In the dying days of the last government, still steered by Rishi Sunak and his inner circle, the ailing Conservative Party was buffeted by intense bouts of internal conflict.
Factionalism and electoral failure rise and fall in lockstep. A reckoning at the ballot box, of which Sunak experienced many, is typically followed by a process of public introspection — as backbenchers collect and catastrophize. MPs proffer contrasting, often antagonistic, interpretations: divergent diagnoses of the government’s ills.
And lo, in the wake of last week’s local elections, a constellation of Labour caucuses, party factions and parliamentary groupings have gathered to dispute how the government can recover.
The voiced concerns, suggested simultaneously, are piling pressure on the government to reassess its policy programme and political rationale beyond. Taken together, they speak to steadily widening rifts within the Labour Party.
On Friday morning, the government line was advanced loyally by Labour Party chair, Ellie Reeves. “Change takes time”, Reeves told the BBC. “We know people aren’t feeling the full effects of that yet, we want to go further and faster.”
Speaking later on Friday, the prime minister conceded Labour’s loss by just six votes to Reform UK in the Runcorn and Helsby by-election was “disappointing”. He repeated Reeves’ “further and faster” line and, reflecting on the results in the round, insisted the government “gets it”.
In an op-ed for The Times, Keir Starmer said that while there is “real, tangible proof” that things are going in the right direction, “people aren’t yet feeling the benefits”.
He wrote: “The lesson of these elections isn’t that the country needs more politicians’ promises of ideological zealotry. It isn’t that there is some easy solution, as promised by our opponents. It’s that now is the time to crank up the pace on giving people the country they are crying out for.”
Health secretary Wes Streeting, who is often trusted with difficult media duties, toured the broadcast studios Tuesday as attention turned to the winter fuel payment.
Asked if there might be a change to the winter fuel payments policy in the coming period, Streeting told the BBC: “At this stage, ahead of a spending review or budget where those sorts of decisions are normally taken, I wouldn’t be close to those sorts of discussions as health secretary.
He added: “But I’m not going to insult your viewers, by the way, by pretending that winter fuel didn’t come up on the doorstep. Of course it did, and I know that people aren’t happy about winter fuel allowance in lots of cases.”
Other Labour lines are available.
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The Labour left on the local elections
MPs on the left of the Labour Party have been loudest in counselling the government to not simply readjust the pace of government (go “further and faster”) but to reconfigure its direction.
In a piece for PoliticsHome, Richard Burgon, a member of the Socialist Campaign Group of left-wing Labour MPs, wrote last Friday that “Labour’s defeat in Runcorn was entirely avoidable”.
Burgon, a frontbencher during Jeremy Corbyn’s tenure as Labour leader, added: “By pushing policies like cuts to disability benefits and scrapping the winter fuel allowance for millions, the leadership is driving away our own voters – and letting Reform squeeze through.”
“The Labour leadership must urgently change course and deliver the real change people are crying out for. If it fails to do so, things could get far worse, with Reform waiting in the wings.”
In an op-ed for LabourList, Nadia Whittome argued the government should not “double down on decisions that disproportionately harm working class communities and have resulted in these defeats”.
The Socialist Campaign Group MP added: “We will never out-Farage Farage on immigration – nor would it be morally right for us to attempt it. Most Reform voters support progressive policies on wealth redistribution, improving workers’ rights and nationalisation in some sectors, which are also popular with our base. These are the areas we should be focusing on.”
Diane Abbott, the former shadow home secretary, reacted by describing the direction of the government as “alarming”.
The mother of the House told ITV News: “Since we won the general election, we’ve done a series of actions which are the most painful for some of the most marginalised and poor communities. I hope that we will learn the lessons from what has happened, but if we don’t, we are going to find ourselves in a very politically vulnerable position. These aren’t just knee-jerk votes, these are votes that may not come back.”
Brian Leishman, an outspoken critic of the government elected in 2024, said that the party’s loss in Runcorn emphasised the need for Labour to “change course”.
He posted to X: “The arrogance [and] ignorance that Labour members or the wider electorate want more of the last ten months is seriously misguided.
“People voted for real change last July and an end to austerity. The first ten months haven’t been good enough or what the people want and if we don’t improve people’s living standards, then the next government will be an extreme right wing one.”
