U.K. Labour Finds It Has Mountain to Climb to Win Next Election

(Bloomberg) -- The U.K. Labour Party faces a “substantial challenge” to win power, according to a review of its failure in December’s election that lays bare the scale of the challenge facing new leader Keir Starmer.

The report found a “historic” swing of more than 10% from the Conservatives would be needed for the opposition party to gain a majority of just one seat. That in itself would represent a 60% increase in Labour’s number of seats -- a gain no major party has ever achieved.

“Labour has a mountain to climb to get back into power in the next five years,” according to the report, prepared by the Labour Together group of party activists. In the 2019 campaign, “the strategy was inadequate, the organization was muddled and the execution was poor,” it said.

Starmer took over as leader in April after his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn led the party to its worst defeat since 1935 in December’s election. Many historically Labour-supporting districts in the so-called “Red Wall” across northern England switched to the Conservatives, with voters citing Corbyn’s ambiguous policy on Brexit and his failure to tackle allegations of antisemitism within the party.

“It would be a mistake to believe that a different leader, with Brexit no longer the defining issue, would in itself be sufficient to change Labour’s electoral fortunes,” the authors wrote. “Our report lays bare that our defeat had deep roots.”

The report’s authors include union officials, councilors and Members of Parliament, most notably Corbyn’s predecessor as leader, Ed Miliband, who led the party to defeat in 2015. They processed more than 11,000 survey responses, 50 in-depth interviews with activists, and submissions from groups across the party. They found:

• Labour could lose a further 58 seats with a “small swing” to the Conservatives.
• If Labour can’t significantly reverse its fortunes in Scotland, where it was once dominant, it would need to take the seat held by Conservative Leader of the House of Commons Jacob Rees-Mogg, who has a majority of more than 14,000, to win power.
• Concern about Corbyn’s leadership was a “significant factor” in the 2019 defeat.
• The Tories won by consolidating the vote of those who wanted the U.K. to leave the European Union. Labour lost 1.7 million Leave voters -- but also 1 million Remain voters.
• That the “institutional and cultural bonds” linking many voters to the party have weakened over time.
• The party needs to build a base of young voters and attract more swing voters.
• The party in Scotland should back a position of no new referendum on independence.
• Labour should overhaul its digital campaign methods.

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