Hartlepool, dead New Labour and the threat to the Union from Tory English nationalism

In the end, it wasn’t even close in Hartlepool. The Tories now have a majority of 6940 in a place that used to be the embodiment of what it was to be a solid Labour safe seat. The crushing defeat dished out by voters on Thursday is a disaster for Labour that completes the long, slow death of the New Labour modernisation project, a process that may yet kill the Union if Scottish voters conclude that England will never again vote in a non-Tory UK government, or at least not for the foreseeable future.

Hartlepool is significant because of what it symbolises. Arch-moderniser Peter Mandelson was MP for a traditional seat from 1992 until 2004. In the 1990s and early 2000s in seats like Hartlepool a fusion took place. London far-left loonies never understood the potency and appeal of New Labour to Labour people. Labour voters from Hartlepool to Hamilton, from Swansea to Springburn loved, absolutely loved, to see their side winning again on the back of attracting swing voters. Until the aftermath of Iraq, Labour voters relished the Blair-Brown partnership, with its breezy patriotism and commitment to higher spending on public services. At their best, the pair blended modernity (Blair) with an appeal to the roots of Labourism (Brown). They did it so successfully electorally – on a pan-UK basis – that for a while it was fashionable to ask if the Tories would ever win power again.

That all seems like a long time ago because it is. Tony Blair was 68 this week. Next year will be the 25th anniversary of the party’s 1997 landslide.

Labour now is unloved in the so-called Red Wall and locked out in Scotland. In Wales there are signs of hope in the Assembly results, but that’s about it.

They have become the nothing party, when Tory English nationalism dominates in England and Scottish nationalism rules Scotland.

Indeed, English and Scottish politics have diverged so sharply since the peak of new Labour that they are now opposites, but opposites with weirdly similar characteristics. In both countries, an incumbent, permanent government dominates headed by a marmite leader, facing a divided opposition. In England, the opposition is split between Labour, the Lib Dems and, in future perhaps, the Greens. In such circumstances, the Tories win. In Scotland, the opposition is split between the Tories, Scottish Labour, and the Lib Dems. Against divided Unionists the SNP wins.

Although that is bad for Labour, the Tories celebrating should remember that if – if – they care about keeping the Union then the collapse of Labour is bad for Unionism too. The Union needs many things but perhaps most of all it needs some kind of revival of the Labour Party, otherwise Scots will conclude there is no plausible route to a government in which Boris Johnson or his successor is not in Number 10. Theoretically, the Tories could replace him on the basis that he is bad for the Union. That looks unlikely when he is a runaway winner in England. It is also difficult to see how a Labour revival can happen when swing voters on both sides of the border are not minded to even listen to the party.

Looking understandably stressed by all this, Sir Keir Starmer said today that he understands the deep, historic seriousness of his party’s predicament. The trouble is, he’s trapped. In party management terms he is caught between the sensible voters Labour needs to reach and the left – the vocal elements of the party membership and their representatives in the parliamentary party, too many of them consumed by knee-taking wokery and sanctimony.

There is a lot of talk about those voters now, and what they want. Some say it is about levelling up and spending on infrastructure, and that desire for investment is certainly part of it. At root, though, it is surely about positive patriotism, as distinct from negative nationalism.

Those voters have concluded that Labour doesn’t like the country. Britain and England have numerous problems, like any country. This is still, all things considered, a pretty fantastic place to be a part of. Yet in 2017 and 2019 the London-based Labour party had such contempt for the country that it attempted to give it a terrorist-backing Prime Minister and a Marxist maniac Chancellor. This will not have been forgotten and will not be for some time. Even since 2019, Labour while trying to change under Starmer has too often looked bossy, glum, out of touch.

This weekend, the Tories are triumphant. A remarkable realignment has taken place in which David Cameron’s wish of 15 years ago that the Tories would stop being divided on Europe has come true. Britain has left the EU and the Tories have unified the Brexit vote – in England – building an extraordinary coalition of interests that is geographically and electorally well-distributed. This translates into seats and a majority of 80. They’re back – in England.

I recall having dinner in 1997 with a Number 10 advisor and Brian Wilson, then a Labour MP and a formidable anti-devolutionist realist. His opposition to devolution was based on a fear of what would happen if a Scottish Parliament gave the SNP power. It has panned out pretty much as he feared.

It was daft to write off the Tories he told the man from Number 10. Hubristic talk that they would never govern again was silly, he said. It’s the Tories, they’ll reorganise somehow and eventually win again. They have now done this, but in the way I described, as the party of England. Without very careful decision-making, cooperation and fresh ways of thinking about the relationship, the new English political reality is going to make holding the Union together difficult.