This Once Great Movement Of Ours

[Geoffrey Howe]

https://renewal.org.uk/archive/vol-29-2021/remember-scarborough/

I wonder why factionalism is so much greater - or more acrimonious - in left wing parties.
What was the Conservative Party internally like in the 1980s? After all with Mrs Thatcher pursuing a fairly radical agenda, wouldn't some of the old Butskellites have been quite angry? IIRC there was something of a battle between the Young Conservatives (One-Nation types or sensible ones?) and the Federation of Conservative Students (nutters?) but my memory is a bit hazy on this.

One wonders, for example, how Ian Gilmour remained a Tory.

[Geoffrey Howe]

So you mean the Conservative Party is effectively just a vessel to get into power and implement any non-socialist policies?

I think in a party that largely defines itself against the status quo there has to be more identity-searching and a battle between principle and practicality, which you do not have with a party largely comfortable with the 'system'. That's not to say Tories don't change things though.

Your analysis does seem correct.

[Geoffrey Howe]

On that subject my favourite misreading of the Labour party was when a 'senior source' compared Tom Watson versus Caroline Flint in 2015 deputy leaders race as a redux of the 1982 deputy race...

Which one was supposed to be which? Watson seems more akin to Healey in personality terms, but at that point he was more known for his attacks on the Murdoch empire and thus was relatively popular with the left of the party.

Flint is closer to Benn's views on Europe, although perhaps not in 2015.

Did Viscount Stansgate ever come to support the EU?

[Geoffrey Howe]

That makes sense. I remember a podcast with Hilary Benn and Nick Robinson just after the referendum wherein the former said he disagreed with his father on the EU.

[Geoffrey Howe]

Even some on the Labour left thought Benn Snr had a very simplistic and one dimensional approach to the EU - partly down to what they also saw as his starry eyed view of UK parliamentary democracy.

Did Michael Foot have effectively the same approach to Europe?

[Geoffrey Howe]

What are the auspices for Sir Keir if Labour loses in Hartlepool?

[Geoffrey Howe]

What are the auspices for Sir Keir if Labour loses in Hartlepool?

Bad, but not fatal: think how Copeland and Stoke Central were awful blows to Corbyn at the time, but he muscled through to the 2017 election where he could win his own mandate.

True, but Copeland was four months before a GE; Hartlepool could be three years away from one.

[Geoffrey Howe]

Certainly, by-elections are not the be all and end all. One thinks of the by-elections in the Thatcher years where absurdly safe seats would be lost or very nearly lost to the Alliance at a high turnout, though she did very well in 1983 and 1987. (Interestingly, this made Mrs Thatcher very wary of appointing qualified British MPs to international institutions for fear of double-point swings.)

[Geoffrey Howe]

74% turnout in that by-election.

[Geoffrey Howe]

Would I be wrong in thinking that the regional divide between North and South also contributes to the divisions in Labour?

Like from studying in the UK even I managed to notice the differences in attitudes and politics between students from the North vs. students from the South. I'd assume that may carry over to intra-party politics

Not so sure about Labour on this, but certainly the 'Red Wall' Tories are more statist/interventionist than more traditional Tories, whose base is obviously in the South. That said, Dehenna Davison of Bishop Auckland is the co-founder of the IEA-affiliated Free Market Forum.

[Geoffrey Howe]

Would I be wrong in thinking that the regional divide between North and South also contributes to the divisions in Labour?

Like from studying in the UK even I managed to notice the differences in attitudes and politics between students from the North vs. students from the South. I'd assume that may carry over to intra-party politics

As a Labour party member from London I'm perhaps not the best to give a good answer but my assumption is that there is a split but it doesn't fit that well into North v South. It ties into the rather complex definition of what the North is, the differences between the regions & also fundamentally the difference between urban & non-urban areas.

The biggest contribution is probably that a lot of the Labour party does not understand large parts of the country it wants to govern; Lisa Nandy had quite a good line about how people in Labour just think that we should pump loads of money into Northern cities- without focusing on the fact that most people see these cities as distant.

In terms of the leadership elections the North-West was always seen as a stronghold for the left; Corbyn did very well in the region & cleaned up in 2016 (he picked up a lot of people who voted for Andy Burnham in 2015)

The PLP (Labour MPs) tends to be a more mixed bags; those MPs in Northern seats aren't generally more left wing- some of this came from the fact that the MPs were selected back in 2005 or 2010 when you were naturally more likely to be from the Labour right than the left. Many of these MPs lost their seats in 2019 (Jenny Chapman, Phil Wilson, etc)

Do you have any geographical results for the leadership elections?

[Geoffrey Howe]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4e/CLP_Nominations_2020.png/1200px-CLP_Nominations_2020.png

The CLP nominations are actually quite a good benchmark; I don't think we have the results by region but I might be wrong.

Which colour is which? (Thanks for this though)

[Geoffrey Howe]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4e/CLP_Nominations_2020.png/1200px-CLP_Nominations_2020.png

The CLP nominations are actually quite a good benchmark; I don't think we have the results by region but I might be wrong.

