‘Marginal gains’

In the UK we are now in a world of multi-party politics, but very little of the debate around the races for Holyrood, the Senedd and town halls across the UK actually reflects this. Commentators may nod to the fact that more parties are competitive in these elections than ever before, but they then immediately revert to discussing historically low polling for the traditional ‘big two’ parties as if this is happening in a vortex. But with more options it is almost inevitable that no party will end up with polling in the low 40s or high 30s. Yet, this is still the expectation that shapes the conversation. 

Of course, commentators are not alone in this – many of the parties themselves have not adjusted their campaigning to deal with the world we’re in, not the one we’re used to. ‘Only X can beat Y’ has long been a feature of campaign messaging. But, as we saw in Gorton and Denton, the voters aren’t necessarily buying it. Seat by seat, they are aware that they are choosing between a wider range of options and are looking both at the message they want to send with their support as well as who they want to block.

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Within Labour, the debate has become focused on whether we should be trying to attract those we are losing to the Greens or those we are losing to Reform. But close your eyes and what you actually hear is a more classic debate about whether Labour should go right or left.

This is both a factional and geographical response. Labour, because of the breadth of our extraordinary 2024 win, is fighting challenges from both sides. So MPs who are facing a threat from Reform in smaller towns have very different political pressures from those facing Green threats in the cities.

Both Reform and the Greens have a ceiling on their vote. Their job is to offer a pure vision that will maximise turnout among those who buy into it. But in doing so, there are voters who are put off by their more extreme elements.

Labour, though, has always sought to be a party of broad support – a party that works for workers but that can also appeal to the middle class. That has always meant a broader – or, for some critics (both internal and external), less pure – offer.

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In crowded fields in both England and Wales, changes at the margin have the capacity to make a significant difference to the outcome. As challenger parties continue to purify their offer, they potentially lower the ceiling on their vote. This may be what we have been seeing with the, admittedly mild so far, decline in Reform’s polling. It may also be what we are seeing in the disquiet coming from some more traditional Green Party supporters, who did not back the party to champion left-wing populism but to give voice to their prioritisation of protecting the planet and our environment.

In Scotland the SNP are offering their own sly purity message. They are campaigning against the UK government rather than on their own record in Scotland. Well, they can’t really, can they? Drug deaths in Scotland remain the worst in Europe. Their PISA school rankings are declining. 5,000 people in Scotland are due to wait more than two years for an operation. In the much larger population of England, it’s 300.

So the SNP are hoping that in elections for Holyrood, voters will not think about the Scottish Parliament but the UK government. We know that they will claim that every single vote for them is a vote for devolution. But how can they make a case for devolution when they can’t make a case for running Scotland well as it is? This is the slight of hand the SNP are hoping to pull off. 

To deal with the world as it is, Labour does not need to think about how it can be more like the purist version of either the Greens or Reform in the same way that Scottish Labour – as you will see from our reporting this week – are not trying to out SNP the SNP. 

Instead, they need to think about how to appeal to the voters who are on the margins of both and are put off by those parties in their purest forms. They need to hammer the SNP on their failures in Scotland. Labour has to be the party that is talking about Scotland while the SNP gets trapped talking about anything else. 

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It will be at those margins that Labour has the best chance to get voters to give us more of a chance to deliver change at every level. Offering positive local offers in English councils and highlighting the work Labour is delivering in councils across England. Offering a positive account of our record in Wales. And being the Party that cares about Scottish jobs and services – not obsessed with their constitution and the UK government.