Labour's arrogance just blew up in their faces: and Starmer still isn't listening
As the local election results come in, it’s looking like carnage for both the Tories and Labour as the political pendulum has swang seriously to the far-right. But while the Conservative collapse was long expected, the real story today is Labour’s spectacular failure to seize the moment, and their breathtaking arrogance in thinking they could. The leadership has coasted for months on a simple strategy: say as little as possible, look 'sensible,' and hope the country’s hatred of the Tories would do the heavy lifting. Where they have acted it has been punitive, except of course to the rich. No vision. No courage. No urgency. Just an assumption that people would fall in line because 'where else would they go?'
So as the results come in no one is surprised, except possibly the Labour Party. If we are to analyse this objectively, these are the shires - where Labour traditionally don't do that great. That said, it's less than a year since they took a huge majority in Westminster and it's hard to defend what is up until now a piss poor record nationally with attacks on the poor and most vulnerable and an outright refusal to tax the rich. No solace can be taken by this, to say it's not Labour heartlands means nothing because after 2019 there are no Labour heartlands. And it can't be ignored that for whatever reason: ideology, bigotry, ignorance, political illiteracy, racism or simply people just having enough of this shit, Reform are hoovering up the disenfranchised.
In the constituency election for Runcorn and Hemsby it's was a fag papers difference, Labour lost Runcorn by six votes to yet another Reform UK Ltd MP who no doubt will be as invisible in Parliament as the others. Labour had moderate success at the mayoral elections managing to take or keep Doncaster, the West of England (which is not the West of England at all, just the metropolitan area of Bristol) and North Tyneside. In all cases Reform were a close second. In North Tyneside it was less than 500 votes and Doncaster 600. Greater Lincolnshire was taken by Reform literally by a country mile with the Reform six figure vote almost doubling the rest.
So today they have their answer: Reform UK Ltd, are clearly going to be the winners of the day, with our own Poundstop Trump, the Frog-Faced Fuhrage whooping like a gibbon at the Runcorn count anyone and people expressing their voting discontent locally against the two major parties shifting the pendulum to the right. If Labour’s leadership had been listening instead of lecturing, they would have seen this coming.
If anything screams Starmer's centrist experiment has fucked up, it's County Durham having a landslide victory for far right. Slow hand clap you useless fuking product of a toolmaker
Starmer has form for not listening
This isn’t the first time Starmer's political arrogance has helped drive Labour into the ditch. In 2019, Labour’s annual conference, its sovereign decision-making body, had agreed that the party would respect the Brexit vote and campaign on a platform of leaving the EU with a softer, worker-focused Brexit. It was a delicate compromise, designed to hold together Labour’s fragile coalition between Red Wall towns, inner cities, and progressive Remainers.
But the spin over substance arrogant POS that is Starmer thought he knew better.
He spent months openly undermining that position, pushing Labour toward backing a second referendum, a move that alienated millions of Leave voters in Labour’s northern and Midlands heartlands. Many of these voters weren’t die-hard Tories. They were ordinary working-class people who felt sneered at, ignored, and abandoned. They watched Labour tear up its promises, and they turned away.
When the Brexit Party surged to victory in the 2019 European Elections, despite having no policies at all, it was a giant red warning light. But Starmer ignored it. Or worse: he saw it, and pressed ahead anyway.
The result? Labour’s catastrophic collapse at the 2019 General Election. Red Wall seats that had been Labour for generations turned blue, handing Boris Johnson a landslide.Was this a mistake born of arrogance, or a ruthless strategy to destroy Corbyn, clear the path for a leadership bid, and drag Labour rightwards? Who knows? But either way, the lesson is the same: Starmer doesn’t listen. He acts as if voters, and even his own party, are obstacles to be managed, not people to be represented.
The Red Wall Isn’t coming back without change
Across the so-called Red Wall, towns built on industry, solidarity, and generations of Labour loyalty, the betrayal is not forgotten. People aren't switching because they’ve 'gone right-wing.' Though of course the result is that this happens by default
They’re switching because they look at Labour and the Tories and ask: "What’s the difference?" In these places:
- The high streets are boarded up.
- The NHS is collapsing.
- Council services are gutted.
- Young people are moving away — and not coming back.
Labour offers no bold plan to rebuild these communities. Just tired technocratic language and 'fiscal discipline' from Rachel in Account. Talk designed to please bankers, not rebuild Britain. People wanted transformation and they got Tory Lite.
Labour offered management-speak. The anger you see now, spilling into Reform UK Ltd votes, is not love for Nigel Farage. It’s a howl of abandonment.
It's easy to dismiss Reform voters as thick as mince, and to be fair a lot of them are, but when the mainstream parties offer no solutions then voters will look elsewhere.
A crisis of Labour’s own making
The rise of Reform UK Ltd is a tragedy for Britain. Their record, if it’s anything like UKIP’s local government disaster, will be chaos, scapegoating, and collapse.
Labour were the midwives of this. Labour built this void. Labour let it fester. Labour sneered while it grew. And unless Labour wakes up, today’s bloodbath will be only the beginning.
What Labour must do... Now
There is still time. Barely. Labour must:
- Speak with moral clarity on issues like Gaza and global justice, not triangulation. It should also abolish Labour Friends of Israel and return the money that has bankrolled the party from foreign sources.
- Offer real economic hope, mass council housebuilding, NHS rescue plans, green jobs.
- Champion workers’ rights and civil liberties instead of pandering to right-wing tabloids.
- Treat their own voters, not just focus groups, with respect, not contempt.
If Labour continues its current path of being smug, aloof and visionless, the next general election will not be the coronation they are banking on. The country is desperate for change. It will find it somewhere: whether that’s in hope or in hatred is now up to Labour. The clock is ticking.