Which colour is which? (Thanks for this though)

Purple - Starmer
Yellow - Long-Bailey
Green - Nandy
Blue - Thornberry (most of these were CLPs that nominated later trying to get her on the ballot)
Black - No nomination

Starmer did win a majority of CLP nominations. In areas with fewer Labour members I doubt extrapolating the data is useful to providing a regional picture. For example New Forest East is a smaller CLP but with fairly active left-wing members.

What can we draw from this? Merseyside and Cambridgeshire Labour left, the rest all over the place?

[Geoffrey Howe]

There is a longstanding tendency for CLPs in 'hopeless' rural constituencies to be controlled by the Left (of whatever vintage), but this doesn't necessarily mean that the members in those constituencies lean that way heavily or at all. And the same general comment often applies much more broadly, to apparent clusters of dominance from whatever faction.

As a rule, would you say the smaller the association, the more radical?

[Geoffrey Howe]

Various Corbynites in the Party have been briefing the media that 'it's time for a change' or 'not too late for a new leader' if Labour loses Hartlepool, or so I read this morning in the FT. It would be disappointing for them if they didn't gain one of the metro mayors. However apparently they don't actually have the numbers to launch a challenge.

[Geoffrey Howe]

According to John Curtice many northern voters were enticed by the prospect of pork-barrel spending if they elected Tories.

[Geoffrey Howe]

According to John Curtis many northern voters were enticed by the prospect of pork-barrel spending if they elected Tories.

Is that believable?

Yes. They have been spending lots of money in seats that just happen to be Tory marginals in the North. Apparently the Tory metro mayors have been pushing this message - if you want investment from the government, vote Tory.

[Geoffrey Howe]

Are you all confident about a Batley and Spen by-election if Labour wins the West Yorks mayoralty?

[Geoffrey Howe]

Could somebody explain why these results are so bad for Labour for someone watching from the outside? I get the Hartlepool by-election with its 23 point margin, but there seem to be a lot of other elections which didn't go the party's way either, right?

Yes. So far it's just local council results other than Hartlepool, and Labour have done very poorly in the West Midlands and the North East. As others have mentioned, this is partly due to local scandals, but it's also a reflection of their mood about national politics.

We shall get more results later today and tomorrow (it's 1115 BST now)

[Geoffrey Howe]

A taste of why the Labour Party can be unpopular:

'When a Labour canvasser appeared on a doorstep in the Tooting area of London this week, they were greeted with a blunt “I’m voting Tory”. Given Sadiq Khan’s former parliamentary seat was a tight marginal not so long ago, that’s perhaps no surprise. But what was shocking was the Labour activist’s reply. “You need to check your values,” they told the astonished voter.'

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/keir-starmer-labour-hartlepool-analysis_uk_60959a24e4b0ae3c687e5904

[Geoffrey Howe]

A taste of why the Labour Party can be unpopular:

'When a Labour canvasser appeared on a doorstep in the Tooting area of London this week, they were greeted with a blunt “I’m voting Tory”. Given Sadiq Khan’s former parliamentary seat was a tight marginal not so long ago, that’s perhaps no surprise. But what was shocking was the Labour activist’s reply. “You need to check your values,” they told the astonished voter.'

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/keir-starmer-labour-hartlepool-analysis_uk_60959a24e4b0ae3c687e5904

That sort of thing has always happened with activists of all parties.

(so in that sense at least, a complete nothingburger)

Do you think a Tory activist would say to a Labour voter 'you have the wrong values?'
This is an isolated incident, but I think it neatly illustrates some of the problems a London-centric, 'woke' Labour Party faces.

[Geoffrey Howe]

I'm not denying that Conservative canvassers can be rude or put voters off. It's this specific moralisation which Mr Waugh was pointing to. It's only anecdotal, but it is effective because it aligns with what people have been feeling about the Labour Party.

[Geoffrey Howe]

A taste of why the Labour Party can be unpopular:

'When a Labour canvasser appeared on a doorstep in the Tooting area of London this week, they were greeted with a blunt “I’m voting Tory”. Given Sadiq Khan’s former parliamentary seat was a tight marginal not so long ago, that’s perhaps no surprise. But what was shocking was the Labour activist’s reply. “You need to check your values,” they told the astonished voter.'

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/keir-starmer-labour-hartlepool-analysis_uk_60959a24e4b0ae3c687e5904

That sort of thing has always happened with activists of all parties.

(so in that sense at least, a complete nothingburger)

Do you think a Tory activist would say to a Labour voter 'you have the wrong values?'
This is an isolated incident, but I think it neatly illustrates some of the problems a London-centric, 'woke' Labour Party faces.

The incident was in London though so this talking point doesn't even make sense?

Precisely. It is anecdotally indicative of how people perceive the London Labour Party, which they also feel is becoming more dominant.

[Geoffrey Howe]

Political activists in both parties are largely well meaning, slightly introverted and often retired!

All parties attract activists who you do not want on the doorstep, or equally people who say things that reflect awfully... sometimes they even become MPs!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2019-50474572

Yes that Tory is awful. I'm not here to defend the current state of the Conservative Party!

[Geoffrey Howe]

I hear he blames her for the selection of the candidate in Hartlepool.

Anyway, this has been handled poorly and I don't know what Starmer is thinking.