Kim Johnson, a member of the Socialist Campaign Group like aforementioned colleagues, responded: “Runcorn is a warning we can’t ignore. Voters want change – and if we don’t offer it with bold, hopeful policies that rebuild trust, the far right will.
“If we don’t step up now, the alternative won’t be more of the same — it’ll be an extreme right-wing government.”
Labour’s ‘soft left’
The most senior MP to break rank and criticise the government in the wake of the local elections is Louise Haigh, the former transport secretary.
Haigh, who is often associated with the mainstream “soft left” of the party, said Starmer had “failed to acknowledge any need to change course but simply committed itself to double down on the plan, whilst haemorrhaging votes to the parties of our left and right”.
Speaking to The Times, she called on the government to “rip up” the fiscal rules and its “self-imposed tax rules”.
She commented: “It is now urgent that we develop a vision and a strategy that is confident in our values, sets the terms of the debate and takes the fight to Reform, rather than letting the fight come to us. That is the only way to hold our perilous coalition together. I believe the only way to achieve that is through an economic reset, through ripping up our self-imposed tax rules and by a serious programme of investment and reindustrialisation.
“Voters are desperate for change and they’ve sensed from us that we’re not capable or interested in delivering it.”
The analysis echoes that advanced recently by Anneliese Dodds who, in a speech to the House of Commons last month, urged the government to “reassess” its fiscal rules and pledges on taxation.
The former international development minister, who attended cabinet before resigning over the foreign aid cut, told MPs: “Economically, I believe, as I set out in my [resignation] letter, that we must be prepared to reassess shibboleths, whether they be the fiscal rules, as Germany has done, or on taxation, especially when the very best-off have seen so little impact on their well-being from economic headwinds.”
Meanwhile, Clive Efford, who leads the large centre-left Tribune group of MPs, has declared that it is “madness” for the government to “keep doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome”.
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Blue Labour on the local elections
The resurgence of the culturally conservative but economically interventionist Blue Labour group in recent months has complicated the party’s factional balance.
Not long after digesting the local elections results last Friday, the group repeated calls for the government to, in effect, shift rightwards to thwart Reform.
In an op-ed for the Mail on Sunday, Dan Carden, leader of Blue Labour’s commons caucus, warned that the results were a matter of “life or death for this Labour government — and for the Labour Party”.
He claimed that people had had enough “of crumbling infrastructure and public services that don’t work.
“Enough of broken promises. Enough of a political class that listens to lobbyists and consultants, not citizens — and lets officials, lawyers and quangos overrule democratic politics.”
A onetime member of the Socialist Campaign Group, Carden added: “It was the working class that turned its back on Labour. In their eyes, the political establishment has for decades failed to provide a well-run health service, build the homes we need or control immigration and asylum.”
Jonathan Hinder, another leading Blue Labour MP, warned Starmer that it is “now or never” for him to convince traditional backers.
Writing for the Telegraph, he commented: “This week’s results should be the wake-up call we need.”
“But Labour has morphed into a hyper-liberal party more than a socialist party, such that secure borders and low immigration are seen as ‘Right-wing’ within its ecosystem of city-based activists, think tanks and associated organisations.
“This is existential for the Labour Party now. Our drift away from our working-class base has been decades in the making, and goes far deeper than the tenure of any one leader.
He added: “The voters know instinctively what the Left often refuses to acknowledge – immigration is fundamentally an economic issue as much as it is anything else, and working class people are generally the losers.
“Imagine for a moment, hard as it may be, that Labour pivoted sharply on immigration. A goal of roughly balanced migration – equal numbers emigrating as immigrating – was communicated and steadily delivered by the end of this parliament.
“This would return us to the more or less balanced net migration levels we had for decades.”
Writing in The Sun on Sunday, founder of Blue Labour Lord (Maurice) Glasman said voters have sent a May Day “distress signal” that must not be ignored.
He said: “Be under no illusions, this Labour government faces the same odium and fate as the Tories unless it acts decisively to lead the country in the right direction.”
He added: “Labour must repair the broken covenant it forged with the working class of this country.
“We must honour our tradition and return to our roots.”
He called on the government to “immediately leave the European Court of Human Rights” and “scrap the domestic Human Rights Act.”
