The Eternal Labour Vote

 

For over a century the Labour Party has wrapped itself in the noble language of solidarity and the grand old movement. It speaks endlessly of fighting for workers and lifting the downtrodden. Yet in many of the places where that message lands hardest the same families have voted Labour generation after generation and still find themselves stuck in the same precarious spot. Jobs come and go. Wages stay flat. The next paycheque's never quite secure. And still the red box gets ticked without question.

It's a remarkable habit. Grandparents voted Labour. Parents voted Labour. And now many of their weans vote Labour. The loyalty gets handed down like a family heirloom. Only this heirloom hasn't brought them any wealth or stability. It's brought continuity of a different kind. Continuity of reliance on benefits top-ups and temporary contracts. Continuity of hoping your next job lasts from one Christmas to the next.

So much so you start to wonder whether this is entirely accidental. A party that claims to exist for the working class has presided over generations in which large swathes of that class have not managed to become comfortably middle class. In parts of Scotland and in much of England and Wales entire communities have stayed loyal and also stayed poor. Secure well paid jobs that offer pensions and holidays and a feeling of moving forward have remained elusive.

If those communities suddenly found themselves in better circumstances would they still vote the same way? Prosperity tends to change your priorities, doesn't it? People that own their house and save to put their children through university (England), factoring in things like insurance, pension plans, mortgages, people with those responsibilities often start to notice things like tax rates. They ask different questions at election time. They drift towards parties that promise lower bills rather than bigger safety nets. Parties with policies geared towards accomodating genuine 'working' people. Labour knows this perfectly well.

So the uncomfortable question arises. Is it quietly convenient for the party that its heartlands remain dependent? A voter who has climbed out of poverty might become ungrateful. A voter who has never climbed out remains reliably grateful, and dependent, on things like child benefit, housing benefit, council tax reduction, disability benefit and all manner of other grants and benefits. The speeches about empowerment sound stirring on the conference stage. But genuine empowerment would risk losing the very people who keep their seats safe.

It's not a conspiracy in the cartoon sense. Nobody sits in a smoky room, tortoise planked on the middle of the table, while they all look at it and admire it's slow determined sense of progression and plot to keep people down. It's subtler than that. It's a system that rewards the maintenance of grievance more than the delivery of escape. Activists are mobilised with tales of struggle. Donors are reassured with promises of redistribution. And the voters themselves are told time and time again that it's only the Labour Party that really cares about them. And round and round we go.

The tragedy is that many of those voters are decent hardworking people that deserve far better than this inherited treadmill. They're not hostages in the literal sense. They're free to vote any way they want. But the emotional and cultural pull is immense. Breaking the habit probably feels like betrayal to many. Whereas staying will feel like loyalty.

In the end this whole arrangement suits the Labour Party down to the ground. A dependent voter base delivers power. Power delivers careers for the professional class that now run the party. The lawyers, the landlords, the wealthy trade union bosses with a clutch of side businesses. And the voter base stays dependent. It's not a scam in the vulgar sense of the word. It's simply an equilibrium that nobody in charge sees any advantage in disturbing.

Perhaps one day enough people will decide they've inherited enough poverty thank you very much. On that day Labour might finally have to offer something more than solidarity and warm, nostalgic stories about back in the day. It might have to offer actual advancement. Until then the old song will keep playing and the old vote will keep rolling in. Reliable as ever. Dependent as ever.