How Labour makes fighting right wing populism harder

 

I must confess that this post will be very similar to one I wrote a fortnight ago. The big difference is that this is about this Labour government rather than the current Conservative party. Another difference is that while the trajectory of the Conservative party seems reasonably clear under its current leader, things are potentially more fluid with Labour. One commonality is that, up until now at least, the leadership of both parties have got their strategy seriously wrong.

You might think what right have I, a macroeconomist by trade who just dabbles in political economy, to make such a claim. [1] Well I could point out that many others who know much more about these things have been making broadly the same points as I have. I would also point out that over the past year or so what I and others predicted would happen has come to pass. Labour’s core socially liberal voter base has continued to either not vote Labour, or vote for the Green party, Liberal Democrats or nationalists. The argument that these voters will come back to Labour in a general election was flawed in part because it ignored what would happen before then. The events of the last two weeks alone have proved that criticism to be correct, with the architect of Labour’s strategy now out of his job. [2]

Another commonality with the Conservatives is the belief that if politicians sound, and in the case of this government act, like Nigel Farage on immigration and asylum seekers this will win them votes that are currently going to Reform. This is a colossal mistake. As I said two weeks ago, Farage owns these issues, and in Labour’s case there will always be enough asylum seekers crossing the Channel for Farage and the right wing press to suggest to social conservatives that the government isn’t doing enough. By sounding like Farage and acting as if what Farage says is true, all Labour is doing is giving Farage’s message additional airtime and credibility.

Furthermore there is an economic dimension that adds what Jonathan Portes describes as a doom loop. Restricting immigration has negative economic and fiscal consequences, which intensify not only dissatisfaction with the government but also adds to the anti-immigration views of many voters.

So Labour sounding and acting like Reform on immigration and asylum was likely to increase rather than decrease the Reform vote and reduce the Labour vote, which is what has happened. But it has been far worse for Labour, because sounding and acting like Farage is anathema to Labour’s core vote, which is socially liberal. This problem is particularly acute now because of the popularity of Reform.

The idea that Farage could become Prime Minister, and then start acting like his hero Donald Trump, is horrifying to Labour’s base. The elevated nature of the threat from socially conservative populism makes Labour’s base that much more sensitive to Labour behaving like Reform. In addition, Reform’s success means that ideas that were once seen as so inhumane as to be inconceivable are now on the agenda. In those circumstances, if instead of aggressively combating those policies the Labour government spends its time telling voters how problematic immigration is and asylum seekers are, and why cruelty is necessary to deal with these problems, then much of Labour’s base will not vote Labour. Continuing to supply some arms to a regime engaged in ethnic cleansing, and a failure to recognise that ethnic cleansing, does not help either.

Diagnosis of why Labour have lost their core base is crucial to understanding how to get it back. It is not just a matter of Labour ‘tilting left’, and sounding or acting more left wing on some economic issues (or bothering to promote the areas where they actually are left wing). The way to win their core base back is to start acting like a party that at least protects socially liberal ideals, even if it also recognises socially conservative concerns that are not imaginary. Another commonality with two weeks ago is that analysis that treats politics as one dimensional (left/right) misses this key point. Labour has lost much of its base not so much because it hasn’t been left wing enough in economic terms, but more because it has sounded and acted in an illiberal way.

Which brings us to Shabana Mahmood, Labour’s home secretary. Judging by both her rhetoric and actions, she is as committed as McSweeney was to the strategy that has been such a failure for Labour. Mahmood has recently asked for comments on proposed changes to settlement rules: how long immigrants have to live here, and under what conditions, before they would be granted indefinite leave to remain (ILR). A very good summary of the proposals is given by the Migration Observatory here. One noteworthy change is that refugees granted asylum in the UK would face a baseline waiting period of 20 years (!) before becoming eligible for settlement. Many have suggested that such measures, as well as being immensely cruel to those currently waiting for ILR, will also severely damage integration, which compared to some other countries has up until now been a UK success story.

These changes will undoubtedly find support from many Reform voters, but with the Conservatives and Reform bound to offer ‘tougher’ proposals it seems unlikely this will attract many Reform voters to vote Labour. As I suggested above, by keeping immigration and asylum seekers in the news as ‘a problem’ it will gain Reform votes. In contrast these proposals are pretty unpopular among Labour, Liberal Democrat or Green voters. Add to this Mahmood’s apparent wish to cut immigration numbers whatever their level, the Farage type rhetoric coming out of the Home Office, and Mahmood’s determination to keep proscribing Palestinian Action and therefore locking up grannies for holding placards, and there is plenty here to keep former Labour voters voting for socially liberal parties at least until the General Election.

