Rather than waiting for electoral reform before going their separate ways, Labour MPs have the opportunity to form multiple new parties early in this parliament. Each would be viable under first-past-the-post with some simple strategic discipline, while simultaneously building enormous pressure on the Labour leadership to bow to demands for electoral reform.
Why don’t the left leave?
Keir Starmer has made it very clear that Jeremy Corbyn and his allies and sympathisers are not welcome in the Labour party. The draconian suspension of the seven rebels on the two-child limit issue could cause many of that wing to wonder if it is worth hanging around in a party that Starmer and his allies are ruthlessly controlling.
If just ten left-wingers found a new party, they become the fourth largest party in the House of Commons and so will have much greater power than they have as an ignored corner of Labour’s parliamentary group. They will have a good chance of attracting union funding and a large proportion of the current and former Labour membership.
In reality, there will be many more than ten MPs who will judge they have no prospect of advancing their political careers in Labour while Starmer is in charge and face a real prospect of being deselected or expelled before the next election anyway.
Another new party for principled Labour MPs?
Starmer has presumably told his MPs that they must hold the line on the issues of Brexit and immigration if they are to hold off the Conservatives and Reform. He has however adopted positions on these issues which are fundamentally dishonest and could be described as appeasing rather than opposing the far-right.
Very few Labour MPs will be comfortable defending the positions that have been adopted, and many could enjoy the next four or five years of their lives much more if they felt free to tell the truth on these issues in particular.
Economic growth will only happen to the extent that is needed if Britain can rejoin the single market and customs union. The vast majority of Labour MPs will know and understand this but Keir Starmer has categorically ruled out both.
The far-right needs serious opposition in the form of people with power calling out their lies. Beyond being able to describe in detail and with compassion the realities of Britain’s immigration and asylum statistics and failures – so many Labour MPs would love to serve under a prime minister who could shout “Refugees are welcome here!” at an anti-fascist counter-protest. With Keir Starmer, they do not have that leader.
If this alternative messaging is not provided by a major party, the far-right rhetoric will continue largely unopposed, the economy will not grow enough, and our public services will not recover enough to calm public anger and the desire for radical change.
Scottish Labour
Scottish Labour’s electoral threat comes entirely from the left. All Labour’s Scottish MPs beat an SNP candidate into second place. Any attempts to protect Labour’s right flank are therefore only going to damage the prospects of their Scottish MPs. Recognising this, their Scottish leader, Anas Sarwar, called for the two-child benefit cap to be scrapped shortly after the election, but then saw all of Labour’s Scottish MPs vote with the whip to retain it.
Scotland clearly voted to remain in the EU, has a much more positive political rhetoric around immigration, is more supportive of electoral reform, and still sees independence support at around 50%. If Labour – as the second of only two realistic options for governing the UK under our current voting system – fails to grow the economy and maintain the goodwill of the UK electorate, a quick return to Conservative rule could put Scottish independence back on the agenda in a big way.
If Scottish Labour wants to appeal to Scottish voters and promote Scottish success and prosperity within the UK, then they should cut ties with Keir Starmer and take their own path. This could happen as part of the ‘principled’ grouping or as an independent Scottish Labour Party, but the risks of the status quo are far too high for Labour’s Scottish MPs to do nothing.
The Right know how to beat our electoral system
If Labour does not split, and the progressive parties’ electoral strategy does not change, there is a very real risk that the next election brings a Conservative-Reform coalition, especially if those parties arrange a non-aggression pact at the last minute.
The parties of the right are afforded the opportunity to do such pacts due to their lack of internal democracy. The progressive parties just do not have the strategic agility to quickly counter such a move. They absolutely need to be planning now to take the steps needed for the legitimate continuation of progressive rule. New splinter parties from Labour would be by far the most effective means of forcing electoral reform, and of shifting the centre of British politics rapidly and permanently in a progressive direction. The Liberal Democrats and Greens must also consider doing their part in standing aside candidates and deliberately splitting the Labour vote in strategic constituencies.
Our country’s future success depends upon the end of illegitimate majority governments governing from the right due to our completely discredited electoral system anchoring our politics in that space.
How can new parties of the left and centre-left thrive?
New progressive parties will always be faced with accusations of splitting the Labour or progressive vote, so all they need to do is stand candidates where it is safe or desirable to do just that.
Where it is safe to stand to win:
In Labour’s hundred safest seats (from Conservatives and Reform) new parties could arrange a non-aggression pact with the Green Party and each other, perhaps even using open progressive primaries, and stand only one candidate of the left/centre-left to be a genuine challenger to a cold and stilted Labour party.
Where it is desirable to stand to split the Labour vote:
The true electoral breakthrough of these new parties and the Greens can’t happen until electoral reform is achieved, so they must ensure Labour don’t achieve another illegitimate majority with a minority vote share. If they can be focused and disciplined outside Labour’s ‘safest’ seats, they should only stand – and split the Labour vote – in places where Labour wins would contribute to that illegitimate majority. If they look like being successful in Labour’s hundred safest seats, then the deliberate vote-splitting need only start again maybe in Labour’s dozen most vulnerable seats, continuing into the more marginal Conservative-held seats.
If these parties don’t look like winning in any of Labour’s safest seats, then they would need to start splitting the vote much earlier in Labour’s range of held seats, perhaps after Labour’s 300 most likely wins.
And this is the message that these parties take to voters: Engage with our primaries. Embrace our chosen candidates. Ensure Labour can’t govern again with nearly twice the number of MPs their vote share deserves. The more you embrace the parties of the left and centre-left in Labour heartlands, the less these parties will be incentivised to help Conservatives win against Labour in swing seats by standing their candidates there.
All this strategizing demonstrates that first-past-the-post is completely unfit for purpose, as parties of the left and right can easily deploy strategies in order to produce the outcomes they desire. An electoral system designed for two parties, is incredibly vulnerable to manipulation and perverse outcomes when there are five or more parties who can command over 10% of public support.
All Starmer needs to do to justify his necessary change of heart on electoral reform is point to the new, inevitable, right-wing leader of the Conservative party, flag up the obvious prospect of yet another electoral pact on the right (remember 2019), and state that first-past-the-post can’t be allowed to hand the far-right the keys to number 10 on a minority of the vote.
Electoral reform to what?
The Single Transferable Vote (STV), or a variation of it, is the only electoral system that should be considered for our political future. Ranked preference voting accurately captures animosity to the far-right, so appropriately suppresses their representation below that which would be sought if only first preferences were recorded.
In a political future in which there might plausibly be five national progressive parties and two parties of the right, the phenomenon of vote-splitting flips instead to the phenomenon of vote-dragging. A rich diversity of progressive voices, ensures a greater likelihood of there being something to appeal to nearly every progressive voter, causing a much higher progressive turnout. Voters who might previously have stayed at home in a safe seat might instead be motivated to rank their favourite progressive first, and then rank the other progressive candidates before the Conservatives and Reform.
Electoral reform should happen early in this parliament so that progressive MPs can amicably organise themselves into their different parties. MPs need to start providing the solutions they know the country needs, rather than keep pushing the non-solutions Keir Starmer thinks swing voters want. If electoral reform can’t be forced out of Keir Starmer early, then it can be all but guaranteed by the co-operative manipulation of the next election result by the parties of the left and centre-left.
It might get a bit messy for a while, but a richer, better politics surely awaits.
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