In the 2024 general election campaign, both major parties seem intent on being as grimly, greyly unadventurous as possible. Moments of farce aside, the dearth of talking points has at times made me feel weirdly nostalgic for the heady days of late 2019, when talk of the “collapse of the red wall” dominated a rather more dramatic contest. Nearly five years on from the upheavals of 2019, what has happened to the “red wall” which became such a defining psephological cliche of that moment?
In fact, while the “red wall” phrase has somewhat fallen out of fashion, the idea that Labour’s electoral success depends on its ability to win back imagined hordes of socially conservative voters in the distant north and Midlands remains central to the party’s self-image. While coherent Labour policy announcements have been rather thin on the ground lately, the mood music of Starmerism – if such a thing exists – is dominated by themes of security, patriotism, toughness on immigration and the fact that Keir Starmer’s father was once a blue-collar worker. All of this apparently in the hope of appealing to a “white working class” whose heartlands lie in a vague northerly terrain called something like Outside the London Bubble.
But is Labour right to put so much time and energy into winning back the proverbial red wall voter? In fact, it is questionable whether this electoral specimen existed in the first place. As the political philosopher Martin O’Neill has argued, one of the problems with first past the post is that “the spectre of the swing voter in the marginal constituency hangs over everything”.
In other words, the importance of marginal seats in deciding British election results may be real. But the obsession with winning them can give rise to an exotic menagerie of “spectral” figures – from Mondeo man to Whitby woman – who come to dominate election narratives, determine manifestos and media campaigns, and ultimately personify massive geographical areas such as the red wall.
The reality, it should go without saying, is far more nuanced. It is, of course, possible to find countless individuals throughout the north and Midlands who conform to the cliche of the red wall voter (more or less: a working-class, former Labour loyalist with conservative views on culture war topics who lives in a post-industrial area and backed Brexit in 2016).
But it does not follow from this that former Labour strongholds that turned blue in 2019 are necessarily filled to bursting with such voters – and neither does this mean that Labour should orient its national strategy around a set of traditionalist values it imagines will placate them. Such an approach is deeply unrepresentative of the whole electorate in these seats (as nationally), and terminally unsuited to a moment in which bold, substantive socioeconomic policies are desperately needed to reverse the effects of Tory austerity and avert the threat of climate catastrophe.
Beyond the still pervasive cliches about red wall voters, a complex, ever-evolving electoral geography is evident in the north and Midlands. And surely, especially given the strong likelihood of a large Labour majority, Starmer’s party can afford to represent the diversity of these constituencies rather than endlessly tacking right to please their median archetypes.
While some voters in northerly post-industrial areas have drifted to the right in recent years, many others have stuck stubbornly to the left (as underlined by the fact that Labour won a majority of seats in the north even under Jeremy Corbyn in 2019). Some rural and exurban areas with filled-in mines and obsolete factories, such as parts of the Tyne valley, have undergone a subtle demographic shift over the past few decades, such that they now contain large numbers of left-leaning, socially liberal younger voters (a development which seems likely to contribute to a first Tory defeat in the Hexham constituency in more than a century).
Elsewhere in the north-east, a similar process combined recently with discontent among Muslim voters at Labour’s stance on the war in Gaza to lead to major Green party breakthroughs in the May council elections in South Tyneside and formerly industrial quarters of Newcastle. Many voters in such places are unlikely to be impressed by Starmer’s obsession with portraying Labour as the party of national security and his tepid support of the rights of Palestinians.
Finally, there is the crucial fact that even voters who appear to conform to the red wall stereotype might in fact be far more radical than they have been made out to be. If politicians and the media continually repeat mantras about the “white working class” being left behind by multiculturalism and unfettered wokery then, funnily enough, those sorts of opinions will tend to be echoed back at them by large portions of the electorate.
But in classic red wall areas such as Bolsover and Blyth, what has often made people feel truly left behind is the decline of public services and the dwindling of employment opportunities after more than four decades of neoliberal economic policy. Might there not be something to be said for Labour promising traditionally socialist voters in these traditionally socialist areas a traditionally socialist response?
As Labour heads for a probable very strong showing in 2024, there is likely to be much talk of the “rebuilding of the red wall”. But if Starmer assumes that a revival in the north and Midlands has been won with patronising, small-c conservative messaging aimed at a reductive idea of what the plurality of people in these regions really want, he risks taking them for granted, as did several of his 21st-century Labour predecessors. Next time round, without the benefit of an imploding opposition, such complacency may well come back to haunt him.
Alex Niven is a lecturer in English literature at Newcastle University and the author of The North Will Rise Again
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The North Will Rise Again by Alex Niven (Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, £12.99). To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
