This is an edited version of Will McMahon’s introduction to the Talking About Socialism event on Monday 8 July, 2024 It has not been edited to reflect Labour’s first month in Government. You can watch the event on YouTube
What was my take on the election results?
While Labour had a landslide in terms of seats, the vote was an entirely different matter. About 1 in 5 of those who could vote, voted Labour – and roughly a third of those who did vote, voted Labour. The swing to Labour was just under 1.7%, the swing against the Tories was 19.9%. The Labour majority was delivered by the refusal of Reform to stand down in many constituencies as the Brexit Party had done in 2019. It was Reform that defeated the Conservatives, not Starmer.
Pollsters asked those who voted Labour, why they voted Labour: just under 50% said to get the Tories out; only a risible 1% because they liked Kier Starmer’s leadership; and one in five because they agreed with Labour’s policies. This means that only 8% of those who voted, voted Labour because they agreed with the policy platform. So Labour’s victory in the country is very shallow and narrow. The Financial Times’s data expert John Burns-Murdoch noted:
“The lack of enthusiasm for Labour at this election really is striking. Among those who plan to vote Labour tomorrow, the party is much less well-liked than in 2019, 2017, or 2015 (no data before that). Quite a flimsy voter coalition that could unravel in the absence of results … If they don’t start delivering tangible results, it wouldn’t be at all surprising to see Labour start bleeding votes in all directions.”
Socialists need to keep in mind this might mean more votes for Reform if a credible socialist challenge does not emerge before the next general election.
There are three striking contrasts to be made:
The first is with Blair’s win in 1997. Then, right or wrong, there was a belief amongst a broad layer of the public that things could only get better. Blair assembled a majority bloc for his ‘third-way’ politics that Starmer can only dream of. Blair got 43% compared to 33.7% of the vote for Starmer, and 13.5 million votes compared to just 9.7 million on a turnout of 71.3% compared to 60% in 2024. The last three decades have eroded the public’s belief that mainstream politics has the answer to the major crises we face: war, economic deterioration, and a growing environmental crisis.
The second is the prospects for the UK economy in the next five years. In Michael Roberts’ recent blog Broken Britain, he notes that Britain is now 9th largest economy in the world in terms of output. The combination of being a declining imperial power, the 2008 banking crisis, the Brexit paralysis, and the pandemic has laid waste to living standards. This is a long way from the heyday of Gordon Brown when Britain had experienced a record 50 quarters of growth by 2006.
The third contrast is with in Parliament where Labour has two-thirds of the seats. It is impossible to imagine a new Parliament more unrepresentative of the population since the introduction of the universal franchise in 1928. While strong in seats, Starmer is weak in legitimacy.
How did those who mentioned socialism or communism in their literature perform?
In the main, they barely registered a blip except for Maxine Bowler who got 10% in Sheffield. Fiona Lali of the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) polled just over 4% in Stratford and Bow. Dave Nellist won 2.2% for the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC). TUSC, which has been standing general election candidates for more than a decade suffered quite a severe blow – getting about a third of the votes they got in 2015 and an average of 300 votes over 40 seats. TUSC may well have suffered at the hands of Galloway’s non-socialist Workers Party of Britain (WPB) who polled on average 1400 per seat.
Palestine was the single issue that was featured on many leaflets. Many candidates did very well, with five independents being elected. Michael Lavalette, who has a record of standing in elections in Preston stretching back to the Socialist Alliance over 20 years ago, got a creditable 21.8%, beating the Reform candidate to second place. Wes Streeting was very nearly decapitated in Ilford North by Leanne Mohamed. Corbyn stood as a local democracy left social democratic candidate in Islington North and won.
What do I expect to happen now?
Starmer will be aware of the weakness of his long-term position and will have to, like Macron in France, try to build a political coalition after the election, because he was not capable of doing so before. He is certainly not guaranteed a second term given the volatility in UK politics and the overall global instability. He will attempt to squat the centre ground of politics in the decade to come while driving politics ever further to the right because there is very little sign that he will build a coalition from social democrat positions, as he has made it clear that without growth there will be no social investments, but neoliberal ones.
