When will the insane English age-gap start to pay dividends for labor?

[Matty]

Corbyn won those under 30 by a huge margin. Huge

Since we know it is a myth that people’s ideology changes with age, when can we realistically expect labor to start winning big on national level?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It would be nice if we could keep bargain-basement tier 'analysis' on the American boards and not this one. Absolutely no chance of this thread producing discussion of value.

[Former President tack50]

Ah, is this the UK version of "demographics are destiny"?

[Matty]

Ah, is this the UK version of "demographics are destiny"?

[It's Perro Sanxe wot won it]

Ah, is this the UK version of "demographics are destiny"?

Elderly voters have always skewed Conservative and they have always died out, yet the Conservative Party has not. Attitudes and parties change constantly, assuming that they will remain the same far into the future is foolish. For example, that same cohort of over 65-69 voters that overwhelmingly chose the Tories in 2019 voted 2 to 1 Labour in 1974.

[parochial boy]

Unless they all move to Australia it seems unlikely that Labor will benefit much tbh

[ElectionObserver]

This thread really is 'analysis' rather than analysis.

I reality, we know that:
a) people vote a lot more conservatively as they get older.
b) the Conservative party will change its platform to adopt to those voters (See under Call me Dave where they became the party of the environment or gay marriage).

Unless they all move to Australia it seems unlikely that Labor will benefit much tbh

I genuinely loled at this.

[CumbrianLefty]

This thread really is 'analysis' rather than analysis.

I reality, we know that:
a) people vote a lot more conservatively as they get older.
b) the Conservative party will change its platform to adopt to those voters (See under Call me Dave where they became the party of the environment or gay marriage).

Unless they all move to Australia it seems unlikely that Labor will benefit much tbh

I genuinely loled at this.

Yes, yes, both those points are true as far as it goes. But:

1) the present age polarisation of partisan support is *totally unprecedented* - both in uniformity and intensity. Back in the 1983 GE, for instance, the Tories clearly won first time voters (whilst Labour were, as nationally, fighting for second with the Libs/SDP - they actually did best with pensioners)

2) its easy to say Tories will do things to win over younger voters when that becomes an electoral necessity for them - but this airily brushes aside any possible impact from their present relentless culture war politics designed for boomers, which involves frequent denigration of "snowflake" yoof.

To add, there is also reason to think the present massive Tory support amongst boomers is *unique to that particular generation* - they are the only ones who still read the (overwhelmingly right wing) press in large numbers, for example - so its not as simple as saying younger generations will become as right wing as them in due course simply because of the passage of time.

Of course demographics is not destiny, but it matters.

[Conservatopia]

Don't forget that the Conservatives' defining, uniting principle (if it can be called that) is survival and has been since the Corn Law debacle.  All actions taken and all policies of the Tories should be seen through that lense.

[CumbrianLefty]

I'm sure the Tories will be OK in the long term, as they always have been in the past.

But the 2030s could be a bit rough for them electorally speaking, on current (and coming?) trends.

[Lord Halifax]

I'm sure the Tories will be OK in the long term, as they always have been in the past.

But the 2030s could be a bit rough for them electorally speaking, on current (and coming?) trends.

No chance of a slightly more economically right wing version of the LibDems replacing them as the main centre-right party?

[EastAnglianLefty]

The Tory Party are harder to wipe out than cockroaches, they're not going to fall to third-party status. Also, whilst their current strength with the elderly does owe a lot to high house prices and protecting spending on pensioners, that property is going to get inherited by somebody, and they're then going to be protected by Tory policies. And we're still a country where a majority of people are homeowners, and where those who aren't are disproportionately concentrated in urban constituencies.

So whilst their current electoral coalition may cause them difficulties in future, it's not an untenable one long-term.

[TheTide]

The Tory Party are harder to wipe out than cockroaches, they're not going to fall to third-party status. Also, whilst their current strength with the elderly does owe a lot to high house prices and protecting spending on pensioners, that property is going to get inherited by somebody, and they're then going to be protected by Tory policies. And we're still a country where a majority of people are homeowners, and where those who aren't are disproportionately concentrated in urban constituencies.

So whilst their current electoral coalition may cause them difficulties in future, it's not an untenable one long-term.

Which, again, should be a greater focus for the left than it currently is when it comes to achieving equality etc.

The Tories could eventually be replaced, but it won't be by anything other than another centre-right force. A more right-wing version of the Lib Dems (as suggested above) would hardly be different to the Cameron-era Tories would it? And we all recall how much lefties loved the Coalition and its delightful austerity...

[CumbrianLefty]

The Tory Party are harder to wipe out than cockroaches, they're not going to fall to third-party status. Also, whilst their current strength with the elderly does owe a lot to high house prices and protecting spending on pensioners, that property is going to get inherited by somebody, and they're then going to be protected by Tory policies. And we're still a country where a majority of people are homeowners, and where those who aren't are disproportionately concentrated in urban constituencies.

So whilst their current electoral coalition may cause them difficulties in future, it's not an untenable one long-term.

I think this is the correct conclusion, but the point is even that is some way removed from the current "1000 year Tory reich" prognostications (which we also saw in the late 1980s)

[cp]

The Tory Party are harder to wipe out than cockroaches, they're not going to fall to third-party status. Also, whilst their current strength with the elderly does owe a lot to high house prices and protecting spending on pensioners, that property is going to get inherited by somebody, and they're then going to be protected by Tory policies. And we're still a country where a majority of people are homeowners, and where those who aren't are disproportionately concentrated in urban constituencies.

