Last week’s election results have proven to be far more consequential than normal. Much of the focus (including mine) has been on the dismal results for the Tories but there is no doubt that Labour has cause for alarm too.
Its decline in support was much more substantial than Labour a year after 1997 or the Conservatives a year after 2010, when our vote remained flat (helped to a large extent by a collapse in support for our coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats).
Cutting winter fuel payments and disability benefits, and increasing employers’ National Insurance Contributions were all, apparently, issues on the doorstep. No doubt that is all true, although to some extent this simply reveals that governing at a time of low economic growth and strained public finances is difficult. Tough choices have to be made.
But this is an environment in which there are advantages to having clean hands. Reform benefited from having no record in government; the Liberal Democrats’ record has now been forgotten or forgiven. The increasing inclination of voters to shop around, having repeated bouts of buyers’ remorse, has contributed towards a move away from incumbents (current or recent) and the rise of multi-party politics. But, paradoxically, the changing alignment of British politics may yet work in favour of the incumbent party.
The lesson from last year’s general election is that, in a first-past-the-post, multi-party system, tactical voting becomes crucial. The reason that Labour ended up with a landslide victory, while the Conservatives were reduced to a rump, was the efficiency of the anti-Tory vote. Large numbers of voters worked out who was best placed to defeat the local Conservative candidate and voted for them. The election was essentially a referendum on the Tories’ record in office, a referendum it emphatically lost.
The next election was always likely to be more complicated with Labour as the incumbents and events such as partygate and the mini-Budget more distant. A risk for Labour, and a hope for the Conservatives, was that anti-Tory tactical voting would unwind. Even without gaining any extra support, the Tories might win additional seats as non-Conservatives simply vote for their preferred candidates.
What complicates matters is the rise of Reform. The party clearly has substantial and well-motivated support, but it is also a very polarising force. Much of the public may well be motivated to vote for whoever is best placed to keep it out (47 per cent of Britons have an unfavourable view of Farage compared to 29 per cent with a favourable one).
Most obviously, many Lib Dem or Green sympathetic voters are likely to be open to voting tactically to defeat Farage’s candidates. It does not end there. On the day of the Runcorn & Helsby by-election, a senior Labour figure told me that there was anecdotal evidence of moderate Conservatives voting tactically to keep out Reform. Evidently, it was not enough, but it should alert Labour to the potential to win over support from unexpected sources.
Tactical voting is essentially a negative instrument. It is used by voters seeking to prevent a candidate being elected, rather than a positive expression of support for another candidate. If an election becomes a referendum on a particular party, and overall opinion is negative towards that party, increased tactical voting can have a devastating impact, as 2024 shows us.
This is not to be complacent – Reform will be able to squeeze some of the Conservative vote, especially in the 88 seats where it sits second to Labour – but the strong negative view much of the country has of Reform can be exploited.
This does require Labour to think hard about how to do so. It will mean nullifying Farage’s appeal on some cultural issues such as immigration and transgender rights by closing down vulnerabilities. Parts of the liberal left are too quick to dismiss this part of the strategy but it is true to say that Labour needs to avoid giving the impression that Farage was right all along. At the same time, on its chosen issues, Labour must demonstrate greater willingness to take Reform on.
Farage, for example, used highly incendiary language immediately after the Southport murders last year, language which may well have contributed to the subsequent unrest. Ministers could have been more willing and forceful in condemning this.
Europe is a sensitive issue, but Labour should lean into it by arguing that Farage would reverse the work done to repair our trading relationship with our biggest market. The Reform leader’s relationship with Donald Trump is also a vulnerability, albeit one that is difficult to readily exploit when the government is seeking a constructive relationship with the US. Nonetheless, Starmer can find proxies who can make sure that Farage’s friendship with the unpopular US president is kept in the public eye. By 2029, it should be all too apparent from the American example that right-wing populism cannot solve society’s problems.
Then there will be the opportunities that accrue as a consequence of Reform being in power at a local authority level. Labour should be meticulous in pulling together examples of incompetence and ensuring that they are disseminated. In other words, Starmer should be prepared to take on Reform aggressively, even if it risks antagonising some Labour voters who have a soft spot for Farage.
Last year, the overwhelmingly anti-Tory mood, plus tactical voting, was a formula for Labour success. Next time the formula might still involve tactical voting, but with a focus on keeping out Reform instead. A general election which is a referendum on Reform, rather than the record of the incumbent government, is one Labour should be able to win.
[See also: The fight for Labour’s future]
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