LOSSES PILE PRESSURE ON UK LABOUR LEADER
Election Latest Will Labour crisis in England boost support for Yes?
Labour were facing up to a disastrous loss of support in their former English heartlands yesterday as Keir Starmer’s allies insisted he needs time to rebuild.
The party’s so-called Red Wall in the north of England was crumbling after the Tories won the Hartepool by-election and the party was accused of losing touch with traditional supporters and taking them for granted.
The party’s opposition to Brexit in a constituency that voted to leave the EU and vaccine rollout giving a bounce to Prime Minister Boris Johnson were blamed for the defeat.
Labour had a better showing in the mayoral elections, holding seats in Manchester and Liverpool and gaining the west of England. The party also held the Welsh Senedd.
Starmer has admitted his party has lost the trust of working people as some analysts suggested a failure to become an electoral threat to Johnson’s government would encourage rising support for Scottish independence.
Shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds said there would be a policy review in a bid to reconnect with voters but John McTernan, former advisor to Tony Blair, said Labour is still attempting to recover from the party’s terrible 2019 General Election results.
He said: “Hartlepool was the final act of the 2019 election, not the first act of 2024, and the defeat in 2019 was catastrophic for the Labour Party – the worst since 1935. You do not come back from that in one bound.”
McTernan said Starmer should follow Scottish leader Anas Sarwar’s strategy of focusing on Covid recovery.
He said: “Scottish Labour has turned a corner. Anas is doing the right thing and I think Keir has to do this too – and that’s to boss the issue of recovery. Sturgeon bosses the issue of the constitution so Anas is going somewhere else which is jobs, growth and recovery. Keir has to do the same thing.”
Former Labour first minister Henry McLeish said his party received a remarkable pummelling from the UK electorate but Starmer should remain as leader. He said: “Labour has a mountain to climb across the UK and there is not going to be a fast turnaround in a short space of time.
“I don’t think there’s any threat to Starmer’s leadership and that is a positive outcome.”
Shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds said: “Keir has been in a situation over the past year where, in the national interest by the way, he has been providing that constructive opposition to the pandemic. And that was absolutely right.
“At a point of national crisis, yes of course you criticise the government when it was appropriate to do so but it was also appropriate to do things like support the government on the furlough scheme or on its public health messaging and not, for party political reasons, trying to create confusion around that.”
Dan Norris, the new Labour mayor for the West of England, praised Starmer after he defeated the Conservative incumbent.
He said: “Without him and his skills, his determination and him being who he is, we could not have got this result.”