Must Labour Win?
| Author | Peter Geoghegan |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/20419058231167259 |
| Published date | 01 March 2023 |
| Date | 01 March 2023 |
MARCH 2023 • POLITICAL INSIGHT 3
Must Labour
Win?
In 1960, Mark Abrams, Richard Rose
and Rita Hinden published the
provocatively-titled
Must Labour Lose?
The question mark was well-placed.
Labour had lost three successive general
elections and many inside – and outside –
the party were wondering if Labour had a
future.
Sixty years later, Keir Starmer took over a
Labour Party at a similarly low ebb. Labour
had lost four elections in a row. Opinion
polls showed it trailing far behind a Boris
Johnson-led Conservative government
that had been in power for a decade.
What a difference a few years – and a
succession of scandals – makes. Starmer
entered 2023 as the bookie’s favourite to
become the next British prime minister.
Labour’s lead in some polls has been
well over 20 points. Already, high-profile
Conservative MPs have announced that
they will not be contesting their seats at
the next general election.
But is Starmer a shoo-in for Number
10? Or rather than Blair’s epochal 1997
triumph, could the next general election
be 1992 all over again?
While Starmer is riding high, even his
staunchest defenders would admit that the
Labour leader has struggled to set out a
clear vision for Britain. In this issue’s cover
feature, Victoria Honeyman asks whether
Starmer’s party could pay a price for this
cautious approach.
The House of Lords is one issue that
Starmer has staked a clear position on.
If Labour win the next election, he has
publicly pledged to abolish Britain’s second
chamber as part of a wider package of
constitutional reforms.
House of Lords reform has long been
a hot political topic, with various leaders
promising to radically shake up a legislative
that can appear at best anachronistic, at
worst a retirement home for political cronies.
But, as Ben Williams explains, abolishing
the House of Lords is a politically fraught
business.
Candidate selection is one issue that is
bound to cause the Labour Party hierarchy
sleepless nights in the coming months. In
February, nine leading Labour members
in the swing seat of Bolton North East quit
after accusing a ‘London clique’ of dictating
the selection process for a parliamentary
candidate.
Such battles over candidate selection
are nothing new in British politics. Paula
Keaveney analyses the often chaotic
and daunting journey that prospective
parliamentary candidates face to be
selected and asks if it is ever possible to
select a perfect candidate.
Whatever candidates are selected to
fight the next general election, one thing
seems certain: the vast majority will be
‘local’. As Philip Cowley, Robert J. Gandy
and Scott Foster report, MPs increasingly
represent the same region as their
birthplace. But would Parliament be better
off if ‘are you local?’ was a less pressing
concern for voters?
Another issue that voters are increasingly
vexed by is MPs’ financial interests outside
politics. In the wake of scandals over MPs’
second jobs – most notably the Owen
Paterson affair – Sophie Stowers looks at
the rules around parliamentarians’ outside
interests and analyses the prospects for
significant reform in the future.
The regular Last Word slot focuses on
a policy that has fallen off the political
agenda under Prime Minister Rishi Sunak:
‘levelling up’. As Lawrence McKay argues,
the Conservatives’ once flagship policy
was always bound to fail as it was based
on patronage and pork-barrel politics that
risks alienating voters further.
Away from the UK, Alex Waddan analyses
November’s midterm election results in the
United States and looks at the prospects
of Democrats and Republicans ahead of
the 2024 presidential election. Meanwhile,
Mahrukh Doctor examines the state of
Brazilian democracy in the wake of the
insurrection that followed Jair Bolsonaro’s
defeat in last October’s presidential
election.
Brazil is not the only country in which
the future of democracy itself has been
in question. With polls from around the
world suggesting waning support, is liberal
democracy really in trouble? And what can
be done to change this? Daniel Devine
investigates.
Elsewhere, Helen Drake reports from
France where Emmanuel Macron has faced
an uphill battle over his controversial
pension reforms. The French President –
now in his second, and final term of office
– also faces challenges from the left and
the right.
Our In Focus slot this week focuses on
a global industry with a deadly footprint:
the international arms trade. Examining
trade flows in weapons and armaments,
Benjamin D. Hennig asks whether the
global arms trade is just about making
money or is it more about wielding power
and influence.
2023 is only a few months old but
already it is shaping up to be another
tumultuous political year. Whatever
happens,
Political Insight
will be there,
bringing you expert research, analysis and
commentary on the issues that matter.
Peter Geoghegan
Editor
Political Insight March 2023 BU.indd 3Political Insight March 2023 BU.indd 3 27/02/2023 13:4927/02/2023 13:49
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