Peter Rowlands contributes to the debate on where the left in the Party goes from here.

For Labour, the 2024 election represented a complete paradox. On the one hand, it was a stunning electoral achievement, winning both the second highest number of MPs and swing from the previous election since 1945.At the same time, the result was very bad in terms of winning support, gaining only 33.7% of the vote, only 1.5% more than the 2019 result of 32.2%, commonly dubbed the worst result since 1935. Not to have done better than this, given the Tory collapse and failure in the last two years and Starmer’s claim to have rebuilt the party, is a huge indictment.

The final polls before the election gave Labour 40%. I haven’t seen any analysis which accounts for the fall.  Both the Tories and the Greens each got 2% more than the final polls predicted, while some potential Labour votes no doubt stayed at home on the somewhat illogical grounds that the election was won.

Some commentators have seen the result as a triumph of Labour strategy, but it is difficult to accept this. As we have seen, Labour failed to acquire much support, but made its huge gains for three reasons. First, the intervention of the Reform party, whose votes in Tory-held seats were, except in a few cases, not high enough to dislodge the Tory incumbent, but in a lot of cases high enough to render the Labour vote higher than the Tory one. Second, the successful Lib-Dem strategy of targeting Tory seats where they were second, mainly benefiting themselves, but also Labour in encouraging tactical voting. Third, a significant increase in support in Scotland, the only part of the UK where this was the case.

If there had been no Reform, the Tories would have done better. Labour would still have won, but by a smaller margin. What should be clear, however, is that the Reform experience is a very good argument against forming an alternative left party under our current electoral system. Such a party could bring down a Labour government which would otherwise be re-elected.

So  where does that leave the prospects for the left? In many ways these are not encouraging. With its big majority, the parliamentary left, as defined by the Socialist Campaign Group, are far from holding the balance of power within the Parliamentary Labour Party, and few, if any,  of the new MPs will be applying to join, given the bias against the left in selections.

 However, and crucially, Labour is unlikely to be able to bring about the huge improvements needed in public services – health, housing, social care, local government and other areas without taxing or borrowing far more than it has said it would be limited to, unless there is substantial economic growth, which it is committed to achieving but is unlikely in the short run. These are the views not just of left commentators but of well regarded but otherwise relatively neutral bodies, particularly the Institute for Fiscal Studies. And this will not wait. Despite Labour’s attempts to play down expectations, there will be huge pressure for improvements to services to become visible within a year or so.

It has been suggested that Labour could fund what is needed through a new form of the Private Finance Initative. This could work in the short run, but would concede much greater control of public services to the private sector, as well as enormous increases in debt. It should be strongly opposed as an alternative to raising funds through taxation and borrowing.

The pressure for change will come from various sources – trade unions, campaigns, think tanks and other public bodies, but crucially from within the Labour Party, from its affiliated trade unions and other bodies, from CLPs, from left MPs and peers, from other prominent elected figures and from other figures from Labour’s past. But if support for the government falls, it will probably come from an increasing number of new MPs, who are necessarily among those most vulnerable electorally. As younger MPs they will all be looking to be re-elected, and that will be unlikely without policies that have popular support. This may cause many of them to look again at more radical policies.

Some have seen the rise of independents as important, and there is no doubt that the Greens, the ‘Gaza four’ and Jeremy Corbyn will add their voices to those of the left in Parliament and beyond, but what happens within Labour, in and out of Parliament, will be crucial. The small left parties that stood – the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition, the Socialist Labour Party and the Communist Party of Britain all got very small votes, while George Galloway’s Workers Party, although it got more votes by targeting Muslim seats, failed to win anywhere and lost to Labour in Rochdale.

John McDonnell and others have said that unless Labour adopts radical policies to tackle the country’s problems it could lose the next election, probably to a far nastier, Farage-tinged, more right wing government than that which has just been defeated. And defeat for Labour could be huge, as it was for the French socialists in 2017, who were reduced from a majority, with their allies, in 2012 to just 30 seats. That is why the struggle for left policies has to succeed.

There is also the issue of proportional representation, which the left is not united on, although the completely unjustifiable result of this election can surely leave few in favour of retaining first-past-the-post. PR is Labour policy, overwhelmingly endorsed at the 2022 conference, and now supported by a large Lib-Dem contingent in Parliament, as well as most of the smaller parties. Prospects look relatively promising here. However, PR would mean almost half of the newly elected Labour MPs losing their seats, which they might not all be amenable to! Nevertheless, the fight for PR is now far stronger and it must continue to be a key goal.

How this plays out will depend on the extent to which the government maintains support, but if it doesn’t, calls for a change in policy are unlikely to be restricted at Westminster to left MPs in the Campaign Group, and this will probably lead to concessions on policy, although to what extent would depend on the precise situation. It is of course possible that despite unpopularity Starmer maintains control over the Party and its neoliberal policies, and goes down to defeat in 2028-9. The left must make sure that that doesn’t happen.    

Peter  Rowlands is a member of Swansea West CLP.

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