Can Midlands Labour Be Revived

By Dhruv Kadem

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Labour’s disastrous result at the 2019 general election has resulted in concerns aplenty for the party. It was once more reduced to a single MP in Scotland, and it has to contend with the destruction of its fabled red-wall, the cluster of constituencies spread across Northern England that reliably elected Labour MPs for decades. Yet if the party wants to find itself in the corridors of power once more, it will need to urgently address the malaise that has developed further south in the Midlands.

Traditionally, both the West and East Midlands have turned out strongly for Labour, the industrial powerhouse of the Black Country proving fertile ground for Labour, while eastwards, the collieries of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire were home to some of the strongest Labour voting areas nationally. Yet in an age of globalisation, the Labour party has not adapted its appeal sufficiently in these post-industrial, deprived regions, which many argue are yet to recover from the devastating impact of deindustrialisation under Thatcher. While it still retains a plurality (albeit steadily declining) share of the vote in cities such as Birmingham, Coventry, Leicester and Nottingham, in the surrounding towns and villages, it has seen it’s vote share decimated within the 21st Century. Constituencies which had 10,000 strong Labour majorities have flipped to safe Conservative seats across the first two decades of this century.

Neither is a problem that can be attributed to any singular factor, such as the unpopularity of former leader Jeremy Corbyn, or Labour’s Brexit positioning in recent years. The decline of the Labour vote in the smaller towns surrounding urban Midlands cities has been a generational effect. Many in 2019 were shocked when the constituency of Bolsover, in the East Midlands, home to legendary veteran MP Dennis Skinner, fell to the Tories on an 11 point swing. Yet the warning signs were clear. In 2017, against the national result where Labour exceeded expectations, in Bolsover Labour’s majority fell by 15% to just 5,000, a fall from a whopping 27,000 just 20 years ago.

The good results achieved by Labour at the 2017 election helped mask a generational decline in Labour’s Midlands vote share. A month earlier, the party had unexpectedly lost the West Midlands mayoralty to the Conservatives; a result considered unthinkable in a region which as recently as 2005 had a Conservative vote share below 30%. Yet the 2010’s saw a dramatic realignment of party politics within the Midlands. Whether it ranged from a perception that the party had introduced Conservative-imposed austerity in the 2010s, or a failure to effectively redistribute wealth to working-class voters in post-industrial areas during Labour’s most recent spell in government, it is clear that the position that Labour currently finds itself in is a result of decades of institutional malaise and inaction.

With the world currently gripped by the COVID-19 pandemic, elections are a lot lower down the line in terms of priorities, with the foremost political issue being the response to Covid-19. Yet in Labour’s West Midlands offices, all eyes are on the 2021 West Midlands Mayoral election, which will serve as a litmus test as to whether a Starmer’s Labour can recover it’s standing in the Midlands. A loss in 2021 would lead to worries that the party could start to lose seats in cities such as Birmingham and Coventry in 2024, while a win will reassure the party that it can once more recover to a position of strength in one of its former strongholds.

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Key Takeways

· Labour is losing it’s fabled red wall

· The villages of the Midlands have become disillusioned with Labour

· Labour’s current position is a result of institutional malaise and inaction