The Labour Party swept to an impressive victory at the July General Election, overturning a catastrophic loss in 2019 to a 180-seat majority in 2024.
Whilst the victory was driven in part by winning back traditional Labour areas across the much-discussed ‘Red Wall’, the largest gains for the party were actually in the South of England where they gained 58 new seats, a greater number than they managed in either the North or the Midlands.
Combined with the Lib Dems gaining another 46 seats in the South, areas that have only ever been Conservative are now held by other parties. Labour took control of seats such as Worthing West in Sussex and Folkestone and Hythe in Kent, whilst the Lib Dems made strides across the region, including taking seats such as Tunbridge Wells.
For Labour, these results represent a stunning validation of its electoral strategy – it targeted resources in areas that previously would have never been thought realistic opportunities in previous campaigns, diverting budgets, tech support and campaigners from safe Labour seats in London and elsewhere.
However, winning in these unexpected areas might also be the source of problems for the new government over the coming years for three key reasons.
Firstly, whilst the size of the majority is significant, the result is not quite as comprehensive as it looks. Labour’s vote share increased just 1.6% on 2019, but translated that into a big win due to the effective targeting of votes and the intricacies of our ‘First Past the Post’ electoral system.
Maintaining the electoral coalition will be harder. According to polling, the number one reason people voted Labour across the country was to oust the Conservatives, and the party tapped into this with its one-word campaign slogan of ‘Change’.
However, there are now a record number of constituencies with a majority of less than 5,000 and Labour will have to deliver on its promise to make people’s lives better in order to hold those votes.
Secondly, the party’s national policy programme may find more opposition in the South. ‘Getting Britain Building’ is one of the party’s core missions, which will be driven by planning reform, a massive house-building programme and speeding up infrastructure, including lifting the moratorium on onshore wind.
Whilst these might be good prescriptions for delivering much-needed growth, the reality is that they will meet more opposition across the South, where planning applications are, statistically, more likely to be rejected and 49% of people are opposed to development in their local area. How newly-elected Labour MPs in the region deal with development in their constituencies will be interesting to watch.
Thirdly, with precarious majorities, how loyal will the MPs across the South behave over the next five years? To break from the constant reshuffling, the new Prime Minister has made it clear that he wants to keep Secretaries of State and Ministers in place for the full parliament if possible, which is a sensible policy for governing but weakens his power of patronage which is the usual tool used to keep discipline in the ranks.
For many MPs who are worried about holding their seat at the next election and with little prospect of reaching the Ministerial ranks, how much they decide to tow the party line could define the government’s prospects over the coming years. The public don’t like a divided party, as we have just seen in this election, so maintaining discipline will be both challenging and essential.
