Edward Putnam: Labour’s spiralling fortunes lie in the hands of two factions, neither of whom govern for you

Edward Putnam is Chair of Sevenoaks Young Conservatives.

The purpose of political parties is to obtain, exercise, and maintain power – for the principal benefit of a support base. And the longer a party’s in power, the more it can do to increase the size of its coalition.

I’m not talking about broadening its appeal to new voting blocs, although that’s no bad thing, but of using government policy to increase the share of the electorate that fits the party’s supporter profile. (Some parties are better at this than others.)

Think of woke schools that churn out woke voters. Think of public sector growth under Blair/Brown. Or think of Right to Buy, which created Tory homeowners out of Labour tenants. Also, it’s not ‘privatisation wot created the housing crisis’: it’s the change in supply/demand driven by government policy.

So the benefits – for Labour, if not the country – of a ten-year reign are clear. The question is, how do they plan to achieve this? It’s not like Labour’s soaring in the polls right now. And even if they represent a snapshot, not a prediction, the polls do still reveal a low floor on support for the party.

It’s said that oppositions don’t win elections so much as governments lose them. The last election was a case in point. So the ball is very much in Labour’s court. Our job is to fight off Reform and look like the natural, credible alternative to Labour when the next general election rolls around.

We’ll win if they fail in government and we’ll lose if they succeed. And so far, there are no signs of those “long-term decisions” that reap rewards down the line being made. Clearly, they’re nowhere near on course to beat whichever right-wing party establishes itself as the main challenger.

So what is Labour likely to get up to between now and the next election?

Will they execute a brilliant plan to turn things round, or will they enter a death spiral of infighting and self-indulgence? There are two competing visions of the next four-odd years. On the one hand, you have team “govern to win”. They are ideologically Labour and they have plenty of pet agendas they want to push, but their overriding desire is to win the next election, or at least survive it.

On the other hand you have team “win to govern”. These are the people who finally have their moment in the sun and want to do what they got into politics to do. Despite Starmer’s best efforts to avoid selecting would-be troublemakers, Labour MPs aligned with this school of thought are pretty numerous and often found in dead-man-walking seats. The next election is already lost for them, so they have relatively little to lose, even if their job prospects post-election will be worse without a Labour government.

The team “govern to win” answer to Labour’s woes is, Labour will have to cut parts of their coalition loose in order to keep the rest happy. Otherwise, they risk the whole thing falling apart. This is essentially the Morgan McSweeney plan. So what are the nonessential seats and who are the nonessential voters?

In this imaginative vision of Labour’s first term, the government gets immigration down, takes a tough on crime approach to policing, and improves key public services – by cutting benefits, taking on vested interests, and raising taxes on the wealthy. Labour steers clear of divisive social issues and presents itself as the natural party for anyone with a job, all while flooding Tory-Labour battlegrounds with new flats and starter homes.

Meanwhile, Labour HQ accepts the loss of naturally Conservative constituencies like North Somerset and Derbyshire Dales – as well as the most disgruntled hard left seats to Greens and Muslim independents – and ends up with about 350 Starmer-Labour MPs. The loss of Corbynites isn’t a serious threat to Labour because they’re concentrated in seats the right will never win, even with a split left-wing vote, and there aren’t that many seats they can take off Labour directly.

So the strategy boils down to targeting white working class voters – fair enough. The problem for McSweeney is it’s not going to happen. In fact, it’s already not happening.

There are too many loony left elements knocking around in the Labour Party – team “win to govern” – and they are laser-focused on derailing anything resembling a common sense agenda. Blue Labour will never enter the ascendancy because, by definition, it exists as a faction within a party that is decidedly not blue.

The modern Labour Party is of, by, and for the public sector metropolitan middle class. You can’t move for progressives who lament that Labour lost half a million votes from 2019 and seriously think this proves Labour should have stuck to Corbyn’s path. These are the people who want to make the borders even more open, the police even softer on crime, and taxes even higher to fund even more public spending Britian can’t afford.

Starmer himself seems content to play both sides. For the most part, he’s talking centrist and governing loony. You get the impression he’s seen the Tories suffer at the ballot box from a perception they were talking right and governing left – to the annoyance of Cameron-y liberals and the alienation of Farage-y nationalists – and he’s trying to avoid making the same mistake.

So Sir Keir waffles on about how he’s driving public sector reform instead of giving them more money – after granting the unions above-inflation pay rises. He commits to a national grooming gangs inquiry under mounting public pressure, then U-turns once the story’s blown over. He preaches about growth and supporting the economy, but he’s busy strangling business with taxes and regulations. He makes a speech on immigration not a million miles off Enoch Powell’s, yet his plans will deliver more annual net migration than Tony Blair’s. And so on. Starmer is roleplaying as Harold Wilson and governing like Sadiq Khan. The good news is the public sees right through his act.

All in all, the current climate reminds me acutely of the difficulties the last Conservative government experienced – on housebuilding, on immigration, on levelling up, you name it. Like the Tories under Boris, modern Labour can’t seem to make up its mind on what it fundamentally stands for or who it governs for.

If the 2019–2024 period is anything to go by, this will end very badly for about two thirds of Labour MPs.