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Starmer's first electoral defeat to Johnson once again shakes up British Labor

2021-05-09T03:01:42.730Z


The conservatives sweep in the municipal elections and in the town of Hartlepool, historic fiefdom of the left for half a century


Labor leader Keir Starmer dodges the media this Friday at the entrance of his London residence. DPA via Europa Press / Europa Press

The first major election date in the UK since British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the Conservative Party achieved a landslide victory in December 2019 has given the leader a breather, and revealed that the Labor opposition, and its leader Keir Starmer have a serious trust problem with their traditional voters.

Polls had already anticipated a wide right-wing lead in all of England's municipalities where more than 48 million citizens were called to the polls, but it was their victory in the north-east coast town of Hartlepool that has ignited all the alarms on the British left.

Hartlepool held what is known in British political jargon as a

by-election,

the election

replacement of a deputy for the House of Commons, in the middle of the current legislature. The one who represented that constituency in Westminster until now, Mike Hill, had to resign to face serious accusations of sexual harassment. Since 1974, when it became an electoral boundary, the Labor Party had comfortably retained this post. It is part of the region of northern England known as "the red wall", the traditional fiefdoms of the left that Johnson managed to conquer for the conservative cause, thanks mainly to his Brexit speech, almost a year and a half ago. This vote had thus become the way to check if the victory of the conservative politician was circumstantial, or marked a trend of change. For the new Labor leader, Starmer,It was his first challenge at the polls after having begun to distance himself from the left-wing radicalism that was the stage of his predecessor in office, Jeremy Corbyn.

More information

  • Moderate Keir Starmer replaces Jeremy Corbyn as British Labor leader

  • Labor defends one of its fiefdoms in Eurosceptic Sunderland

And after more than a year of terrible pandemic, when the successful vaccination campaign begins to generate some hope among the population, the voters have spoken forcefully: the conservative candidate of Hartlepool, Jill Mortimer, has obtained almost 7,000 more votes than his Labor rival, Paul Williams.

"Labor for a long time thought this constituency was theirs, and what I heard from the neighbors, door-to-door, was that they were fed up," Mortimer said shortly after his victory was confirmed.

The Labor leader dodged without responding to the mass media outside his London residence on Friday. He was to meet with his team to discuss the results and prepare a response, which they have promised to have ready as the day progresses. Starmer has barely been in charge of the party for a year, but the special conditions in which he has had to face the polls aggravate his internal situation. Typically, voters use replacement elections such as Hartlepool to punish the current government, if it has given them reason to do so. Johnson's erratic management of the pandemic, and the scandal in recent weeks surrounding the cost of decorating his private residence in Downing Street, would have been reason enough to give the current prime minister and his party a serious blow.The opposite has happened, and in a territory that was key to demonstrating that Starmer's turn had been the correct one.

"The Labor Party has not yet been forgiven for losing its way over the past decade," lamented on the BBC Peter Mandelson, the ideologue and creator of Tony Blair's New Labor, who held the Hartlepool seat for 12 years. "This party does not know how to learn from its defeats, but what is worse, it does not know how to learn from its past victories," added Mandelson, who blames what happened in part on the inheritance of the confused Labor position during the Brexit debate, But he believes that the causes of the schism must also be sought in the "social and cultural division" that arose between the urban leaders of the formation and an electoral base with more traditional sentiments.

Corbyn's allies who were displaced after Starmer's arrival have begun sharpening their knives. Some have come to demand his resignation, but the majority demand above all that he recover the "radicality" of the party's proposals in recent years. "We must go back to campaigning at a very local level and organizing neighborhoods and communities," said John McDonnell, who was

Corbyn's

number two

, gray brain of the left during those years and creator of the economic proposals of the formation. "Many of the approaches that are being defended are not radical enough, in areas where the level of poverty and low wages is tremendous."

The team built around the new leader has admitted unmitigated defeat, but has been quick to defend Starmer's continuity. It is not he who must be replaced, but the party that must change dramatically, after years of Corbyn. And in one year that change cannot occur. "We are doing it, but not fast enough to regain the confidence lost in recent years," admitted Steve Reed, one of the regular spokesmen of the formation in its new stage.

Source: elparis

All news articles on 2021-05-09

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