out in 2015 and been unable to rebuild since?

The coalition, collapse of the student vote and dreadful on women's rights.

I suppose my overall feeling is Labour are not a lost cause and they don’t have an existential problem and can be left / centrist and a good choice but they’re on the cusp of not being so at all, that is depressing.