Could the Labour Party just disappear?
Precedent shows big political majorities like Labour’s are no cause for complacence – in fact, whole parties can even vanish in their wakes, writes Paul Ormerod
Could the Labour Party disappear? The Labour Party has been a prominent feature of British politics for a century. But could it now just vanish?
There is a clear historical precedent. In 1906, the Liberal Party won 399 seats in the House of Commons. It was a great, reforming government, which laid the foundations of the welfare state.
The Liberals provided the Prime Minister between 1906 and 1922. Yet in the general election of 1929, they obtained only 59 seats and lost all influence in British politics until the circumstances of 2010 brought the 56 Liberal Democrats into coalition.
In 1997, Tony Blair won 419 seats in the House of Commons with 45 per cent of the popular vote.
By the 2005 election, Labour’s vote share had dropped to just 35 per cent, only three percentage points in front of the Conservatives. Even though this percentage would have lost every other election since the Second World War, first past the post gave Labour a good majority.
Kier Starmer only received 33.7 per cent of the vote in the 2024 election. But the system worked even more strongly in his favour than it had done for Tony Blair in 2005, with Labour winning 411 seats.
So over the past 20 years, Labour has either been out of power or has won only thanks to the peculiarities of the voting system.
France, Italy and Germany all show it is possible
Parties similar to Labour in Western Europe have already been drastically diminished in importance in the 21st century.
The Parti Soclaliste (PS) in France is, like Labour, a centre-left party. For decades, it was one of the two largest parties in France. As recently as 2012, the PS won both the presidency and a majority in the French parliament. Now, it is a small minority party rather like the Lib Dems in the UK.
The Italian equivalent, the PSI, was formed in the late 19th century and for much of the next century was a major player in Italian politics. Now it is completely fragmented.
The SPD in Germany has perhaps the longest and most successful historical record of all the Western European social democrat parties. But in the federal election earlier this year, it secured only 16 per cent of the vote. It was third, behind not just its traditional centre-right rival, the CDU/CSU, but also the Alternative fur Deutschland.
There will of course be factors specific to each country as to why the social democratic party is struggling. But the fact that this has happened in many countries suggests there are common causes at work.
Social democratic parties like Labour have fulfilled their initial purpose
These parties were formed in the years around 1900. Despite the rhetoric, their purpose was never to overthrow the economic system of capitalism. It was to secure more of its huge benefits for the industrial workers who then dominated society.
The parties achieved this fundamental aim. By the middle of the 20th century, substantial welfare states and universal suffrage were firmly in place across Western Europe.
Subsequent elections were rarely fought on issues of ideology. They were basically won and lost on competence, or rather which party was perceived to be the more competent at the time.
The relatively recent decline of social democrat parties has been due to their gradual takeover by middle class activists holding luxury beliefs, ones for which they themselves do not have to suffer the consequences. Unlimited immigration is an example.
In France, Italy, Germany, even in countries like Sweden, social democratic parties became detached from their historical core support. Most of this has already gone to populist parties of the left and right.
The opinion polls in the UK today simply reflect what has already happened across much of Western Europe. In politics as in business, go woke, go broke.
Paul Ormerod is an honorary professor at the Alliance Business School at the University of Manchester and an economist at Volterra Partners LLP