A Labour Determined to Make Themselves Unpopular?

Just months after gaining a massive electoral victory, (securing 411 seats, with 20% of the nation’s voters), Labour’s popularity appears to be shrinking; down to 4% in early September according to More in Common. 

Public sector wage rises of 4.5%-5% with health workers and railway staff getting much more seems to have headed off industrial action for the immediate future. 

Offers of £70k pa to train drivers does not sit well alongside the cutting of pensioners’ winter fuel payments. It is being touted that the budget will remove the single person’s council tax discount and given that roughly 50% of those receiving the discount are pensioners this has caused no little disquiet

This might be behind Labour’s lack of success in recent council byelections.

In Worthing Borough Council’s Marine ward, (a seat with probably a larger number of older voters) the Tories took the seat with a swing of 12% from Labour. The Tories overturned a Labour majority of 56%.

Closer to home, in West End ward, Westminster, the Tories took the seat with a swing of 9.5% from Labour. On this occasion, it seemed that Mayor Khan’s proposals for pedestrianisation had a significant influence. Labour’s plans do not seem to be popular with the people who live there.

In Gedling, a seat won by the Tories in 2019 but lost in July 2024, the Tories took back the council ward with a 14.3% swing away from Labour.

To add insult to injury, the Lib-Dems took a council seat in Bromsgrove with a 27% swing away from Labour.

In Hartlepool, Reform UK upset the pundits as they pressured Labour in a seat where the Tories were not standing. Labour's vote fell by 7 points and Reform’s vote jumped up by 23.9%.

In Newham, the opposition is largely green. That is, the Green Party, (what used to be the party of environmental protection and now seems to be the party of gender confusion) and the other greens, those motivated by religion. The most dynamic of those opposed to Labour are clearly Newham Independents, who, despite asserting that they are open to all, seem to be dominated by a certain section of the south Asian community.

The July by-elections were undoubtedly good for Labour in Newham. Unless there is some sort of major scandal, we shouldn’t expect many more by-elections, (seven is enough for any four-year term).

But what will be the effect on the council elections in 2026? Gaza is unlikely to have the same resonance in18 months’ time, but Cllr Mirza showed that campaigning on bread-and-butter issues when the council delivers poor services and increases taxes can be just as effective.

Labour can mobilise in a way that none of the other parties can match. Are the opposition parties doing the groundwork now to prepare for 2026, if so, the author has not seen it. Are they going to target their activities and pursue a consistent message? Probably not.

But then, we saw in Leeds, that a Green-Green Alliance is clearly a possibility. An unpopular national Labour government and an unpopular local Labour administration might see some surprising results locally.