This will involve completing what remains of the Thatcher/Blair project: reducing further the size of the state, but having an active enabling state that uses private finance for infrastructure and other projects to keep the debt off the books. So, for example, private finance for the NHS, the formal introduction of co-payment for health services, the further deregulation of house building, and the privatisation of any government work where possible – perhaps under the guise of Trust status. It will also mean that, although the state is smaller, it is to be more dynamic and strategic in its relationship with capitalist investment. Much like South Korea, Japan, and other countries in Asia that had to rebuild their national economic bases.
No decent interval
The election of Blair in 1997 got a huge sigh of public relief and a decent interval before the left was able to make an effective call to arms. While Starmer will get a brief pause, the strategy of governing from the centre while moving politics to the right will bring the Government into conflict with the working class and internationalist movements in short order. It will be a government that claims to stand above but will eventually side with the ruling class on wage growth. It may offer some limited trade union law reforms but that will be about it.
As a confirmed Atlanticist, we can expect the continuation of policy as dictated by Washington, which will produce domestic political conflict on the issues we know well – the imperialist attack on Palestine, the inter-imperialist war in Ukraine, and the war drive against China. As Michael Roberts points out, a lot of the British economy is owned by US multinationals these days, and that matters in terms of governance and policy.
As a neo-liberal politician, we can expect sluggish movement from Starmer on developing a proper strategy for dealing with the developing climate crisis. If the government has not got money to spend, then it is only through private investment that the necessary steps can be made to meet the climate crisis and, as the bourgeoisie is simply not interested in cutting off the capitalist growth branch on which it sits, if there is to be any sort of environmental revolution it will be a passive revolution, slow to take shape and will simply not be soon enough.
So on all three key elements – improving working-class living standards, foreign policy, and the environmental crisis the only difference between Sunak and Starmer is Starmer will have time to get his statecraft right but will in essence offer the same neo-liberal policy mix. As a party leader, the only remaining question for Starmer is whether to use the dominance he has in the Labour Party to revisit the mistake that Blair made and ensure that the socialist left is locked out of the party structure for good.
What should socialists and communists do?
Prepare for class battles against austerity, the global war drive, and the ecological crisis being driven by the capitalist growth that Starmer and Reeves so desire. At the same time, we also have to begin a long march toward a united socialist party committed to replacing a capitalist democracy with a socialist democracy based on popular planning which will require the destruction of capitalist markets.
One way of doing this is to take part in the social and political struggles that will emerge and in combination build a united electoral socialist coalition with a programme that explains clearly what we aim to do immediately and in which direction we aim for this to take us in. Talking About Socialism’s statement ‘Who we are and the ideas that guide us’ is good but a common programme for the socialist and communist left is a necessity. If Starmerism is to bleed votes in all directions, we need to be ready for that. Such a large majority promises a higher number of by-elections than usual.
We have to reject the notion that left social democratic politics dressed up as socialism is going to cut through and deliver. Corbynism has demonstrated that it is vulnerable on a whole number of fronts, organisationally and ideologically. However, if such a left social democratic formation does emerge, we need to engage constructively with it but not water down our politics in doing so. The form of participation should be a tactical question that cannot be resolved in advance, as the last 25 years have shown. In the same vein, the Labour Party offers a limited site of contestation but where it does, socialists should take a tactical attitude to it, not a religious vow for or against. The lure of personality and the unnecessary compromises that it brings need to be rejected, whether it be another Benn, Scargill, Livingstone, Corbyn, or Galloway. This does not mean that we should not build united fronts where necessary but we should never suborn our socialist programme to bureaucratic deals or bag-carrying.
Finally, we need to create socialist clubs across the country that are spaces for socialists and communists who believe in the transformation of our society to meet, discuss, and work our way toward the mass socialist party that is so urgently needed.