Debate over Labour’s electoral performance under Ed Miliband and Jeremy Corbyn has been rekindled by the publication of Labour Together’s 2019 election review. The review’s commissioners argue that several trends lie behind the 2019 defeat, including dramatic changes in voting cleavages, a loss of support among the working class, and ongoing changes to the geographical distribution of Labour’s vote – including further losses to the SNP in Scotland.
The report also claims that a swing away from Labour in its heartland seats in England and Wales in 2017 foreshadowed the loss of many of these seats in 2019. Other commentators have pointed towards the loss of the ‘red wall’ as a pivotal moment in Labour’s electoral history. But there is an important issue which is underplayed by Labour Together (in an otherwise comprehensive report) and in the subsequent debate.
A complete analysis of the 2019 election result requires discussion of the complexity of the UK’s voting system, and the way it translates voting patterns into results. In this article we point out an important, yet underappreciated, outcome of the UK’s first-past-the-post system: while Labour’s national vote share fell in each of the general elections between 1997 and 2010, it is not the case that support for Labour fell between 2010 and 2019 – either nationally or in the lost ‘red wall’ seats.
