Humbled Labour not yet defeated
The June 10 elections should have been a wake up call for Tony Blair. So far he shows very few signs of concern.
In a first for a governing party, the local elections saw Labour beaten into third place. It was the worst local election result for the Labour Party since the First World War. The European results were less disastrous, but the government’s share of the vote was still down 5%.
The only comfort was the performance of the Conservative Party, who lost support to the United Kingdom Independence Party and saw their share of the vote cut by 9%.
The central problem for the government was public anger over Iraq. Tony Blair admitted, “Iraq is the shadow over our support, there’s no doubt about that.” The majority of Labour’s vote either stayed at home or was lost to the Liberal Democrats and Greens, who, to varying degrees, criticised the decision to take military action. It’s clear that public concern over the Iraq war goes beyond the anti-war movement and the Muslim community, as one Labour official acknowledged, “It is hurting us amongst working and middle class people too.”
In London, Labour’s mayoral candidate Ken Livingstone, who is vocal in his opposition to the government’s handling of Iraq, was re-elected, significantly playing down his renewed Labour Party membership. His full-page newspaper adverts during the election campaign did not mention Labour at all.
It is likely that the government’s diminished support also reflects people’s concerns with its broader agenda. As former Labour health minister Frank Dobson admitted, “It’s not just Iraq. Many more people have been put off by domestic policies which run counter to their basic beliefs. Those interested in healthcare have been angered by the divisive introduction of foundation hospitals. Introducing top-up fees has caused further disillusion and harms a lot of swing voters in marginal seats.”
This seems to be costing Labour in the localities. Whilst the Liberal Democrats won control of Newcastle City Council, a Labour stronghold for thirty years, the smaller parties also managed to nibble away at the government’s vote in inner city heartlands.
In Oxford, the Green Party and the Independent Working Class Association now hold the balance in a hung council; the Greens also made significant gains in Yorkshire and Manchester. Although George Galloway’s Respect polled a low vote nationally, it was more successful in certain areas of London, Birmingham and Preston. While the suit and tie thugs of the BNP didn’t achieve anything like the breakthrough they were hoping for, they did gain four councillors in Bradford.
All in all, the election suggests Britain could be breaking out of its ‘two and a half’ party system and heading towards a more polarised political landscape similar to the rest of Europe. For next year’s General Election, the Labour Party will hope to gain back the voters it lost, and hope that UKIP will split the Tory vote.
It looks as though most of the Parliamentary Labour Party is rallying behind the Prime Minister. Speaking just after the election to a meeting of Labour MPs, Tony Blair said, “We must have confidence in our arguments, not just to hold our nerve, but to believe we will win.”
The one MP who challenged Blair on Iraq at the meeting was verbally slapped down by her colleagues. As for privatisation “reforms” to universities and the NHS, Tony Blair told his first post-election press conference, “We want to take all of this further. Now is not the time for a change in direction…but a change in gear.”
Where Tony Blair takes the Labour Party remains to be seen, but its looking like an increasingly rocky path.
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