The British Labour Party and Lessons for Canada’s NDP
by Helen Smith
Since its electoral victory in July 2024, winning 411 seats out of 650 in the House of Commons, the British Labour Party has yielded many lessons. Millions of people, fed up with 14 years of austerity under 5 successive Tory prime ministers, voted for what they hoped would be an end to Tory rule. They voted for Labour’s promises to strengthen the economy, renationalize the railways, rebuild the National Health Service, and repeal the pensioners’ fuel allowance cuts. However, a serious look at the Labour 2024 campaign manifesto showed that the incoming government would be a Tony Blair-style Labour government. According to a recent YouGov poll after a year and a half in office, only 1 in 6 Britons view Prime Minister Starmer favourably. Even fewer have a positive opinion of the Chancellor of the Ex-Chequer. Once again, the Labour Party has brought about its downfall with plans for more austerity, plans that it had to reverse. As a result, while the party has a parliamentary majority, its own membership stands at 333,000, down from a height of 500,000 under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. The recent October Senedd by-election in Wales, in a Labour stronghold of over 100 years, brought about a massive rejection of Labour with the electorate turning to Plaid Cymru (the Party of Wales). It seems that Starmer risks alienating the core base of loyal Labour voters.
Since the general election, Starmer outlined measures to reduce eligibility to Universal Credit (welfare), and Personal Independence Payments (disability), and to reduce the number of migrants and immigrants. He had to backtrack on many of these plans - under pressure from his own MPs and the public. The immigration policies that Starmer may try to introduce constitute the largest revision to the immigration system in 50 years. The May 2025 White Paper entitled Restoring Control over the Immigration System proposes to reduce net migration by returning more migrants who are undocumented, shortening the list of skilled workers, and reducing the number of student visas. There are also plans to raise the number of years required to gain permanent status from 5 years to 10+ years, and to 15-20 years if government benefits are claimed, and up to 30 years if a claimant is deemed as having made illegal entry or overstayed a visa.
Not surprisingly, there is a backbench revolt within Labour. It started with pressure to lift the 2-child cap on benefits and to retain the winter fuel allowance for pensioners. Recently 49 MPs broke rank and voted against the proposed Welfare Bill in 2025 even after the government had reformed the bill. According to the Constitution Society, when a government has a majority in parliament under the Westminster system, the opposition to its policies sometimes comes from within its own ranks rather than from an official opposition party. Thinking back to Blair’s New Labour in 2003, 139 Labour MPs voted against the party entering the war on Iraq. It is possible that opposition within the party may grow, especially if public sentiment prompts it. The May local elections may be an indicator of unrest.
What Starmer would do well to remember is that his MPs listen not only to the party brass, but also to the constituents who elected the party. If constituents oppose Labour’s plans, the MPs may be inclined to break party ranks and speak up.
In the meantime, the left has given birth to a new party under former veteran left-wing Labour (now Independent) MP Jeremy Corbyn. It is called “Your Party”, with currently about 55,000 members. The Greens have also become a contender in electoral politics with membership rising from 70,000 to 180,000. More troubling is the rise of Nigel Farage’s far-right Reform UK Party fueling the fans of anti-immigrant sentiment. While Farage’s party won only 7 parliamentary seats at the last election, his populist rhetoric aims to fuel anti-immigrant and anti-refugee sentiment. Faced with this opposition, Starmer would be wise to address the cost of living issues facing people and to put forward a kinder, more caring vision of the future.
What lessons for Canada?
The Liberal Party of Canada under Mark Carney has moved to the right of its predecessor leader Justin Trudeau with increases in budgets for the military and border security, a revival of oil pipelines, and significant restraints in work visas for temporary foreign workers and students. The Tory opposition is scrambling to retain its MPs, a few of whom have been enticed to join the Liberal Party. With the social democratic NDP reduced to a splinter of its former self, there isn’t an immediate contender on the left for political power leaving the largely two-party Liberal/Tory system intact. The NDP, Canada’s only labour-based party, could however fill the vacuum on the left if it pursued core socialist policies. The current leadership campaign within the NDP began as a lacklustre affair although the bid of Yves Engler, and then Bianca Mugyenyi to enter offered hope for a more relevant race. Certainly, as a contestant, either Yves and Bianca would push the other candidates to adopt more activist and transformative policies. The party’s traditional role for members in the constituencies has mostly involved the recruitment of new members, fund-raising and volunteering for electoral campaigns, including a ‘renewal’ campaign. It would be encouraging to see a more robust role for the membership where policies are discussed, debated, voted and then implemented by an accountable, democratic leadership. Looking forward, the current party still has time to change with an emboldened membership, a significantly changed leadership, and a major overhaul of the party structure including the removal of the vetting process for candidates. There’s still time for the leadership race to turn around. Indeed, there are some signs of it doing so. At the federal NDP Convention set for March 27-29 in Winnipeg there will be a vote on many socialist resolutions submitted by NDP local associations, youth and labour affiliates, and a variety of equity-seeking bodies. The theme of the Socialist Caucus, which is running candidates for NDP federal council, in addition to advancing a comprehensive Workers’ Agenda of policies, proclaims that “Capitalism can’t be fixed. Onward to a socialist future.”
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