Is Labour heading for election meltdown?

Private polling suggests the party could be reduced to 120 MPs

Jackie Ashley’s column in today’s Guardian includes this remarkable detail:

Some Labour people may think I’m sounding too gloomy, but those who have been privy to recent private polling are a lot more than gloomy. This suggests that Labour could return to the Commons with just 120 MPs or thereabouts, taking the party back to 1930s territory. As ministers look for jobs to keep themselves going after politics, a Miliband move to Europe looks sensible.

This would be Labour’s poorest result since the 1931 election, when it was reduced to a rump of 52 MPs after the prime minister, Ramsay MacDonald, split the party by forming a coalition with the Conservatives.

I think there’s little chance of Labour suffering a defeat of that magnitude, but it could lose more MPs once the Tories are in office, as a new Compass pamphlet, The Last Labour Government, warns.

First, David Cameron’s plan to reduce the number of MPs by 10 per cent will hit Labour hardest by scrapping seats in Wales and industrial areas that have seen population flight. One expert prediction suggests that 65 seats that would go; of these, 45 are Labour-held.

Second, the election of a Conservative government could trigger Scottish independence, with a referendum due to be held before the end of 2010. Of the 59 Westminster seats in Scotland that would be lost automatically, 41 are Labour-held.

The latest polling figures suggest that Labour will be left with 209 seats after the next election, but the combined effect of Cameron’s cull and Scottish independence could leave the party with as few as 123 seats.

I am increasingly doubtful that Labour has either the activists or the funds required to mount anything like an adequate general election campaign. The party now has just 150,000 members, down from 405,000 at the height of New Labour in 1997.

The Sunday Times reported yesterday how the party’s cash crisis has hit its campaign offices: “Labour’s banks have imposed a recruitment freeze on head office, and the party is operating just 20 of the 80 telephone lines it usually runs at its call centre in the months leading up to an election.”

Those on the left who want to see the Labour Party survive as a viable force in British politics (and many now don’t) should start paying their dues.