The lesson for Labour is: forget the Hartlepools and focus on younger urban voters

If Lord (Peter) Mandelson is in “meltdown” you know you are in trouble. The unflappable former Labour MP for Hartlepool from 1992 to 2004 and key architect of the party’s success under Tony Blair, confessed to a journalist 24 hours before Thursday’s by-election that if Labour were to lose the seat then his liquefied state would ensue. It did. The Tories secured an historic victory with 15,529 votes, a majority of nearly 7000. The adamantine bond that had endured between the people of Hartlepool and the Labour Party since 1964 had been broken.

This latest blue brick in the “Red Wall” is a humiliation for the Left. If it chooses to dismiss it as a vaccine bounce for the Government, or to argue that it is down to the charisma of the Prime Minister in contrast to his wooden opponent, it is deluded. The causes are much deeper and are both cultural and economic, marking new fault lines in a changing topographical political landscape.

Culturally there are two issues. The first is the spectre of Brexit which continues to haunt Labour. Almost 70 per cent of Hartlepool’s electors voted to leave Europe in the 2016 referendum, reiterating that support in the December 2019 general election, by handing 10,603 votes to the Brexit Party, almost 26 per cent of the vote. In the by-election that has just taken place, the bulk of those votes migrated to the Conservatives. Labour consistently tried to frustrate the will of the voters through parliamentary chicanery for over two years until Johnson won in 2019 and settled the issue. The voters have neither forgotten that, nor are they willing to forgive it.

That is, in part because, although Sir Keir Starmer sensibly instructed his party to vote in favour of the Brexit deal back in December, many within his ranks prefer to look backwards in wistful regret rather than forwards with optimism. To compound matters, the decision to select a former MP and arch-Remainer as its candidate was akin to sticking two fingers up to the electorate.

The second problem is one of focus. Large parts of the Left appear to be perpetually captured by the politics of identity and race, with scant regard for the issues facing the largely white working class voters in seats like Hartlepool that once formed its core. Starmer’s attempt to wrap himself in the Union Jack to espouse the patriotism that his hapless predecessor sneered at, whilst welcome, is insufficient to convince voters that his party feels this in its soul.

On the economic side, many in seats like Hartlepool where votes for Labour were traditionally weighed rather than counted, feel that they have been taken for granted for too long. They want jobs and investment and they have seen that in the Tees Valley area in which their constituency is located, the Tory Mayor, Ben Houchen, has delivered for local people. His re-election on Friday with 73 per cent of the vote is a recognition of this. That level of support for a Conservative in former Labour heartlands is not a nudge for the Labour Party to redecorate: it is an instruction to demolish its house and rip up the basement along with it.

The move of part of the Treasury to Darlington, and the granting of freeport status to Teesport show that the Conservatives mean business. Whilst London-based civil servants may struggle to comprehend what “levelling up” means, it is pretty obvious to voters in the North. However, this does not indicate a deep-seated love for the Tories. The relationship between the voters of Hartlepool and the Conservative Party is purely transactional. They feel that Labour was treasonous on Brexit and has failed to deliver for them economically, so they want to try something new.

For many, whose family connection with the Labour Party is ingrained in their DNA, it feels like having a naughty smoke behind the bike sheds at school. But as swathes of seats, including Blair’s own former Sedgefield, went blue at the last election, having a cheeky cigarette has become more acceptable. The danger for Labour is that, over time, it may actually become “cool”.

The inevitable internal party bloodletting has ensued, with Starmer — in need of a scapegoat — firing Angela Rayner as Labour chair. But the problem is one of mindset not election campaign execution. The moral superiority of the Left, coupled with its condescending belief that it has a monopoly on virtue, is so visceral that it has rendered it tone deaf. Therefore, the question the party must ask itself is what it wants. Does it seek to try and win back erstwhile Labour supporters in the North and the Midlands or should it abandon them and focus its efforts elsewhere?

Given the political realignment taking place and where the party now philosophically sits, the latter of these two options may be the more realistic. If so, the sensible path may be to eschew seeking to win an outright majority and to instead focus on winning the 40 or so seats it needs to deny the Tories victory at the next election. That would mean putting resources into constituencies like Watford, Kensington, and Chingford and Woodford Green, and forgetting about the Hartlepools of this world. Younger, university educated, city-based and increasingly diverse communities could be its focus.

The stonking re-election of Andy Burnham as the Labour Mayor for Greater Manchester, as well as its success in securing mayoralties in Cambridgeshire, the West of England and Peterborough from the Tories, highlights why this route might prove seductive to Labour strategists. Sadiq Khan comfortably held on in London, albeit by a tighter margin than expected by commentators and Tory donors who reduced their support for his opponent, Shaun Bailey. The party also retained its hold on Wales.

The aim would then be to assemble a grand coalition of the Left by forming an alliance with the Liberals, Greens, Plaid and the SNP. The price for that support would be to grant the Scottish nationalists a second vote on independence. But this still requires Labour to have a narrative and Starmer’s attempt to outline one in February flopped. The issuance of Covid Recovery bonds to stimulate revival was a gimmick, not a vision.

In a world driven by the twin forces of digitalisation and decarbonisation, where capitalism in its current form has led to hideous inequality, it is astounding that there is no view to the horizon from Labour on creating jobs, tackling disparities in wealth, and providing the conditions for aspiration to be realised. The party’s decision to oppose an increase in corporation tax over the coming years from 19 to 25 per cent announced by Rishi Sunak in March is also incomprehensible to many.

Winning majorities is about forming coalitions of voters. Blair achieved his via a “third way” philosophy combining capitalism with a social conscience, retaining Labour’s core working-class supporters whilst reassuring Southern middle-class voters wooed away from the Tories. Boris Johnson’s achievement has been to do the same, in reverse, by holding onto his affluent Tories in the South and attracting working-class former Labour voters in the North. The path to recovery and redemption for Labour may be narrow but it does exist. It is for Starmer and his party to decide if they wish to take it.