Patrick O’Flynn’s regular look at the state of UK politics, written exclusively for Political Insight – Spring 2021: AFTER over-estimating his prospects for advancement, many political pundits have finally noticed that Keir Starmer did not manage to push Labour ahead of Boris Johnson’s Tories in the polls during the nightmare Covid year we have endured.
Now Starmer and Labour have fallen well behind again. The Labour leader’s personal ratings in particular are suddenly under the miscroscope, with various pollsters documenting his fall from grace in the eyes of the public.
The monthly tracker published by YouGov is as good a place to look as any. Starmer’s net rating between those thinking he is doing well and those thinking he is doing badly has gone firmly into net negative territoryhttps://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/trackers/keir-starmer-approval-rating
A poor score of -6 achieved in February has turned into a dire -13 in March. It is a long way from his debut score of +22 last May, let alone the +27 he recorded in August. Among the age group that turns out to vote in the heaviest numbers, the over-50s, Starmer now scores a shocking -19.
It is now open season on Starmer among the Labour left, who were outraged at him removing the party whip from Jeremy Corbyn and infuriated by his autumn habit of appearing in front of Union Flag backdrops.
In response to the flak, Starmer has tacked back in a leftwards, ID politics direction again, appearing to take the side of Harry and Meghan against the Queen and seeming to dismiss the idea that “attacking a statue” should be seen as a serious crime.
But with Britain’s vaccine roll-out leaving the EU’s in the shade and BoJo seemingly having rediscovered his mojo, the overall impression is of an opposition leader floundering.
It is easy to criticise Starmer’s mistakes and mis-steps at such a time. But there is a far more worrying interpretation for Labour. It is that Starmer hasn’t done all that much wrong and the real problem is that the electoral coalition that sustained Labour as a potential party of government for so long has simply fallen apart.
The number of issues that unite the older, socially conservative voters of the lost “Red Wall” and the young urbanites and ethnic minorities of Labour’s inner-city strongholds is low.
The two tribes take diametrically opposing views on everything from law and order to immigration, from Brexit to the Islamist threat and from the Royal Family to the Union Flag and other national symbols.
Neither side is in the mood to give any ground and if anything the urban Left appears determined to up the stakes in the culture war – mocking the flag, refusing to condemn rioters, taking the EU side against Britain in the great vaccines row and generally running down every aspect of their own country.
No matter whether he sides with the urban Left, for example by taking a knee for BLM, or with the Red Wall by flying the flag, or just sits on the fence, Starmer alienates part or sometimes all of the coalition Labour needs to rebuild.
Small wonder that when he does find a rare issue that unites both factions – nurses’ pay being an obvious recent example – he milks it for all it is worth.
Just how desperate Labour’s position is will be revealed in the huge round of elections in May. Sadiq Khan and Labour’s other big city mayors are likely to gallop back into office convincingly. But will that be at the expense of further damage sustained across the Red Wall towns that Labour would need to win back to be remotely competitive at the next general election?
Many eyes will be on the Hartlepool by-election, now expected to be on the same day as the other elections. Were Labour to lose such a bedrock working class seat to the Tories some 18 months into a parliamentary term then surely even the party’s biggest fans would start to give up hope. The bookies say the contest is too close to call. Locals that I speak to expect the Tories to shade it.
If that’s the way it goes – or even if Labour’s majority in a once impregnable seat were to fall into the hundreds – then the possibility of a wider realignment on the Left of politics would draw closer.
In the culturally divided Britain of the 2020s, can the party of Hackney and Hampstead continue to be the party of Hartlepool or Hull for much longer? Irrespective of who leads Labour in the years ahead, I very much doubt it myself.