British voters reject 'electable' Labour

Wednesday, May 13, 1992 - 10:00

British voters reject 'electable' Labour

As in Australia, the conventional "wisdom" in Britain is that Labour has a chance of winning only with conservative candidates and policies. In an article from the British socialist, ISIDOROS DIAKIDES argues that the recent election showed just the opposite.

Left-wing and Black candidates did better in the election than Labour

right-wingers, discrediting the myth that radical and ant-racist policies are an electoral liability.

The results show that socialist and anti-racist positions are winners for the Labour Party, and probably its only hope of defeating the Tories.

The four largest swings to Labour were won by Black and [left-wing] Campaign Group MPs: Alan Meale (Mansfield, 10.6%), Keith Vaz (Leicester East, 9.5%), Bernie Grant (Tottenham, 9.2%) and Henry Cohen (Leyton, 8.8%).

Black candidates did better than average, including Diane Abbott in Hackney North (5.6%) and Paul Boateng in Brent South (3.8%). Piara Khabra won Ealing South despite the sitting Labour MP standing against him. The Tories managed to elect their first Black MP this century: Niranjan Deva in Brentford and Isleworth.

Several Campaign Group MPs scored particularly healthy swings for their parts of the country: Dawn Primarolo (Bristol South, 7.5%), Ken Livingstone (Brent East, 6.1%), Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North 4.6%) and Diane Abbott. Fourteen of 17 prominent left-wingers did better than average. Chris Smith, the only openly gay MP, also beat the average (Islington South, 3.5%).

In contrast, eight of Labour's most prominent right-wingers who were re-elected lost ground to the Tories. They were led by Martin O'Neal (Clackmannan, 3.5% to the Tories), Roger Godsiff (Birmingham Small Heath, 2.5% to Tories) and Donald Dewar (Glasgow Garscadden, 2.1% to Tories).

Out of 16 best-known right-wingers, all but one did worse than average.

Those MP's credited with making Labour "electable" all did badly: John Smith (Monklands East, 0.5% swing to Labour), Jack Cunningham (Copeland, 0.5%), Gordon Brown (Dumfermline East, 2% swing to the Tories), Tony Blair (Sedgefield, 1.7%) and Peter Mandelson (Hartlepool, 1.2%).