Posts Tagged ‘Red Wall’

Don’t expect buyer’s remorse – it is going to take hard slog to rebuild the Red Wall

29/09/2021, 08:54:35 AM

by Jo Platt

This piece is part of a new book “Labour’s Reset: The Path Back to Power” released yesterday. Click here to download it. The book looks at the barriers for voters in picking Labour, what the party can do in opposition to tackle these issues and the type of policy platform that would attract switchers to Labour at the election

People in Leigh call their neighbours in Wigan ‘pie eaters’. It is not a comment on their culinary habits; it refers to the 1926 general strike where Wigan miners were said to have gone back to work sooner than those in Leigh. It is hardly surprising, then, that the parliamentary seat was solidly Labour from 1922 onwards. (And Liberal before that, with the Manchester Guardian owner, CP Scott, once representing the town.)

That was, of course, until November 2019. I was the unfortunate losing candidate – after first being elected in 2017 – as Labour was mown down, not only in dozens of so-called ‘Red Wall’ seats, but in the traditional coal and steel seats that today have Conservative MPs.

Coal and steel seats

For Leigh, read Bassetlaw, Blyth Valley, Bolsover, Redcar, Rother Valley or Penistone and Stocksbridge. These are places where Labour is in the local DNA, but they all fell to the Tories, many for the first time in decades, if not the first time ever. In fact, if it was not for the Brexit party splitting the Conservative vote, things would have been much worse and we would have lost dozens more seats, with even places like Barnsley – the epicentre of the Miner’s Strike – in danger of turning blue. (The absence of the Brexit party helps to explain why we lost the Hartlepool by-election in May.) All of which is an around about way of saying that we should count our blessings. The hole we find ourselves in as a party could have been even deeper.

Horrific campaign

Let me return to the 2019 campaign. Our experience on the doorstep was just awful. In fact, horrific is the word I would use. It was a hot reception – and, also, an icy one. Hot in that everyone seemed angry. (more…)

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Has the Boundary Commission just thrown Labour a lifeline?

07/01/2021, 10:39:01 PM

David Cameron was clear. He wanted to reduce the number of parliamentary seats from 650 seats to 600.

Estimates varied, but Labour was set to be the big loser (quelle surprise) – holding more seats with smaller populations in urban areas – and some estimates suggested the party would forfeit up to 30 MPs.

However, hope springs eternal and now the Boundary Commission for England has announced that it is starting afresh, keeping the number of seats at 650.

In fact, ten new seats are to be created in England – mainly in the south east – coming at the expense of the north and midlands and Wales.

The commission will publish draft proposals for new seats in the summer with rounds of consultation next year before final proposals are submitted to Parliament in July 2023.

Tim Bowden, Secretary to the Boundary Commission, confirmed there is ‘likely to be a large degree of change across the country.’

Logically, this will delay the selection of parliamentary candidates, leaving as little as 18 months before the next general election to put candidates in place.

However, an election in winter 2024 is unlikely, so if we assume a spring or autumn date, candidates will have only been in place for between nine and 14 months.

This plays to the advantage of incumbent MPs – especially those Red Wall Tories – who can expect to have a built a profile in at least part of any new seats.

Yet, it could have been a far worse outcome for Labour and makes the mammoth task of winning the next election just that little bit smaller.

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