The defeat for Labour in the Caerphilly by-election was as disastrous as it was predictable. This was an election to the Senedd, not Westminster, but nonetheless, this area has been solid Labour since 1918. So low is Starmer dragging the Labour Party that it could only muster 11 per cent of the vote on Thursday. It may, in fact, be the most catastrophic by-election collapse ever by an incumbent governing party.
All kinds of metaphors have been used to describe this Labour loss: “cataclysmic”, “devastating”, “historic”, “earth-shattering” and many similar, and they are all true. As recently as 2017, under Corbyn’s leadership, Labour won over 54% of the vote here, but now only one in nine voted Labour, leaving the party a distant third behind Plaid Cymru and Reform. It is little compensation that the Tories vote fell to only 2 per cent, because in this area their vote has always been low, or non-existent.
Next year’s elections to the Senedd, will be the first held under a system of proportional representation, and if this result is anything to go by, Labour will be wiped out in Wales which was formerly a Labour stronghold. The chief opposition to a likely Plaid Cymru Welsh government, unfortunately, is likely to be Reform.
It is a mark of the flux and volatility of politics nationally that the Tory Party and Labour together garnered so few votes in Caerphilly. As recently as the 1981 general election, what used to be called the two “main parties” won over 80% of the popular vote, and that was a pattern that had been set for years. In this by-election these two parties only got 13% between them, one in seven votes.
Labour leadership to the right of the membership
The by-election confirms the dismal trajectory of Labour under Keir Starmer, a man who became leader by political sleight of hand, and who has pushed the party far to the right of both its members and its voter base. Starmer’s general election victory last year was in no small measure due to the four million votes for Reform UK, by people who feel alienated from the traditional parties which have consistently failed to represent their interests.
Since Starmer became leader, but particularly since his entry into Number Ten, support for Reform has mushroomed and in one council by-election after another they have taken seats from Labour. They were the bookies’ favourites to win Caerphilly, but voters swung in large numbers to Plaid Cymru, partly because it offered a more radical alternative – it will have been seen by many as “more Labour than Labour” – and partly as a means of stopping Reform.
The reaction of Downing Street, according to the Guardian, is that the government understands that “people are disappointed with the pace of change”. That is a masterful understatement and it shows clearly that Starmer and the leadership just don’t get it. It is not the “pace” of change, it is the absence of change, atleast changeto the benefit of working class people.
The poor get poorer and the rich get ever richer. Apart from a minor reforms here and there, there has been no substantial improvement in the lives of working people since last July, and, moreover, no prospect of it.
Four million Reform voters are not all racists
What has driven the rise of Reform? It is without doubt social and economic issues that lie at the heart of everyday life. The four million who voted for Reform in 2024 are not all racists, even if the party leaders and activists might be. But they are disenchanted with the main parties because they feel the leaders are out of touch, do not listen to their needs and are only in it for themselves.
Millions are justifiably angry at the growing insecurity of their lives – full-time wages that do not meet the bills; the daily rip-off by privatised energy and water utilities; the collapse of services like education and the NHS, and, not least, the unavailability of decent affordable housing.
If Nigel Farage and Reform leaders highlight these issues, it is only to point the finger of blame where it doesn’t belong – at migrants and immigration – and to create division among workers. A Reform government would implement policies that would make all the economic problems worse. But meantime, when they highlight the social and economic problems of everyday life, it strikes a chord.
Starmer has attempted to undercut Reform by adopting parts of their agenda: demonising migrants, making it harder to get a right come to or remain in the UK, and by vigorously waving the Union Jack. But he can never undermine Reform by wearing its clothes.
Reform can be beaten, but only by a government that is seen to be seriously dealing with the issues that create uncertainty and insecurity in the first place – low pay, a housing shortage, prices and services. Unfortunately, this has not happened and is unlikely to happen in the foreseeable future.
No respite in next month’s budget
Chancellor Rachel Reeves will be presenting a budget next month and it will hit working class families again. There may be some sops to her critics – like abolition of the two-child limit on welfare benefits, and some modest increases in taxation on the wealthy – but the bulk of her budget will be aimed at extra taxes for working class and so-called middle class people, who are, in reality, skilled and better-paid workers.
The debacle of Caerphilly and the seemingly unstoppable rise of Reform is creating disquiet within Labour’s ranks. The extremely low turnout in the election for the new deputy leader – under 17% of those qualified to vote – shows either a membership utterly demoralised by the leadership, or an over-inflated record of how many members the party has, or likely both. But the election of Lucy Powell, beating the arch-Starmerite, Bridget Phillipson, is a straw in the wind and it shows which way the wind is blowing.
The iron grip that the right wing has had on the Labour leadership and the party apparatus – at least up to now – would not have been possible but for the supine support of right-wing trade union leaders, defying the interests of their own members. Sooner or later, however, the worm will turn and the members of these unions will force the leaders to adopt a different stance.
Even in parliament, utterly dominated by Labour’s right wing, out of over 400 Labour MPs more than half will begin to fear losing their seats at the next election and some are already getting restive for that reason.
There will be a revolt against Starmer in due course. It is not a question of if, but when. It will have come too late to prevent the creation of alternatives that will attract votes to the left of Labour: ‘Your Party’, the Green Party, radicalised in part by Labour exiles and expellees, and, as we have seen, Plaid Cymru in Wales.
How this complex dyamic unfolds in electoral terms in the future is impossible to predict. But we can be sure that although the government will try to muddle on as before, propping up a failing capitalist system, the Labour Party itself will not. Caerphilly is a nail in the coffin of Labour’s right wing, but we may hope that it will not need too big a bagful of nails before the right is buried.
[Feature picture from Wikimedia Commons, here]
