When will Labour in UK and Tories in Canada return to power?

[mileslunn]

While different countries and different parties, wondering what thoughts are on how long it will be before Labour in UK and Tories in Canada return to office.  Obviously its just a guess as things are unpredictable but both parties seem to have serious structural problems.  Tories in UK have been in power for quite a while and normally time for change would be starting to kick in, but party has gone through a fair bit of renewal so Johnson led Tories aren't like Cameron led Tories and feels like change has been made.  By contrast in Canada, Liberals have only been in power for 6 years so not yet at the time for change in normal circumstances which is usually around 10 years in Canada.  If you wish to just answer one that is fine for those only familiar with one country.  Below are my thoughts.

Labour in UK: With loss of Scotland, I don't see a Labour majority as remotely feasible anytime soon, but at same time Tories don't really have any natural allies so all Labour has to do is make sure Tories + Unionist parties is less than half the seats and then rely on SNP + PC + Greens and maybe Liberal Democrats to prop them up.  My guess is Boris goes in 2023 and is re-elected, but in 2027, fatigue will start to set in so Tories may win most seats, but Labour probably forms government around then.  After all Tories will have been in power for 17 years by that point.

Tories in Canada:  On one hand they are closer to Liberals in polls than Labour is to Tories.  On other hand its majority or bust for them as they lack allies.  They need to either win a majority themselves or have Tories + BQ above 170 seats.  Considering how fractured party is and how millennials are moving leftward, my guess is they don't form government until sometime around 2030.  Usually Liberals win they win in Canada tend to stay in power for a very long time while Tory wins are much shorter.  Still Canadian electorate is more elastic so if things go badly, I could see Tories winning as soon as 2025, but that is probably the earliest.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

Labour will return to power in 2024.

[mileslunn]

Labour will return to power in 2024.

That seems a long shot as while I think polls will tighten, Tory vote is a lot more efficient and kind of swing Labour needs to win pretty big.  Now perhaps you are thinking Tories fall to under 310 seats in which case Labour forms government by passing a Queen's speech with support of other parties even if they have fewer seats?

[Lechasseur]

I suspect it won't be for a while, probably until towards the end of the decade, before either are back in power.

[Lechasseur]

My guess is there will probably be an election in the UK in 2024 (I'm thinking there will be a spring election then as usual, given that the last election was at the very end of the year) which I think the Tories will win, but then after that they likely lose power in 2028-2029 imo (or if they don't, it means Labour's issues are basically irrepairable).

Then my guess for Canada is Justin will probably be PM for another 5 years, and then the Liberals probably lose the first election after he retires.

[(no subject)]

Tony Blair is the only Labour leader to have won a gen election since 1974. Labor will remain in Opposition until it returns to Blairism as that is the only position from which it can win.

[cp]

Canadian Tories I could see getting back into power by 2025-7 or so. Labour will be in opposition for at least another decade.

[Lord Halifax]

Tony Blair is the only Labour leader to have won a gen election since 1974. Labor will remain in Opposition until it returns to Blairism as that is the only position from which it can win.

lol

[brucejoel99]

Tony Blair is the only Labour leader to have won a gen election since 1974. Labor will remain in Opposition until it returns to Blairism as that is the only position from which it can win.

lol

Ikr? To say nothing of the fact that it was Corbynism that gained 30 seats back in 2017. Don't get me wrong, I certainly didn't like Corbyn as Labour leader, but a return to Blairism is emphatically not the path to a new Labour (lol) government.

[mileslunn]

Canadian Tories I could see getting back into power by 2025-7 or so. Labour will be in opposition for at least another decade.

I think Labour forms government before Canadian Tories for simple reason they just have to push Tories below 310 seats, don't have to win most seats.  Canadian Tories don't just need to win most seats, they need to win a majority as in both countries all other parties besides Tories unlikely to support them.  I think Canadian Tories win a plurality of seats before Labour does, but when it comes to forming government, I see Labour coming first although both I think are over 5 years away and probably more likely a decade away.

