Why minor victories for Labour could prove Starmer’s undoing
Would victory in Batley & Spen and possible Delyn by-elections be worst outcome for Labour by giving beleagured leader Starmer the opportunity to limp along to inevitable defeat at the next general election, asks Political editor-at-large Martin Shipton
IN RECENT days a couple of friends who are both members of the Labour Party have said, independently of each other, that the worst thing that could happen would be for Labour to hold Batley and Spen in next month’s by-election.
One said the same of a possible by-election in Delyn, where there is talk of the sitting MP being expelled for sexual harassment.
These friends are not disloyal members of the party.
Their concern is that minor byelection victories in seats Labour should be way ahead in anyway would prolong Keir Starmer’s leadership and result in the party treading water until the inevitability of a further general election defeat in a couple of years’ time.
Outside Wales, London and a few other English cities, Labour’s election results last month were pretty abysmal, and certainly nowhere near as good as the leading opposition party should expect at this stage of the electoral cycle.
Defeat in the Hartlepool by-election symbolised how badly Labour was doing in what used to be its traditional working-class heartlands.
And this time such results couldn’t be blamed on Jeremy Corbyn.
According to those who supported his leadership bid and saw him as the centrist saviour the party needed, the election of Sir Keir would quickly revive Labour’s fortunes and make it a serious contender for power next time.
But after an initial spurt of support, the political landscape was changed by the pandemic.
For all the appalling mistakes made by Boris Johnson and his ministers, enough voters were still sufficiently charmed by the PM’s theatrical bluster for that to have little impact on the level of support he could draw on.
Already wounded by the May election results, Sir Keir’s next hurdle to jump is at Batley and Spen, whose last MP, Tracy Brabin, has been elected as the Mayor of West Yorkshire.
The seat has a poignant emotional significance because it was represented by Jo Cox until she was murdered by a fascist terrorist in 2016.
Ms Cox’s sister, Kim Leadbeater, is Labour’s candidate in the by-election, which will be held on July 1.
Ms Leadbeater has lived in the constituency all her life, her Tory rival is not a local but a councillor from Leeds and it would be foolish to discount the possibility of a sympathy vote because of her family tragedy.
If Labour still fails to hold the seat, there would surely be pressure on Sir Keir to stand down as leader.
The next potential by-election could also see a Labour victory, following the disgraceful behaviour of sitting MP Rob Roberts, elected as a Conservative in 2019 when he narrowly defeated the long-serving Labour ex-minister, David Hanson.
Inter-party talks are said to be going on which could see Mr Roberts expelled from the House of Commons.
If a by-election is held in Delyn in such circumstances, Labour would surely be favourites to regain it.
Yet the fear of my two Labour friends is that such victories would not be enough to relaunch the Starmer leadership.
Instead, they’d be frustratingly sufficient to sustain him in his current role until the next general election, when the party would go down to its fifth defeat in a row.
Why is Labour in this mess? Diehard Labour supporters have become ever more baffled by Mr Johnson’s ability to please the crowd.
Jeff Jones, a former Labour leader of Bridgend council, said: “So far as I’m concerned, Johnson is a complete buffoon.
“That’s so obvious to me that I find it incredible that a lot of people, in England especially, apparently don’t see that. Or if they do, they don’t see it as a reason not to vote for him.
“For me, Starmer appears to tick all the boxes. He’s intelligent, he’s articulate, he has a good backstory and he’s so obviously more competent than Johnson.
“He’s also able to take Johnson apart at Prime Minister’s Questions.
“Yet it seems to me that part of the problem stems from that.
“Starmer is a barrister and he sees PMQs in much the same way as he would view an appearance in court.
“What he’s trying to do is impress the judge with the quality of his arguments.
“The trouble is that many people have come to see him as a lawyer rather than as a politician.
“And they know that lawyers will work for the prosecution one week and the defence the next.
“They’re good at winning arguments – but what do they actually believe? I think many people have already made their minds up about Starmer, and he’s not going to be an election winner.”
Yet for Mr Jones, and others like him, it’s not enough to blame one flawed leader for Labour’s woes.
He said: “The fact is that he hasn’t got much of a team behind him. Very few of the Shadow Cabinet members stand out as people of talent.
“Angela Rayner has something about her, but a party needs strength in depth.
“In the 1970s, if Labour needed a new leader there were quite a few potential candidates of substance like Denis Healey, Barbara Castle, Michael Foot and Peter Shore.
“These days, there are some that even political anoraks like me have never heard of.
“I think a lot of it is to do with candidate selection, and the fact that Labour isn’t interested in rebels but people who will be loyalists.
“How many of today’s Shadow Cabinet would have voted against the Iraq War when ordered to back it by the party?
“Someone like Aneurin Bevan would find it difficult to get selected as a Labour candidate today because he would be seen as a troublemaker.”
Anyone suggesting Andy Burnham as a potential party leader would get short shrift from Mr Jones.
“What has he actually achieved? People say he stands up for Manchester, but what does that mean in tangible terms?” he said.
“He got beaten in a leadership contest by Jeremy Corbyn and before that by Ed Miliband.
“Besides which, he’s not an MP and there’s no easy route for him back to the Commons.
“A temporary fix isn’t going to work. The party needs to offer a tangible and practical vision to win back working-class voters, and it’s nowhere near doing that. Its next real chance of victory is likely to be at the election after next.”
In Wales, however, it’s undeniable that Labour did well by sticking to its authentic values, as Mark Drakeford has pointed out.
Perhaps that’s a lesson that needs to be learned elsewhere.