Labour turmoil as Red Wall battle backfires
No10 hopes a distant dream as party stalls under Starmer
‘Suffering from Long Corbyn’
KEIR Starmer’s hopes of an electoral breakthrough fell flat yesterday as he failed to make significant gains across the Red Wall.
On a night of mixed fortunes, Labour strengthened its grip on London by snatching the hugely symbolic councils of Westminster, Wandsworth and Barnet.
But the party struggled to reclaim its former heartlands in the North and Midlands, which Sir Keir needs to be on course for Downing Street.
The Labour leader had sought to make the local elections campaign about the Partygate row after Boris Johnson and Chancellor Rishi Sunak received fines from police for attending a gathering in No10 to celebrate the Prime Minister’s 56th birthday.
But this backfired in the latter days of the campaign as he struggled to answer questions about a lockdown gathering in Durham last year when he was pictured swigging beer.
Sir John Curtice, a professor of politics at Strathclyde University, said Labour’s performance did not ‘indicate a party that is on course for winning a general election’.
The polling expert added: ‘For a party that is trying to regain ground in the so-called Red Wall seats in the Midlands and North of England, this wasn’t quite the progress they wanted.’
Former Tory Cabinet minister Sir Robert Buckland suggested Labour was suffering from ‘Long Corbyn’ as the disastrous legacy of its former leader still lingers.
Tory sources declared that Labour was ‘seriously underperforming’ in the former heartlands that it ‘needs to regain’. Outside of London, the party did not see voters switching back on the mammoth scale that is required. At a general election, the party needs an extra 127 parliamentary seats to get a majority.
In the local elections, it went backwards in places including Amber Valley, South Tyneside, Sunderland and Sandwell. It also gave ground to the Tories in the contest for Nuneaton and Bedworth Council. The party stood still in Wolverhampton – where Labour lost two of the city’s three constituencies at the 2019 general election – as well as Peterborough and Hartlepool, which have both been key battlegrounds.
In Cumbria, Labour won control of the new unitary authority in Cumberland – an area that has three Tory MPs in the seats of Carlisle, Copeland and Workington.
Labour also regained control of Birmingham, England’s largest metro council. And the party did well in some parts of southern England, snatching control of Southampton and taking Worthing for the first time.
The party also took control of Rossendale in Lancashire, Crawley in West Sussex and Kirklees in West Yorkshire.
Sir Keir hailed the results as a ‘big turning point’ for his party.
At an early morning victory rally in Barnet, north London, he said: ‘From the depths of 2019 in that general election, back on track, winning in the North. Cumberland! Southampton! We’ve changed Labour and now we’re seeing the results of that.’
Shabana Mahmood, the party’s national campaign co-ordinator, also argued the results showed Labour was making ‘progress’.
She added: ‘Labour is making headway in England, Scotland and Wales, taking over key Conservative councils and winning in vital Parliamentary battlegrounds across the country.’
However Jonathan Ashworth, Labour’s work and pensions spokesman, acknowledged there was a ‘mountain’ to climb following the 2019 general election.
‘It’s climbable, but my god it’s a big mountain because we got an absolute hammering in 2019,’ he told the BBC.
Thangam Debbonaire, the shadow leader of the Commons, added: ‘People are feeling like the
‘A big mountain to climb’
Tories are not answering their needs, they are not dealing with the real core issues where you can’t pay your bills, are not sure how you are going to get through the next year.
‘If we had taken all of those councils, that would mean that [voters] were saying we did have all the answers. We have got work to do.’
Momentum, the campaign group that supported Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, said Labour’s results were ‘underwhelming’.
Mish Rahman, a senior Momentum figure on Labour’s National Executive Committee, said: ‘From Partygate to the Tory cost of living crisis, these local elections were a golden opportunity for Labour...
‘While millions looked for an alternative to Tory ruin, they largely opted for the Lib Dems and Greens.’