Keir Starmer Warned Labour’s Mandate For Change Is Based On A ‘Time Bomb’
Labour’s majority in parliament is a ticking “time bomb”, according to a brutal new report – and not because a threat from the right.
Keir Starmer’s party may have won by a landslide in July, taking 411 seats while the Tories languish on just 121, but new findings from Labour-linked think tank Compass claims it still offers a weak mandate for change.
After all, it was a shallow victory as Labour actually won just a third of the popular vote, and that poses a major threat further down the line.
On Thursday, pollsters at Find Out Now put Nigel Farage’s populist Reform Party in second place behind the Tories with Labour in third – just five months after voters hit the ballot box.
But, Compass’s new findings, first reported in the Guardian, have found Labour should be more concerned about their lack of voter loyalty – just two in five who backed Labour in July said they would consider themselves to be Labour supporters – than pressure from the right.
That’s because around 48% of Labour’s voters in July said they would be likely to vote Green or Lib Dem in the future, compared to 23% who said they were more likely to go to Reform or the Tories.
Compass’s report Thin Ice claimed: “They won [in Red Wall seats] because they were not the Tories, because Tory voters stayed at home and because Reform split the regressive vote.
“The 2024 general election was a one-off event in which unprecedented Tory ineptitude met almost unparalleled Labour discipline, but without any deep expression of what, if any, change Labour was offering.”
The pollsters said: “The timidity of this strategy, resting on ‘not being the Tories’, is a time bomb.”
Compass’s director Neal Lawson told the Guardian Starmer should look to base a coalition on the progressive majority to bolster support.
Otherwise, he warned, “if Labour fails to deliver in government, its huge but fragile majority will crumble, sending us on a bullet train to the populist right.”
The report comes after a tumultuous first few months in office for Labour, including backlash to cost-cutting policies like changing winter fuel payments for pensions.
Starmer attempted to “relaunch” his government with six new missions last week.
He wanted to turn the focus onto pursuing clean energy, building more homes, recruiting more police officers, putting a greater emphasis on early years education, introducing higher living standards and reducing NHS waiting lists.
But, it looks like it will be a steep hill for Starmer to climb to get back on top, seeing as his net approval ratings are now on -29, according to pollsters at Ipsos.
