The US presidential election of 2012 was heartening for progressives, not only because of the re-election of Barack Obama, but also because it showed that a left-of-centre administration could win an election in the current economic climate. In addition, it illustrated that the Republican party is totally out of step with modern America. The Republican appeal was limited, in large part, to white Americans. Romney polled poorly among African-Americans and Hispanics, and it is non-white voters who are becoming a larger and larger part of the US electorate. The November poll marked the fifth time in six presidential elections that the Democrats had won the popular vote for the presidency.
In the UK, the 2010 general election was the fourth in a row in which the Conservative party failed to win a parliamentary majority. The dawn of 2013 heralds 21 years since the Conservatives’ last outright general election victory. Their chances of winning a majority of parliamentary seats in 2015 are also slim. Only once since 1945 have the Conservatives increased their percentage share of the popular vote in office: from 48 per cent in 1951 to 49.7 per cent in 1955. And in 1955, three factors were crucial that are not likely to apply in 2015. First, the Conservatives had replaced Winston Churchill as leader with the younger Anthony Eden, who immediately called the election on taking office as prime minister. In addition, there was optimism about the state of the economy at the time of the election, and the Labour party had gone through four years of disunity.
This is not to suggest that the Conservatives should be underestimated in 2015, but the historical precedents for them are not positive. When last in government, the Conservatives’ share of the popular vote gradually fell from 43.9 per cent in 1979, to 42.4 per cent in 1983, 42.3 per cent in 1987, and 41.9 per cent in 1992. In 1997, the Conservatives collapsed to 30.7 per cent of the popular vote, and, in the 13 years of Labour government, only recovered to 36.1 per cent of the vote. Compare the Labour recovery from the landslide defeat of 1983 to 1997: 27.6 per cent of the vote increasing to 43.2 per cent in 1997. No wonder David Cameron is so keen on boundary changes. The Conservatives face an uphill task to reach 40 per cent of the popular vote in the foreseeable future. Cameron’s solution is, evidently, not to drive his troops up the mountain with vision and purpose, but to ease the gradient. In contrast to the 1980s, when the split progressive vote between Labour and Liberal-SDP Alliance helped the Conservatives, the Conservatives themselves now have to deal with a split in the vote of the right presented by UKIP.
There is no doubt that there will be enormous economic challenges in 2013. The Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition continues to attack working people with its policy of public sector and welfare cuts and fails to implement any coherent strategy for growth. But there are also reasons for progressives to be optimistic. With the collapse of the Liberal Democrats in the opinion polls, Labour has a great opportunity to unite the progressive popular vote in the UK in 2015. Ed Miliband’s choice of the theme of ‘One Nation’ looks increasingly shrewd. Like Obama, Labour in the UK can show that the left can win in tough economic times.
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Nick Thomas-Symonds is the author of Attlee: A Life in Politics published by IB Tauris (2010). He writes the Labour history column for Progress tweets @NThomasSymonds
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