More UK Lessons For Labour Party In New Zealand

Thursday, 6 February 2025, 3:23 pm
Opinion: Ian Powell

Recent reputable opinion polls suggest that, contrary to both historical precedent and most people’s expectations (including mine), the chances of the National-ACT-NZ First coalition being a one-term government are now around 50:50.

This is extraordinary. The last one-term government was 50 years ago (Labour, 1972-75) although National were only just re-elected in 1978 election by a whisker.

Since proportional representation was introduced in the 1996 election, the governments have been either National or Labour led for three or two terms.

Jacinda Ardern: in February 2020 it was 50:50 over whether she would be a one term prime minister

The qualification is that at the beginning of 2020 it was looking to be about 50:50 whether Labour would lead the next government after having been elected in 2017. However, its successful handling of the Covid-19 pandemic led to its massive victory in the election later that same year.

What is unprecedented, however, is that I can’t recall the main party leading a government falling below 30% in a reputable poll after only around 15 months in office.

What we now in effect have is an unpopular government running neck-and-neck with an unpopular former government. In other words, an unpredictable, unusual and unappealing election next year.

While Labour is no doubt pleased to be in this unexpected position, caution is required. Labour’s popularity has marginally improved; National’s has significantly declined. If Labour wants to lead the next government it is going to learn a few lessons.

Understanding an electoral landslide unreflective of unpopular will

Last September Labour leader Chris Hipkins went to the United Kingdom to learn from the British Labour Party following its election victory two months earlier. The victory was misleadingly called a landslide.

I argued in an earlier Political Bytes post (24 September) that this was not smart politics:

Careful what you ask for Labour Party: following UK Labour not smart politics – Political Bytes

Although Labour had a parliamentary seats landslide winning 412 out of the 650 seats, it was not a mandate landslide. Instead it was the consequence of the quite different and unproportional ‘first-past-the-post’ electoral system

In particular:

• Labour won 64% of the seats with 34% of the vote, the smallest ever vote share for a party taking office. Polls before the election were reporting over 40% support.
• Turnout, estimated at 59%, was at its lowest since 2001 (and before that, 1885).
• Labour’s total number of votes fell to 9.7 million, down from 10.3 million in 2019.
• The Conservatives plunged from 44% to 24% while the far-right Reform UK surged from nowhere to 14% of the vote (but only four seats). The combined Conservative–Reform vote, at 38%, was bigger than Labour’s share.
• Five new independent candidates opposing the genocide in Gaza were elected, including former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn who defeated his Labour rival with a large margin.
• Labour actually lost some seats. It also had big majorities in other seats slashed, including its leader and now prime minister Keir Starmer.

Keir Starmer led Labour’s sharp turn from the left to the right

Behind British Labour’s popularity decline

A big part of the reason for Labour’s declining popular vote was its sharp turn to the right and abandoning transformational policies focussed on ‘for the many, not the few’. Many left-wing members were purged and Labour suffered a significant membership loss.

When Jeremy Corbyn was its leader in 2019 Labour’s membership was 532,000. Under Starmer’s leadership, by the end of 2023 it had fallen by a massive 30% to 370,450.

Whereas Labour was advantaged by electoral disproportionality in 2024, it was disadvantaged by it in 2019.

Rather than between two main parties of the left and the right, Starmer’s leadership led to the 2024 election to be a contest between the challenging right and the defending hard right.

I concluded my above-mentioned post by advising Chris Hipkins and the Labour Party to recognise that:

UK Labour’s parliamentary majority is not a reflection of popular will. Instead it is a reflection of an undemocratic electoral system. Hence, contrary to appearances, Labour’s majority has an inherent fragility within it.

Realisation of inherent fragility

Since British Labour’s win last July, like Christopher Luxon, the new prime minister Keir Starmer had an unusual experience. He never had a discernible post-election ‘honeymoon’ (ie, post-election poll boost).

Nigel Farage’s far right Reform party the beneficiary

Less than seven months later Reuters (4 February) reported a YouGov poll revealing in stark form how much the Labour government’s “inherent fragility” has come home to roost:

Nigel Farage’s right-wing party leads for first time in new UK poll | Reuters

Reflecting public discontent with Starmer’s government, the poll revealed that if an election were held in early February, 25% of British voters would choose Reform, 24% would pick Labour, and 21% would vote for the Conservatives.

In other words, Labour had lost about 10% from its election night result while Nigel Farage’s simplistic far right populism has reaped the benefits of this discontent. Too many saw Labour as being more for the few than the many.

It is as if Labour’s transition from the left to the right has set the foundation for a transition from a government of the right to a government of the far right and hard right.

Labour’s call to make

While recognising that the current Luxon government is less than halfway through its term (and even a week is a long time in politics), with the New Zealand Labour Party now looking to have, give or take, a 50:50 chance of leading the next government it needs to learn from this UK experience.

Can Chris Hipkins’ Labour be transitional for the many or transitional for the far right

Does it want to be transformational in a way that delivers tangibly for the many rather than the few in areas such as incomes, taxation, environment, housing, health (a mea culpa for botching up the health system when it was in government would not go astray) and education.

Or is Labour content with being a transition from the current hard right government to one led by the far right?

Labour is not in my view a left-wing party. Instead it is a social liberal technocratic party cloaked in elitism. Social liberal values are good but not enough (economic justices is even more determinative than social justice).

If Labour genuinely wants to be tangibly transformative for the many rather than just the few, it must go beyond social liberalism, see through a wider lens than technocratic, and get rid of its elitism.

© Scoop Media

Ian Powell

Otaihanga Second Opinion is a regular health systems blog in New Zealand.

Ian Powell is the editor of the health systems blog 'Otaihanga Second Opinion.' He is also a columnist for New Zealand Doctor, occasional columnist for the Sunday Star Times, and contributor to the Victoria University hosted Democracy Project. For over 30 years , until December 2019, he was the Executive Director of Association of Salaried Medical Specialists, the union representing senior doctors and dentists in New Zealand.

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