The US president has found the one thing divided parties of the left can agree on
A realignment is under way in British politics, and it is killing Labour. The Tories’ crushing win in Hartlepool, along with gains in English council seats that were once painted deepest red, is proof that Boris Johnson’s 2019 victory was no one-off, no aberration. Put simply, working people in towns across England that once saw voting Labour as a defining part of their identity are now voting Conservative – and they are doing so in big numbers.
An overused word, but the threat to Labour is existential. It cannot win and therefore cannot survive as a potential party of government by relying solely on those who are young, live in a city, have a university degree or are from an ethnic minority: there are just not enough of them. Labour needs the votes of the many millions of others still broadly defined as working class. The clue is in the party’s name. And yet look at Labour’s membership: 77% of them in social category ABC1, concentrated heavily in London and the south. One Labour MP says candidly: “There is a canyon between us and the working class.”
