A Broad Church or one stretched too far?

It seems that some progressive voters who backed Labour at the recent election thought the party leadership was just telling fibs when they came over, prior to the election, as effectively pro-Brexit.

We’re told that polling indicates that around 70% who voted Labour want the UK to at least join the Single Market but Labour is doing what they promised and they’re sticking, in effect, to Teresa May’s red lines.

Of course, Labour have placed themselves in this position to try to stop more of their right-wing, working-class voters defecting to Reform. They started to lose right and indeed even further right supporters back when Brexit was all the rage amongst right-wing voters generally. They then lost more to the Tories under Johnson and then again to the further right Reform Party at the 2024 GE.

Logically, Labour are not going to get them back and it’s doubtful whether trying to appease such voters will work at all. History tells us that appeasing the further and far right is never a good idea but that’s where Labour is. Ironically, in trying to hang on to their right-wing and further right supporters Labour’s leadership is, of course, alienating it’s progressive supporters who may well defect to progressive parties such as the Lib Dems, SNP and Greens.

And all this is because Labour has always seen itself as being the party of the working-class no matter what views those voters actually have. Labour has been a broad church with supporters ranging from the further right through to the far left and everything in-between and it’s why the party is riven with factional infighting.

The problem for Labour is that even via our warped first-past-the-post electoral system, which has helped keep Labour’s warring factions in the same tent for generations, things are changing and Reform and at one point the Tories have been taking Labour’s right-wing supporters. At the same time the Lib Dems, SNP and Greens have been nibbling away at the party’s progressive left of centre supporters. Remember, whilst our mad electoral system has given Labour a massive majority in the House of Commons only 34% of those who turned out to vote in 2024 actually voted Labour and clearly many of those did so just to be rid of the appalling Tories. So Labour’s support is weak at best.

Despite it being a broad church, Labour has usually positioned itself left of centre but now it’s outlook is centre-right. At some point it will try to reposition itself again, although where is open to debate. Labour’s roots are its history and its present day problem as in multi-party democracies trying to appeal to such a vast political range is going to be ever more difficult.

The electorate may well be starting to leave Labour behind and the blind loyalty it once relied upon through many generations, within working-class families in particular, is looking unsustainable going forward. If the party’s progressives say ‘no more’ as they can no longer stomach Brexit and centre-right politics then Labour is in deep trouble indeed.