TMP Online

Jon Trickett MP, Chair of the Compass Group of MPs and Labour MP for Hemsworth, explains how Labour’s core constituencies, including ethnic minority groups, have defected since 1997 and the scale of the electoral task Labour faces as it seeks a fourth term under a new leader.

There is much talk about the imminent departure of Tony Blair and whether a new leader can gain a stunning fourth election victory for Labour.

Some leading politicians and media pundits suggest a strategy which might be summarised as “Blairism without Blair”. But such a tactic would lead back to a politics of the past, rooted in the 1980s and 1990s.

New analysis shows that a simple change of leader will not be enough to win. The electoral coalition that brought New Labour to power in 1997 has unravelled. A change of direction, based on an understanding of Britain as it is now, is needed to build a new basis for support.

New Labour ministers cling to the rhetoric that only the politics of unremitting New Labour, based on an assessment of Britain in the 1990s, will keep the party in power; but the facts do not back this up.

The truth is that the 1997 New Labour formula did not win the last election. Careful analysis of the last two election results reveals that the 1997 coalition had begun to disintegrate by 2001 and ceased to exist by 2005. It was only lucky for us that there has, until now, been no appetite in the country for the Tory alternative.

Over the last decade around 15 million people identified themselves with Labour in opinion polls. Of these, 14m voted for New Labour in 1997. By 2005 less than 10m of those people could bring themselves to vote for the party. Another five million natural Labour supporters, people who said they were Labour, either stayed at home or voted for (largely non-Tory) political alternatives. New Labour won in 2005 because of an even more disastrous performance by the Tory party which managed to poll even fewer votes than it had in 1997.

Examination of those Labour identifiers who voted for the party in 2005 reveals even more worrying developments. Less than half (45%) said they were actually enthused by Labour’s policies and over half (53%) said they wanted to see Labour punished with a reduced majority. Those who stayed true to New Labour in 2005 did so because they wanted to stop the Tories and saw no other political alternative.

By 2005 those sectors of the electorate who had previously shown the greatest propensity to vote New Labour just eight years before, were the most likely to abstain. Careful scrutiny of the polling data reveals the only social grouping that stayed with New Labour were the professional, administrative and executive classes. Every other social group recorded significant swings away from New Labour.

All of New Labour’s core constituencies had begun to defect by 2005. The urban intellectuals, the manual working classes in Labour heartland areas, the ethnic minority groups and the public sector workers. The rich coalition of social strata which delivered New Labour to a resounding victory in 1997 decisively moved away from us in 2005.

It looks likely that up to 1.25m people who had previously voted New Labour defected to the Lib Dems. Thousands more voted elsewhere - the SNP, Plaid Cymru and the BNP. Millions of former New Labour voters stayed at home. In short, New Labour would have been defeated in 2005 had the Tories provided a credible alternative. David Cameron’s repositioning of the Tories means we will not have the same advantage at the next election.

As Neal Lawson pointed out this week, the political demographics are stacking up against New Labour. Historically key supporting groups have deserted the party and, unless we win these groups back, Labour faces defeat at the next election.

Some ideologues within the leadership have argued that the key to the next election is maintaining the support of the aspirational middle and upper-middle class and it is true that their support is necessary but it is not a sufficient condition for victory. If we maintain their support but fail to motivate the rest of our core vote, then we will lose. As an example, the public sector workers’ vote alone is worth more than the narrow majorities in dozens of the most marginal seats in the country. We urgently need to understand why it is that we invested more money in our public services than any government post war, and yet lost the support of this critical and traditionally core supporting group.

The key to a future victory is to reanimate Labour’s lost millions and to mobilise them on the basis of a new progressive consensus, whilst not losing crucial middle class votes.

In all of this gloom, there is one very important beam of light. This is the fact that - in addition to the almost 10m who voted for us in 2001 - there remained millions more in 2005 who, although they did not vote for us, still identify with Labour values.

New Labour was a work of political mastery and commanded an unprecedented electoral plurality but it was of, and has had, its time. It has, at least in its present form, passed its sell-by date.

We need to have confidence that there are millions of people who share our Labour values. If we use them as our basis we can move forward to build a new progressive coalition.

This article appears in today’s issue of Tribune magazine.