It is a good sign that this Labour government is at last actively opposing extreme reactionary statements like those from Jim Radcliffe. But given the damage that has already been done, the occasional socially liberal statement will not be sufficient if the government’s actions continue to be illiberal and in some cases simply inhumane.

Many on the left may think that a continuing drift of Labour’s core vote to other parties is a good thing, because Labour under Starmer or either of the two leading contenders to succeed him is probably beyond repair. In a system where all elections are based on a proportional voting system this argument has some force, because then power reflects voting numbers and social liberals make up a powerful voting block. Broadly the Greens would take economically left leaning socially liberal votes, the Liberal Democrats right leaning socially liberal and some centre votes, Labour would take some left leaning socially conservative and many centre votes, and the Conservatives and Reform would fight over the right leaning socially conservative vote. Even in this case, however, social liberal parties are unlikely to be in the majority, with at best Labour holding the balance of power

Unfortunately under a First Past The Post (FPTP) voting system such an outcome is a recipe for the next UK government to be a Trump tribute act. Under FPTP, it is highly unlikely that a combination of socially liberal parties (the Greens, Liberal Democrats and nationalists) can win a majority of seats in the House of Commons, even if these parties could form a perfect pact between them to divide up seats before a General Election. According to current polls their combined vote total is around 30%, similar to Reform. But the FPTP system is biased towards social conservatives, because the social liberal vote is heavily concentrated in cities (partly because it is relatively young). [4]

Even if the Labour vote stayed at around 20%, it would still attract some voters in the political middle, allowing right wing social conservatives to win critical marginal seats. In addition we have a media environment that is heavily tilted towards right wing social conservatism. As a result, in any General Election many socially liberal voters will need to vote Labour to prevent socially conservative populists winning an outright majority.

To prevent a right wing, socially conservative party coming to power in the UK, many social liberals will not vote Labour in by-elections or council elections before the General Election to put pressure on the government to sound less like Farage on key social issues, but then many of them will need to vote Labour tactically in the General Election. That they will manage to do so is of course why the Labour government is highly unlikely to change FPTP for General Elections.

The important point to stress for this post is that Labour gains nothing by delaying this move to a more humane and liberal stance on social issues, but has a lot to lose. The more modest any change is, and the longer it takes, means it becomes more difficult for social liberals to convince themselves to vote tactically in a General Election. It also makes deciding who to vote for tactically more confusing. Imagine the problem many voters have in the forthcoming by-election multiplied by hundreds of seats without much media coverage on those seats. And finally the longer a government remains very unpopular in the polls the more difficult it is for it to generate the positive media coverage it needs to win votes from low information voters.

Unfortunately all the signs are that the Labour government under any likely leader will be too slow to recognise the depth of the strategic error they have made and are continuing to make. While those on the political right have generally understood the need to protect their core vote, Labour has a tradition of doing the opposite that goes back to the factional wars that began in the 1980s. This makes the battle against socially conservative populism in the UK that much more difficult.

[1] Most political journalists are too absorbed in the moment to ask these strategic questions. All too often it is like trying to ask a market trader what they think the medium term impact of a particular macro policy will be. Even the ability of some of them to do short term political analysis seems questionable. It seemed to me pretty obvious that both of Starmer’s main challengers for the leadership would prefer to take over after the party’s drubbing in the May elections rather than before those elections. (A third was not even in play.) As a result, there would be no attempt to remove Starmer right now. But if your incentive is clicks rather than being right, then I guess the fever of the last two weeks makes some sense.

[2] Of course the proximate cause was Mandleson, but Labour’s dire position in the polls colours everything. In addition, as the current and recent by-elections show, any general election will be all about keeping Reform out, and crucial to that assessment is which party is most likely to achieve that. If before a general election another party (e.g. Greens or nationalists) have had considerable success in local elections in many areas, those parties rather than Labour will have a strong claim to be the party that can keep Reform out. Many might consider that a good result, but as a strategy for the Labour party it is not clever.

[3] I don’t like the kind of voter grouping that seems popular among pollsters and which NatCen does here, but the latter does have some correspondence to these four categories of voters. Most of ‘Urban Progressives’ and ‘Soft-left Liberals’ will be left leaning social liberals, ‘Left-Behind Patriots’ are left wing social conservatives, ‘Well Off Traditionalists’ will be right wing social conservatives, with ‘Apolitical Centrists’ and ‘Middle Brittons’ forming a large group in the centre.

[4] This is one of the reasons why Johnson won a large majority in 2019 despite a majority voting for parties supporting a second referendum.