My constituency now has a Labour member of parliament, a Labour council, a Labour assembly member with a remarkable 50,000 majority, and – for the first time in eight years – a Labour mayor of London. Together, on issues like housing, policing and community safety, and transport there is much that we can and will do for the people of Enfield. But, as all of us would freely admit, our ability to make the sorts of changes our constituents need would be so much greater if we also had a Labour government.
Amid all the commentary and punditry about how Labour did better than was ‘expected’ – whatever that means – it seems to me that, apart from the obvious good, in and of itself, of getting Labour representatives elected at every level and in every part of the country, the only test any Labour member should be interested in is what the results tell us about the progress we are making towards winning the next general election. I do so as a proponent – as anyone who knows me will attest – of straight-talking, honest politics, in the belief that Labour only wins elections when it does not dodge or duck its challenges but faces up to them head-on, and as someone who passionately wants to see Labour back in power.
So what do these results tell us about how much progress we have made, and what more we need to do to win in 2020?
In London the results were fantastic. Only the presidents of France and Portugal have a bigger personal mandate than Sadiq, and to win Merton and Wandsworth directly from the Tories was a great achievement. Elsewhere in England the picture is decidedly mixed – some outstanding results, such as in Exeter, some solid results, such as in Southampton, Redditch and Crawley, while in many other places, too numerous to mention we fell far short of the kind of progress that we need to make to win in 2020. In Wales, while we were denied a majority, we will continue to hold power. And in Scotland, the results were obviously very disappointing – and it is worth remembering that if we fail to make headway in Scotland, to win a majority at the next general election will require us not just to win back seats we have lost to the Tories in England, but to win seats that Labour has literally never won before. That is the scale of our challenge. And I am afraid that, based on this week’s performance, we are a very long way from meeting that challenge.
Now people may draw comfort from the fact that, according to the BBC’s national projected vote share, Labour outpolled the Tories, although admittedly only by one per cent. But this would be false comfort. Governments always tend to suffer ‘midterm blues’ – they get punished in midterm elections but later recover ground before the next general election.
That was what happened the last time the same seats were contested back in 2012. In those elections, we gained control of 32 councils and over 800 council seats, had a six-point lead over the Tories – and yet three years later still went down to one of our worst general election defeats in our history. And, compared to those elections, on Thursday our share of the vote was down by as much as six or seven points. Were that to be repeated at the next general election, we would be on course for a very heavy defeat – potentially even worse than in 1983.
Based on analysis of previous electoral cycles, experts at the British Election Study also say that incumbent governments tend to do 5-6 points better at the next general election than they do in local elections, while the main opposition party tends to do 2-3 points worse. That is why, according to their analysis of this week’s election results, they believe the Tories have a 92 per cent probability of being the largest party at the next general election.
In other words, all the evidence suggests that, based on our current performance, not only would Labour lose the next general election, in all likelihood we would actually lose more seats and fall even further behind the Tories – putting the aim of winning back power even further from reach.
So, while Labour activists, councillors, assembly members and our newly elected London mayor will hopefully be having a well-deserved weekend off after months of campaigning, there is much, much more work for Labour to do if we are to win the next general election. But Sadiq’s victory shows us that when we address the issues the voters care about, and craft a message that appeals to them, Labour can win – even against a nasty, but well-funded Tory campaign, and with a hostile rightwing media. Sadiq’s policies, especially on housing, spoke not just to Londoners’ concerns, but also to their aspirations. His message of a London for all Londoners, as well as his own life, told a story that voters could believe in. And while, of course, building a policy platform and message that appeals right across the UK is more difficult than in just one city, those are always the ingredients of any winning campaign.
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Joan Ryan is member of parliament for Enfield North and a former vice-chair of the Labour party for campaigns