The Red Wall group reacts
Jo White, chair of the Red Wall group, urged her party to “take a leaf” out of Donald Trump’s book and announce policies such as a national grooming gangs inquiry, a crackdown on immigration and investment in left-behind industrial heartlands.
White also condemned Labour’s winter fuel payment cut, declaring that it had become the party’s “poll tax”.
White founded the Red Wall group of around 35 Labour backbenchers shortly after entering the commons as the MP for Bassetlaw last year.
Members of the group represent traditionally safe Labour seats in the North and Midlands that swung to the Conservative under Boris Johnson in 2019 and are now being targeted by Reform.
In an article for the Telegraph, White said: “After a good kicking at elections, the usual and heavily anticipated response from the ruling party is that we are listening. But this isn’t going to wash. Labour needs a reset.
“Sir Keir Starmer has shown strong leadership internationally and he needs to start showing the same leadership in our own country and stop the Government pussyfooting around.
“He should take a leaf out of president Trump’s book by following his instincts and issuing some executive orders. This is leadership from the front.”
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The Labour right
In an article for PoliticsHome, Luke Akehurst argued that “the most effective way to burst Reform’s bubble will be for people voting Reform out of despair to feel better-off, and to feel that public services and the local economy are being improved by Labour.”
Akehurst, a longtime Labour official and activist on the party’s so-called “old right”, noted “Anger among pensioners about the means-testing of the winter fuel allowance” and “concern about illegal immigration” on the doorstep.
The secretary of Labour First reflected too on “concern about illegal immigration, and a lack of awareness of the actions we are already taking, such as deporting 24,000 illegal immigrants.”
Beyond and in between the factions
Senior Labour MP Liam Byrne has warned that chasing Reform voters could unravel Labour’s “progressive coalition”, which it must rebuild to win at the next general election.
Byrne, who serves as chair of the business and trade select committee, said: “There is plenty still to do fix our immigration system…
“This is about showing the state can work and delivering on procedural justice. What we cannot and must not do is jeopardise our duties under the ECHR, which in a world falling apart, is one of the legal frameworks that holds together what I’ve called the ‘rights-based order’ of nations.
“We need to be far, far more cautious about social security reform and any sense that we are slicing back disability benefits in an unthinking way or ditching our net zero ambitions is an error.”
The former cabinet minister, who served in Gordon Brown’s government, argued further in a Substack post: “Keir is right to say we need to go further, faster. But in doing so, we ought to be clear that we are determined to let Labour be Labour — and we plan to avoid doing the things that progressive, compassionate parties try to avoid, like increasing inequality, poverty and vulnerability.”
Elsewhere, Labour’s Jake Richard posted to X on Sunday: “Labour must take on Reform because it’s the party’s moral purpose, not simply for electoral reasons (which makes it a necessity).”
He cited “extraordinary data from last week’s elections: 61% of the most deprived wards were previously held by Labour. Now roughly 85% are held by Reform.”
Richards has been an outspoken advocate in parliament for Labour to do more to tackle the threat of Reform and crack down on illegal migration. He recently organised a letter, supported by the Labour Growth Group, the Red Wall Caucus and Blue Labour MPs, urging the government to introduce digital IDs. Digital IDs, Richards and colleagues argued, would boost productivity in delivering public services and crack down on illegal employment.
Connor Naismith, who has previously criticised the government’s welfare cuts, reflected that the local elections were a story “long in the marking”
He said: “This set of election results are just part of a story which is long in the marking. A story in which the historic link between the Labour Party and the working class communities it was formed to represent is fracturing.
“We can acknowledge it and resolve to fix it, or we can die.”
Emma Lewell, a Labour MP since 2013, contended that the government’s programme — from the winter fuel payment to the denial Waspi compensation, and the proposed welfare cuts — had squandered public “trust”.
She said: “Trust matters. If you promise people that you will be focused on serving the public and then do not listen to them, do not expect them to vote for you. People are fed up of politicians not doing what they say they will do.
“We inherited a mess, but we knew we would, so did the post-war government. It’s about choices. It is tone deaf to keep repeating we will move further and faster on our plan for change. What is needed is a change of plan.”
Josh Self is Editor of Politics.co.uk, follow him on Bluesky here.
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