[Pericles]

Tony Blair is the only Labour leader to have won a gen election since 1974. Labor will remain in Opposition until it returns to Blairism as that is the only position from which it can win.

lol

Ikr? To say nothing of the fact that it was Corbynism that gained 30 seats back in 2017. Don't get me wrong, I certainly didn't like Corbyn as Labour leader, but a return to Blairism is emphatically not the path to a new Labour (lol) government.

Ironic that that post was coming from a Socialist avatar.

[Geoffrey Howe]

Ideologically, Boris has shot their fox by moving away from Cameron-era austerity and embracing an interventionist, big-spending - one might even say leftist - ideology; along with his general charisma. People also like how much he irritates Guardian readers - as one person put it: "say what you like about Boris, but he's royally pissed off all the right people." The main story of the Red Wall, it seems, is that these people should have been Tory voters but their "heritage" had kept them with Labour. At the risk of sounding patronising, these are "aspirational" people - they want funding for their community, but not victimhood.

I think Labour's path to victory is simply waiting for people to tire of Boris' bluster and incompetence, especially if "levelling up" doesn't "work." They can run a left-wing platform, but it has to be free of some of the more nauseating elements of the modern left, and it has to be geared to giving people the opportunity to fulfil themselves - positive not negative.

[CumbrianLefty]

Tony Blair is the only Labour leader to have won a gen election since 1974. Labor will remain in Opposition until it returns to Blairism as that is the only position from which it can win.

Ah, this old chestnut

Tell me, how do you think the 1997 GE would have gone if John Smith had not keeled over?

And have you actually seen Blair's *current* approval ratings??

[(no subject)]

2017 was a fluke because the Mumbling Bearded Trot was facing May. 2019 is a more accurate reflection of how toxic old style socialism is to British voters.

[CumbrianLefty]

There's actually an argument 2017 was the more "normal" election - after all, the last GE saw the first big Tory majority since 1987. And I note that you evaded the points I made above

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Both the "corbyn won more votes in 2017 than in decades" and the "Blair is the only election winner since Wilson" factoids are Twitter-tier analysis best kept away from a respectable forum like this.

[CumbrianLefty]

Canadian Tories I could see getting back into power by 2025-7 or so. Labour will be in opposition for at least another decade.

I know you probably find fully blackpilled nihilism strangely reassuring - but *really*?

Corbyn was not a god, and his politicial eclipse does not mean humanity is doomed for ever more. And yes Starmer is a bit rubbish (something that has genuinely disappointed some of us) but that can be dealt with if things (and indeed he) does not improve soon.

By even a 2028/29 election (assuming they do win the next one, still not as guaranteed as some say) the desire amongst much of the populace to be rid if the Tories is likely to be intense.

And projecting politics well into the future as an endless present is the ultimate mug's game.

[S019]

I think both are likelier than people think, for instance Labour and the Tories were tied at the beginning of this year and the vaccine bump currently being experienced by the government will taper off eventually. Also the Canadian Tories have been narrowly trailing the Liberals for much of the year, though if past history is any indication, this probably isn’t enough, while Labour needs to likely get to around a 2% deficit to have a good chance of forming government, which while it may seem tough, they were polling better than that at the beginning of the year. Also I’m still not sold on the idea that Labour is doomed in the Red Wall, local elections held when the government has a 9 point lead on the generic ballot will yield those types of results, if the lead was say 3 or 4, I’m sure we’d be having a much more different discussion right now. I do think Labour’s chances in 2024 are higher than the CPC’s in 2023, Johnson seems to be more personally unpopular than Trudeau, and as I mentioned earlier the CPC likely needs to win a plurality of votes to hold government, which seems more uphill than Labour’s path, and Labour also has an extra year to recover its polling numbers. I don’t think either Labour or the CPC would have much of a chance if a snap election was called soon though.

[cp]

Canadian Tories I could see getting back into power by 2025-7 or so. Labour will be in opposition for at least another decade.

I know you probably find fully blackpilled nihilism strangely reassuring - but *really*?

