Labour has mountain to climb, admits Starmer on Wales visit
LABOUR leader Sir Keir Starmer acknowledged the party has a “mountain to climb” to rebuild trust with voters as an opinion poll showed the Tories opening up a double-digit lead in the Hartlepool by-election race.
Sir Keir, who has visited the constituency three times in the course of the by-election, said he is battling for every vote as he hopes Labour will not lose another seat in the party’s so-called “red wall”.
Defeat in Hartlepool – which Labour held with a majority of 3,595 in 2019 even as other bricks in the red wall crumbled – would be a blow to Sir Keir’s leadership.
Speaking to reporters on the campaign trail in St Asaph, Flintshire, yesterday, Sir Keir said: “The task I took on as leader of the Labour Party was to rebuild, out of the worst general election result since 1935, and put the Labour Party back in a position to win the next general election.
“And that’s a mountain to climb.
“We’re climbing that mountain, it has taken difficult decisions and I’m absolutely up for any further difficult decisions there will be.”
International Trade Secretary Liz Truss said that despite Labour’s difficulties, it was still a “massive challenge” for the Conservatives to take the seat – which Boris Johnson has also campaigned in.
“I think the fact that Labour is facing such difficult circumstances in their heartlands goes to the issue of what the problem with the Labour Party is, which is they’ve lost sight of standing up for working people, of standing up for jobs and growth in Britain, and that’s what we’re campaigning on,” she told Times Radio.
“We’re running a positive campaign, but it would be a hard task to win a seat like Hartlepool which really has been Labour for generations.”
TOMORROW’S elections provide the first major test for Sir Keir Starmer since he took over as leader of the Labour Party.
When he succeeded Jeremy Corbyn, many expected the Conservative lead to diminish.
But the pandemic arrived and has come to dominate British politics.
Unfortunately for Sir Keir, it seems that despite all the mistakes and scandals that have characterised Boris Johnson’s premiership, the roll-out of the vaccine has led to a boost in Tory support in England.
The London-based media are focusing on the parliamentary byelection in Hartlepool, which could see another Labour “red wall” seat fall.
If that happens, it will dominate coverage of this week’s election results.
Yesterday Sir Keir must have felt in somewhat less daunting territory when he visited north Wales on the campaign trail.
While a number of Labour Senedd seats are at risk of falling to the Conservatives, he will have been buoyed by recent opinion polls that show his party firmly in the lead across Wales as a whole.
Sir Keir will be aware, however, that Labour’s relatively high standing this side of the border has less to do with him than with support for First Minister Mark Drakeford’s handling of the pandemic.
It’s true to say that at the last General Election in 2019, many Labour activists detected high levels of hostility towards Mr Corbyn.
At this election there has been an absence of such antagonism towards Sir Keir, although it would probably be equally correct to say that there has been little positive enthusiasm expressed for him either.
Indifference is not a reaction sought by any political leader, and this must be a concern for Labour strategists.
When all the votes are counted, there will be a reckoning for the parties.
If the Conservatives win Hartlepool and Labour fails to regain second position in Scotland, it will be bad news for Sir Keir.
A good result for Welsh Labour would mitigate some of the damage, but the fact that losing a small number of seats here would still be regarded as a good result is an indication of the sorry state the British party is in.
Once a leader is seen as a loser, there’s usually no way back.