What will it take for Labour and the Tories to realise how bad their situation is? Reform’s by-election victory in Runcorn and Helsby is symbolic of a much wider success, with support for Westminster’s two traditional parties falling through the floor. Britain’s traditional two-party electoral system has morphed into a multi-party system because voters are angry and disillusioned with what is on offer from the establishment. Yet even now, neither Labour nor the Tories appear to have the political wits to grasp the scale of the challenge posed to their duopoly.
Take Keir Starmer. He reacted to the setback in the polls with the observation that the results were ‘disappointing’. It is not exactly the word other observers might choose for the electoral catastrophe of losing one of Labour’s safest seats to Reform. Speaking to reporters, Starmer said: ‘What I want to say is, my response is we get it.’ He added that his party had ‘started that work’ with changes such as reductions in NHS waiting lists, before continuing: ‘I am determined that we will go further and faster on the change that people want to see.’
The problem for Starmer is that there are few politicians who convey less of a sense of determination or conviction. He comes across as a leader in analogue mode for a digital age. The public is simply not buying his political shtick. What change, they ask? Further and faster to where, exactly? It is all talk and no action in the eyes of many voters. There continues to be too much talk from Starmer about ‘tough decisions’ and the ‘broken economy’ Labour inherited from the Tories. At the same time, there is precious little acknowledgment that the government might have made mistakes. It reeks of complacency.
More of the same was on offer from the Labour party chairwoman, Ellie Reeves (her sister Rachel is the Chancellor in Labour’s happy family). She maintained, with a jarring smugness, that incumbent governments ‘never tend to do very well in parliamentary by-elections’ and that Runcorn was held in ‘very difficult circumstances’. This really will not do. If this is what passes for political insight in Labour’s upper ranks, it is no surprise that the party is failing to cut through with voters. Reeves acknowledged that voters were impatient for change (that word again), but insisted that ‘change doesn’t happen overnight’. This is a political moment that calls for urgency and new ideas – yet all that appears to be on offer is patronising waffle.
Some on the Labour side get it, such as the unnamed Labour MP who told a newspaper: ‘It’s all very well for No. 10 to say we’ve got to keep delivering. The problem is that it’s the stuff we’ve delivered that people hate.’ Ouch.
It is not just the government that appears unable to comprehend the scale of the task ahead for mainstream politics. The Conservatives also had a bad night at the polls. Their main argument – that a vote for Reform is a wasted vote that splits the right – has been blown apart. In Greater Lincolnshire, the Tories came a distant second. And in the West of England mayoral contest, the party came fourth, behind the Reform candidate, Arron Banks, who even described the mayoralty as a ‘meaningless job’.
The pressure is growing on the Tories to offer something – and quickly – to disillusioned voters, yet there is little sign the party hierarchy has a clue. The Conservative co-chairman, Nigel Huddleston, breezily rejected Reform’s claim to be the main opposition to Labour, but admitted in the same breath that winning back voters’ trust would take ‘a long time’. Time the party does not have, he might have added – but did not. Instead, Huddleston waffled on about how it was ‘always going to be difficult for us’ and that it was all about having ‘the humility we need to communicate to the public…’
It was, in many ways, the same broken record being played by Labour.
Voters are crying out for change – some sense that those in power are listening to their concerns and have a working plan to make their lives better. Everyone appears to recognise this widening sense of disillusionment with politicians and political parties – except the tone-deaf Westminster establishment itself. Labour and the Tories need to wake up fast. This is no time for business as usual.
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