Corbyn was not a god, and his politicial eclipse does not mean humanity is doomed for ever more. And yes Starmer is a bit rubbish (something that has genuinely disappointed some of us) but that can be dealt with if things (and indeed he) does not improve soon.

By even a 2028/29 election (assuming they do win the next one, still not as guaranteed as some say) the desire amongst much of the populace to be rid if the Tories is likely to be intense.

And projecting politics well into the future as an endless present is the ultimate mug's game.

Yes, really. Not least because *some* of us are not actually disappointed by Starmer because we were cleared eyed enough to understand he was going to be rubbish from the outset.

In any case, I don't think the next decade will be an endless present for Labour: I think it will be much worse. Between the boundary commission changes, Starmer's last-boy-to-be-picked-up-from-church-camp personality, the increasing fissiparousness of left political organizing, demographic/geographic shifts that won't benefit Labour until the boomers finally expire, and the institutional bias (read: rot) of the British press, I don't see any reason to believe otherwise.

Also, how exactly would Starmer get 'dealt with'? If a leader like Corbyn couldn't be removed by an actual (and utterly unjustified) PLP coup, what possible route could there be to get rid of someone as institutionally cushioned as Starmer?

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Great Atlas Traditions: thinking one election result will stand in perpetuity.

[cp]

Both the "corbyn won more votes in 2017 than in decades" and the "Blair is the only election winner since Wilson" factoids are Twitter-tier analysis best kept away from a respectable forum like this.

Are you actually trying to argue this is a *respectable* forum?!

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Both the "corbyn won more votes in 2017 than in decades" and the "Blair is the only election winner since Wilson" factoids are Twitter-tier analysis best kept away from a respectable forum like this.

Are you actually trying to argue this is a *respectable* forum?!

Relatively. In theory, it's supposed to be an academic forum and although we are all obviously partisan or ideological, most posters are able to analyze elections etc in a somewhat detached manner.

[cp]

Both the "corbyn won more votes in 2017 than in decades" and the "Blair is the only election winner since Wilson" factoids are Twitter-tier analysis best kept away from a respectable forum like this.

Are you actually trying to argue this is a *respectable* forum?!

Relatively. In theory, it's supposed to be an academic forum and although we are all obviously partisan or ideological, most posters are able to analyze elections etc in a somewhat detached manner.

In theory Communism works! In theory ...

[mileslunn]

Both the "corbyn won more votes in 2017 than in decades" and the "Blair is the only election winner since Wilson" factoids are Twitter-tier analysis best kept away from a respectable forum like this.

Are you actually trying to argue this is a *respectable* forum?!

Relatively. In theory, it's supposed to be an academic forum and although we are all obviously partisan or ideological, most posters are able to analyze elections etc in a somewhat detached manner.

In theory Communism works! In theory ...

We all have our biases but we also try to be objective.  I generally support Tories in Canada yet take a more pessimistic view than most.  That is based on that Tories in Canada doing horrible amongst millennials and struggling with almost all the groups that are growing in population.  Also fact that even if they win most seats, they have no allies in parliament.  Labour by contrast is at least doing poorly amongst millennials, but won't be until 2030s that their numbers are big enough to give clear advantage.  Also a lot depends on turnout.  2017 was close as turnout was large amongst this group, but much lower in 2015 and 2019 and predicting turnout amongst them is a fool's errand.  At same time Labour just needs to ensure Tories + Unionist parties are denied a majority as SNP in a hung parliament would support Labour even if they have fewer seats than Tories.  By contrast in Canada, in a minority government if Tories won plurality of seats, NDP would prop up Liberals.  At same time BQ I suspect is probably neutral so that is why I say for Canada Tories + BQ need majority to win as BQ likely votes on issue by issue basis not favouring one party over another.

[(no subject)]

Arthur Scargill, the Miner Union Leader, is a symbol of how things had changed forever. The unions arrogantly thought they could see off Maggie and continue to cause chaos and paralyse whole industries as they had for years. The unions had abused their legal powers so it was right to take them away. No one should be forced to be a member of a union in order to be employed and no one is a “scab” if they refuse to obey a union THAT THEY ARE NOT A MEMBER OF.