If Labour wants to reverse its declining poll ratings, it shouldn’t be trying to fight the Tories for the centre-right ground.
If Labour wants to reverse its declining poll ratings, it shouldn’t be trying to fight the Tories for the centre-right ground, writes Salman Shaheen
The conventional narrative that framed New Labour’s dominance over the party and subsequent election victories went that traditionally left-wing ideas are no longer popular and that votes had to be attracted from the centre and the right.
Thus the Labour Party marched ever rightwards, confident in the assumption that its working class and left-wing base would continue to vote for it no matter how far it went. But the band has to snap sometime.
At some point, the electorate will begin to worry that democracy is not providing them with a genuine choice. Given the trend of low election turnouts, declining party memberships and people increasingly turning to smaller parties outside of the mainstream, or as is too often the case disengaging with politics entirely, it appears that point is fast approaching.
On a shorter-term scale, it is possible to see that Labour’s poll lead has been highest when it’s set out clear left-wing alternatives to Tory policies. And it has slumped when it has supported the Conservative agenda and announced austerity-lite policies.
Many assume that Labour’s woes can be pinned at the door of Miliband’s personality, that he just doesn’t look or feel like a future prime minister. While Miliband certainly does have an image problem, this didn’t stop Labour surging to a decade high 12 point lead in the polls early last year when Miliband backed a very solid redistributive policy of reinstating the 10p tax band funded by a mansion tax.
Over the next few months, Labour abstained on workfare, refused to commit to repealing the bedroom tax and signed up to Tory spending plans. This cost the party significant support in the polls and it didn’t begin to recover until it got a conference boost on the back of finally coming out against the bedroom tax and pledging to freeze energy prices.
Labour’s lowest ebb came this year, however, when with the exception of 13 left-wing MPs, it overwhelmingly backed the welfare cap.
There are, of course, other factors at play. The recovering economy has boosted the Tories, although with Conservative support being eroded by the rise of UKIP this has been somewhat mitigated. Labour too is losing some support to UKIP.
But many erstwhile Labour supporters are simply becoming disengaged with party politics entirely, convinced now there is little point backing Miliband’s party if it is not offering anything radically different from the Tory Lib-Dem government.
If Labour wants to reverse its declining poll ratings, it shouldn’t be trying to fight the Tories for the centre-right ground – Cameron just does it better. Miliband needs to play to his base, the people Labour has for too long taken for granted, and offer a strong set of anti-austerity, redistributive policies that provide a clear opposition to the Conservatives.
Otherwise Labour will keep on haemorrhaging support.
30 Responses to “Labour is not losing support because left-wing policies are unpopular: it’s losing support because they are”
Graham Wllmot
The labour party are now mainly closet tories, from blair and before
robertcp
It confused me as well, although I know what it mean after reading the article.
I agreed with most of it but I actually think that Labour is doing surprisingly well in the polls. The reason for this is that Ed Miliband has managed to return Labour to a more social democratic position without provoking a civil war. He has also avoided moving Labour too far to the left.
Matthew Blott
I certainly agree Labour need a game changer and I have been saying this for some time. But I doubt that promising to spend more on welfare and relaxing immigration controls will see a surge in Labour fortunes. Polls go up and down as everyone knows but it’s the longer term trends that you need to watch and these are dismal for Labour. I keep saying this and I’m sounding like a broken record but Kinnock and Foot enjoyed poll leads way ahead of anything Miliband has achieved. But Labour was always behind on who was most trusted to run the economy. And neither had Miliband’s appalling personal ratings. So, we have a leader who nobody sees as a potential Prime Minister (including Labour voters it would seem) and who is less trusted along with Ed Balls than George Osborn and David Cameron. This has been the case for a couple of years now and will not change before the general election and it is precisely this reason that Labour will lose. Revisiting the 1980s will only turn defeat into a rout.
Matthew Blott
Yawn.
Tubby_Isaacs
“Labour’s lowest ebb came this year, however, when with the exception of 13 left-wing MPs, it overwhelmingly backed the welfare cap.”
Shortly before going back into the lead by about the same as before the budget.
Not to say it’s right to back it, but it hasn’t done it any harm in the polls.