So whilst their current electoral coalition may cause them difficulties in future, it's not an untenable one long-term.

I think this is the correct conclusion, but the point is even that is some way removed from the current "1000 year Tory reich" prognostications (which we also saw in the late 1980s)

1000 years was problematic hyperbole to begin with, but the underlying point - that Tory policies would be impossible to displace - is still holding strong. Corbyn's noble attempt aside, no Labour leader has offered a meaningful alternative to the Thatcherite consensus.

[StateBoiler]

One thing I remember reading post-2019 election is in 2017 the age under which Labour started winning was 47. In 2019, that age changed to 39.

Although I think the future of British Labour is the choice of they can serve union workers or they can serve the political whims of their electorate in greater London. I don't think they will be able to do both well. How the Brexit vote split the party mostly in two (or traditionally rock solid red northern England did not vote Remain) and they were incapable of taking advantage of a terribly split Tory Party is kind of reflected there. You can see this civil war of sorts elsewhere with the Canadian NDP (traditional union party historically, still there AFAIK there was never really the "party civil war", but the union vote is weakened as the party is now more identified as progressive left) or the New York State Working Families Party (a party explicitly founded and funded by labor unions not that long ago, but the unions have abandoned the party and it's gone progressive left).

Even if they hold together their present coalition, they've probably lost Scotland forever be it SNP long-term or eventual independence, they're not getting any support out of Northern Ireland because of how politics there work. So there's 531 English Parliament seats and Labour in 2019 won 179 of them on the back of 34% of the vote to the Tories' 345 seats and 47% of the vote. To ever get a working majority again they're probably going to have get English results up to near a draw, counting on Wales and a few Scottish seats to get them a narrow majority. At the moment that's about a 7% swing in popular vote combined with 83 seat C to L flips.

[mileslunn]

Isn't this just a repeat of what happened when Tony Blair won.  While he did much better with older voters, I believe Tory support was in low 20s in 1997, 2001 & 2005 but then bounced up to 30% in 2010.  Most likely it bites the Tories in the 2030s, but they retool as well as once Labour is in government, invariably some will be unhappy so my thinking is millennials won't switch over as long as Tories are in power, but once Labour has been in office for a few years, enough will be invariably disappointed that they will switch over to Tories thus allowing them to come back.

Unlike their Canadian counterparts who do have a long history of losing and being stuck in past, British Tories are quite pragmatic and winning generally tends to come first so easily willing to change principles to do so.  In some ways, British Tories are more like Canadian Liberals, not in ideology but in terms of willingness to bend to electorate while Canadian Tories more like Labour in being quite stubborn and unwilling to move beyond base except in limited occasions. 

[cp]

One thing I remember reading post-2019 election is in 2017 the age under which Labour started winning was 47. In 2019, that age changed to 39.

I think that has more to do with the overall decline in Labour's vote. The only major shift of support within age brackets was among middle aged voters (35-45 year old's), and that was just a decline from a huge lead for Labour in 2017 to a modest one in 2019.

Isn't this just a repeat of what happened when Tony Blair won.  While he did much better with older voters, I believe Tory support was in low 20s in 1997, 2001 & 2005 but then bounced up to 30% in 2010.  Most likely it bites the Tories in the 2030s, but they retool as well as once Labour is in government, invariably some will be unhappy so my thinking is millennials won't switch over as long as Tories are in power, but once Labour has been in office for a few years, enough will be invariably disappointed that they will switch over to Tories thus allowing them to come back.

Unlike their Canadian counterparts who do have a long history of losing and being stuck in past, British Tories are quite pragmatic and winning generally tends to come first so easily willing to change principles to do so.  In some ways, British Tories are more like Canadian Liberals, not in ideology but in terms of willingness to bend to electorate while Canadian Tories more like Labour in being quite stubborn and unwilling to move beyond base except in limited occasions.  

The Tories were in the low 30s during the Blair years and jumped to 36-37 under Cameron.

More to the point, the Tories during those years were doing only a little better among voters aged 50+ and only a little worse among voters younger than 50 compared to their overall vote. The reason they were so far from power in the Blair elections - at least psepheologically speaking - was that the non-Labour vote was really advantageously split for Labour, especially among younger/middle aged voters.* The case now isn't really analogous. In 2017/19 the non-Labour vote was uniformly low (not just disadvantageously split) for those over 50 and uniformly high for those under 50.

As to how this plays out over time, I'm not optimistic for Labour. Between the structural disadvantage they face due to vote concentration and expulsion from Scotland that StateBoiler pointed out, and the ongoing internal split between the left/Corbyn wing and the New Labour/Starmer faction, there's little chance of them assembling a broad enough coalition on their own or wresting control of elite/institutional powerbrokers to help them manufacture a sea change in voter sentiment. The underlying demographics won't help them overcome these barriers for at least another decade, by which time, as you point out, the Tories are likely to have recalibrated enough to overcome the demographic gap.

I agree with you about the Canadian Liberals/British Tories comparisons. They're both parties of the establishment, old money, and elite patronage. Labour and the Canadian Tories are similar in the fissiparousness of their respective coalitions, but otherwise are not really alike.

*This was also roughly the case for Thatcher and Major when they won their majorities, but in reverse.