Peter Franklin is an Associate Editor of UnHerd.
It’s 10pm on election night. The exit poll drops. As expected, it’s bad. In fact, the worst result in our history.
And yet I felt a small surge of hope. It wasn’t just that we’d clung onto major party status — there was something else, something rather odd.
The minor parties had done well. Very well, in fact. Labour’s level of support just couldn’t be equal to its Blair-sized majority. The UK exit poll is designed to predict seat tallies not vote share. Nevertheless, the Lib Dem, Reform and Green breakthroughs strongly suggested that Labour had finished on less than 40 per cent — as I tweeted at the time
At the outset of the election campaign I argued that while a Labour victory was nailed-on, Starmer still faced a nightmare scenario. He could win, but with a lower level of support than Jeremy Corbyn won in 2017. In the event, it was very much lower — just 33.7 per cent. That’s barely more than what Corbyn managed in 2019 or Michael Howard in 2005.
Subsequently, it’s been called the “loveless landslide“, but why did so few commentators see it coming or even examine the possibility? Perhaps because the opinion polls were for the most part wrong — as can be seen here.
Ironically, a much-maligned poll from Matt Goodwin got closest to the truth — at least in putting Labour on 35 per cent. YouGov can be comparatively proud of themselves too. But, as a whole, the polling industry deserves a lot more flack than they’ve received so far. If they’d done a better job on exposing the limits of Labour’s support, we might have had a rather different election campaign.
We know the truth now, of course. But I’m not sure it’s fully sunk in. For instance, should we be surprised that Labour finds itself struggling so soon after its landslide victory? The fact is that Starmer began in a weak position. Of course, there’s the ongoing funding scandal, but let’s not forget that after the 1997 landslide, Tony Blair had a funding scandal too. That didn’t stop him going from strength-to-strength — in contrast to Free Gear Keir
Even in a first-past-the-post electoral system, vote share matters. The Labour majorities won in 1997 are almost identical in size (179 versus 174) — but the vote shares are worlds apart (43.2 per cent versus 33.7 per cent). Starmer’s victory is built on shallow foundations, which is why the cracks are beginning to show.
Don’t get me wrong. I support our electoral system. A majority is a mandate. What it isn’t, however, is a guarantee of multiple terms in office. Not any more. A landslide victory is now a case of easy come, easy go. But I wonder if our political elites realise that the rules have changed.
Obviously they can’t ignore the extraordinary election results of the last ten years. But these can be rationalised. After all, didn’t UKIP collapse like a soufflé after 2015? Wasn’t the Red Wall “realignment” a mirage that turned to sand? Weren’t these just Brexit-related anomalies?
Not really. It’s true that a run of exceptionally bad Tory leaders betrayed the mandate of 2019. But that doesn’t mean the frustrated desire for change has gone away; it’s just found alternative forms of expression — including the rise of Reform UK.
Far from representing a return to business as usual, the 2024 general election is proof that this sense of restlessness continues. The same goes for Labour’s first chundered days. Rosie Duffield’s resignation signifies more than her own disgust with Starmer’s leadership. Just look at his plummeting approval ratings.
There haven’t been many national opinion polls since the general election, but those we do have — from More in Common and Techne UK — show Labour support dipping below a third of the vote. Notably, it is the smaller parties, not us, who have benefited. It’s still early days, of course — and we haven’t chosen our new leader yet. But I suspect we’re in new territory here.
In the long years following our 1997 defeat, the talk was that Tory support had “flatlined” — meaning it was stuck in the low thirties no matter what we tried. But in 2024 this level looks more like a ceiling than a floor — and furthermore one that applies to both the main parties.
The 2024 general election result shows that the smaller parties are now capable of working with the grain of the electoral system. Whether it’s Reform, the Lib Dems, the Greens or the Muslim independents, they’ve demonstrated their ability to win seats by building-up local strongholds and focusing their resources accordingly. If that continues, it will be difficult for the larger parties to win more than a third of the votes — let alone break the 40 per cent barrier.
Indeed, for some of the new contenders there’s scope for further expansion. Having secured their coastal bridgeheads, Reform is eyeing-up the Red Wall seats. Then there’s the block of inner London seats where the Greens are now in second place. Labour should be worried about those — ditto central Scotland, where the post-Sturgeon SNP might have their revenge.
So don’t be fooled by the loveless landslide. The electoral map might be looking rather red right now, but that conceals a much more chaotic underlying dynamic: multi-party politics in a first-past-the-post electoral system.
Though there are difficulties and dangers for us here, there are new opportunities too. As always after a landslide defeat, we need to understand why we lost in 2024 and which segments of the ex-Tory vote might be most readily won back. However, there’s an even bigger strategic issue facing the next Conservative leader — and on that we have something to learn from a most unlikely source.
When he was leader of the Labour Party, Ed Miliband pursued what some commentators called the 35 per cent strategy. The basic idea was to play safe and target the most winnable Left-leaning voters. This would be enough to put Labour at the head of a centre-Left coalition. Of course, it didn’t work out for him — not least because he only got 30.4 per cent of the vote.
Nevertheless, Red Ed was ahead of his time — if only accidentally. As we’ve just seen, a third of the vote doesn’t just win you first place these days, but a substantial majority too. Against a fragmented field of rival parties, 35 per cent is more than enough.
Nevertheless why not go for, say, 45 per cent. Boris Johnson came close to the mark in 2019, so why not the next Tory leader? Well, it helps when you can represent one side of a deeply divisive issue like Brexit or Scottish independence. But if that condition doesn’t apply, then a 45 per cent strategy is limiting because assembling a broad coalition means you can’t take on too many vested interests or upset too many sacred cows.
A 35 per cent strategy gives you more options. As long as you can bring one-in-three voters with you, then you can challenge the status quo. Instead of being all-things-to-everyone — in other words, nothing-to-no-one — you can take a stand for something.
I’m not making a case for Right-wing populism here — or, for that matter, liberal elitism. Victory from these positions is now theoretically possible (as it was, in the first case, for Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, and, in the second, Emmanuel Macron in France). However, in the context of Britain’s political landscape, we’d only be fighting Nigel Farage or Ed Davey on their home turf.
Rather, we should choose the path of problem-solving conservatism. Filtered through a 35 per cent strategy we could take calculated risks — telling the truth about NHS dysfunction, for instance, or the economic consequences of importing cheap labour, or the need for investment before tax cuts and public sector pay rises.
I doubt we could win 45 per cent of the vote on such a platform. For a start, there are those who can only be won over by actions not words — which is problem when you’ve just wasted 14 years in government. A 35 per cent strategy, however, is an opportunity to square the circle — to win back power and then deepen our support by showing not telling.
It’s a narrow path to redemption, but it may be our last chance. Let’s hope we elect a leader with vision and guts to take it.
