Who can save the Labour Party?

“My grandad grew up a miner’s son,” said Alan Strickland, a Labour MP, in a campaign video before the 2024 general election. The mind-twisting line is meaningless but as a wannabe Labour candidate his hat tip (or flat-cap tip) to working-class history was de rigueur. Never mind that the last colliery in Mr Strickland’s patch was 30 years ago. The Labour Party is steeped in sentimentality.

On May 7th Sir Keir Starmer’s centre-left party was trounced in local and devolved elections. Its losses were particularly heavy in historical heartlands in the north of England, West Midlands and Wales. Along with the political cost, Labour MPs suffered the emotional toll of seeing their party reduced to dust in areas it had held for more than a century. In the aftermath, nearly 100 of them publicly called for Sir Keir to resign, including four government ministers. Even if the prime minister limps on for months, few believe he will lead Labour into the next election. Despite the gloom, his successor still has a good chance of winning over the country.

The drubbing had long been expected. Labour has sunk around 20 percentage points in polls since 2022, when most of the council seats were last contested. But expectation management did little to ease the shock as results trickled in. The party lost 58% of its councillors up for election in England. It lost Barnsley and Sunderland, two northern strongholds, for the first time since those councils were established in 1974. In Wales it fell from a century-long winning streak to third place, with just nine seats in the country’s 96-member devolved parliament, the Senedd. The party went backwards in Scotland—another former heartland—just two years after soundly defeating the Scottish National Party (SNP) in the general election.

As the electorate has fragmented and opinion of the government soured, voters have abandoned the party in all directions. According to polling by More in Common around 14% of those who voted Labour in 2024 now say they would vote for the populist-left Green Party, 11% for the populist-right Reform UK, 8% Liberal Democrat and 5% Conservative. This played out on May 7th, when Labour lost seats on all fronts. In council elections between 2021 and 2024 the party won areas with a majority of younger or working-class voters (see chart 1). This year Reform and the Greens acted like a pincer: Reform took older, working-class areas while the Greens won younger, urban ones.

Reform was the resounding winner of the local elections. The party gained more than 1,450 councillors and control of 14 councils (slowed only by the fact that many of them elected merely a third of their councillors this year). Nigel Farage’s party defeated Labour in northern councils and ravaged the Tories in their rural county councils. The party won majorities in Essex and Suffolk and became the largest in Norfolk and East Sussex.

Even so, this was not a landslide. Political scientists estimate that if the local elections were held nationwide, Reform would win 26-27% of the vote—down from 30-31% last year (see chart 2). Indeed, the party fell short in its own terms. Earlier this year Mr Farage said the locals were an opportunity to destroy the Conservative Party. Instead, the Tory share of the vote rose compared with last year. Reform fell short in three of the four London boroughs it was targeting and was defeated in Wales, which Mr Farage previously called “Reform’s top priority”.

The Green Party also made big gains. It won its first elected mayors in the vibrant inner-London boroughs of Hackney and Lewisham and took dozens of seats off Labour in student-y city centres in Leeds, Manchester, Norwich, Oxford and Sheffield. The Greens are now the largest party in five of London’s 32 boroughs (see map).

The results reveal little not already known from opinion polls, but the reality of losing this many seats has spurred jittery Labour MPs into action. The health secretary, Wes Streeting, is said to be collecting names to nominate him and trigger a leadership election. Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester and another potential contender, claims to have a seat in Parliament ready for his return.

The risk is that the contest to succeed Sir Keir becomes a race to the bottom, spurred by the party’s left-wing membership and misguided sentimentalism about its historical heartlands. Angela Rayner, another potential challenger and former deputy leader, on May 10th issued a statement calling on the party to double down on left-wing policies: raising the minimum wage, extending workers’ rights and soaking the rich. The Tribune group of soft-left MPs published a pamphlet calling for wealth taxes and increased borrowing.

In reality Labour has not been rewarded for its left-wing initiatives. Abolishing the two-child limit on benefits was the right thing to do but there is no evidence that this or continuing to raise the minimum wage has helped Labour among low-income voters, who are leaving the party faster than high earners. The government’s Renters’ Rights Act has not stopped private renters switching to the Greens. Expansive workers’ rights legislation has not prevented unions from mulling disaffiliation. And the government’s recognition of Palestine has not swayed those who believe it is aiding a genocide.

This paints a bleak picture for the party, but there is case for optimism. It starts with taking a clear-eyed view of who Labour’s voters are. They tend to be young, Remain-voting and educated. The fictionalised version of Labour’s core voters (old, Leave-voting, white, working-class men in the north of England) left the party years ago. They won’t be won back by redistributive class politics, nor by acting tough on immigration. Indeed, they won’t be won back any time soon. Acknowledging that can be freeing. Labour’s new base will reward it for governing competently, tackling the housing crunch, reforming the tax system and improving relations with the EU—creating the conditions for growth.

Though the government is unpopular, it is not far from a vote share which would make it competitive in Britain’s fragmented system. When pollsters at Ipsos separated Sir Keir from his party, 34% of Britons said they liked Labour—more than any other party. Its opponents are beatable.

This week it was revealed that Zack Polanski, the Greens’ leader, failed to pay council tax on a property. Two weeks ago a reckless repost prompted a rebuke by the Metropolitan Police. And he’ll continue to be dogged by the story of his hypnotherapy breast-enlargement scheme. The Greens are here to stay but are unlikely to displace Labour in the foreseeable future. Meanwhile Reform may fall victim to hubris. Votes had scarcely been counted when the party had to disavow a newly elected councillor, for racist comments. And Mr Farage is not becoming more moderate. Around 65% of voters have an unfavourable view of him and 47% think his party is racist. Many are willing to vote tactically. As Reform found in Wales, a consolidated centre-left can defeat it.

Sir Keir or his successor will face serious challenges, not least Britain’s fragile fiscal position, its turbulent relationship with America and the country’s exposure to cost-of-living shocks. But there is still life in the Labour Party.■