Why the ‘Red Wall’ turned blue
The 2019 General Election completely altered the electoral map in the UK. Whilst the Conservatives celebrated their biggest majority since 1987 with 365 seats, Labour faced their biggest defeat since 1935, securing only 203 seats (Mattinson,2020). This historic loss can largely be attributed to the collapse of Labour’s ‘Red Wall’, when a cluster of constituencies throughout the Midlands and the North of England that had not elected a Tory MP in decades, (Wainwright,2019) switched their allegiance.
What is the ‘Red Wall’?
The ‘Red Wall’ consists of 63 post-industrial constituencies regarded as the home of the traditional Labour vote (Mattinson,2020,p.2). Yet, by 2019, the Conservatives had swayed life-long Labour voters and won 33 of the 63 seats in the Red Wall (Kanagasooriam,2019).
Figure 1: General Election Results 2017 vs 2019. Source: MailOnline (2019)
What went wrong?
A prominent factor in the fall of the ‘Red Wall’ is that class, once the most significant electoral cleavage in British politics, no longer dominates voting behaviour (Hooper,2023).
Throughout the ‘era of alignment’ in the 1950s and 1960s, most British voters envisioned themselves as belonging to a particular social class and, consequently, felt a partisan attachment to the party thought to be most representative for people of that class (Denver et al.,2012). Labour appealed to the working-class and the Conservatives represented the middle-class (Mellon,2016). However, from the 1970s a process of ‘dealignment’ began across the country as voters’ identification with both class and parties weakened (Denver,et al.,2012).
This process of dealignment was accelerated in the 1990’s as Tony Blair’s New Labour sought to gain the support of middle-class voters by moving to the right on economic issues and projecting a more middle-class image (Hooper,2023). This alienated Labour’s working-class base and left them feeling disenfranchised with the party. As a result, many working-class voters abstained from voting or defected to parties such as the Conservatives or UKIP (Evans and Mellon,2020). The Conservatives capitalised on this in subsequent elections and by 2019 they had a 21 percentage point lead over Labour among working class voters (Evans and Mellon,2020).
Figure 2: Conservative-Labour lead by occupational class in 2015, 2017, 2019. Source: (Evans and Mellon,2020).
Moreover, other factors including age and education have come to the fore to supplant the class cleavage (Kanagasoorim and Simon,2021). Despite Labour’s decline amongst working-class voters, they achieved a 43-point lead over the Conservatives with 18-24 year olds, and proved more successful with the most highly qualified voters, winning 43% of graduates compared to the Conservatives’ 29% (Mattinson,2020). However, the Red Wall is ‘increasingly populated by older, less-highly educated and socially conservative voters, and so, the left-leaning influence of younger voters on the Red Wall is declining’ (Hooper,2023,p.28). Therefore, not only is the Red Wall composed of working-class voters who no longer feel represented by Labour, but those who do feel most represented by Labour do not live in Red Wall constituencies (Hooper,2023).
Short term factors
It would be remiss not to acknowledge the impact that short-term voting behaviour played in the fall of the ‘Red Wall’ too.
Firstly, the Conservatives’ stance on Brexit is a key reason why a large number of ‘Red Wall’ seats went blue in 2019 (BSE,2021). All of the fallen ‘Red Wall’ seats voted overwhelmingly in favour of ‘Leave’ in 2016, as these former manufacturing and mining constituencies have suffered particularly harshly as a result of globalisation and deindustrialisation (Hooper,2023). These seats became the main target for the Conservatives during the 2017 General Election, and despite being mostly unsuccessful in 2017, they were able to capture these Labour heartlands in 2019 (Kanagasooriam and Simon,2021).
Moreover, factors such as party leaders can have a significant impact on party success. Boris Johnston, a leader with populist appeal, helped the Conservatives gain support from ‘Red Wall’ constituencies who feel economically deprived due to rising inequality, employment precarity and regional underdevelopment (Hooper,2023), whilst Jeremy Corbyn proved unpopular across the North-East. Former ‘Red Wall’ MP Phil Wilson- who lost his seat in 2019- stated ‘the Corbyn leadership is the issue in this election and to say that it isn’t is delusional… for every one person who raised Brexit on the doorstep with me, five people raised the leadership of the Labour party’ (Halliday,2019).
Conclusion
Ultimately, the fall of the ‘Red Wall’ provides us with a remarkable insight into voting behaviour by demonstrating how short-term factors are increasingly predominant whilst party alignment has waned. The political landscape in the UK has changed drastically since 2019, following Brexit and the COVID-19 Pandemic. After the 2023 local government election, Labour is now the largest party in local government and is predicted to win the upcoming general election (Leach et al.,2024). Therefore, it will be interesting to see if Labour can capitalise on the Conservative’s decreasing popularity and rebuild their ‘Red Wall’.
Bibliography
Andrews, L and Stickings, T. 2019. How the Red Wall crumbled: Traditional working-class support for Labour IMPLODES in usually safe seats as Darlington, Redcar, Bishop Auckland, and Burnley all fall to rampaging Tories. MailOnline. Available at: Labour loses traditional northern heartlands to Tories | Daily Mail Online. [Accessed 11th April 2024].
BBC, 2017. Results of the 2017 General Election. Available at: Results of the 2017 General Election – BBC News. [Accessed 11th April 2024].
BBC,2023. Local elections 2023: In maps and charts. Available at: Local elections 2023: In maps and charts – BBC News. [Accessed 11th April 2024].
British Election Study Team, 2021. Volatility, realignment and electoral shocks: Brexit and the UK General Election of 2019. Available at: Volatility, realignment and electoral shocks: Brexit and the UK General Election of 2019 – The British Election Study. [Accessed 10th April 2024]
Denver, D., Carman, C. and Johns, R., 2012. Alignment and Dealignment. In Elections and Voters in Britain (pp. 53-89). Palgrave Macmillan, London.
Evans, G, and Mellon J., 2020. The Re-shaping Of Class Voting. BSE. Available at: The Re-shaping Of Class Voting By Geoffrey Evans and Jonathan Mellon – The British Election Study. [Accessed 10th April 2024].
Halliday, J. 2019. Labour’s ‘red wall’ demolished by Tory onslaught. Available at: Labour’s ‘red wall’ demolished by Tory onslaught | General election 2019 | The Guardian [Accessed 8th April 2024]
Hooper, J., 2023. Why did the Red Wall Fall? Accounting for Labour’s’ left behind in the fallen Red Wall.
Kanagasoorim, J. 2019. How the Labour party’s ‘red wall’ turned blue. Financial Times. Available at: How the Labour party’s ‘red wall’ turned blue (ft.com). [Accessed 8th April 2024]
Kanagasooriam, J. and Simon, E., 2021. Red wall: The definitive description. Political Insight, 12(3), pp.8-11.
Leach, A., de Hoog, Niels., Cousins, R., Fischer, H., and Kirk, A. 2024. UK general election opinion polls tracker: Labour leading as election looms. Available at: UK general election opinion polls tracker: Labour leading as election looms | Opinion polls | The Guardian [Accessed 11th April 2024]
Mattinson, D., 2020. Beyond the Red Wall: Why Labour lost, how the Conservatives won and what will happen next?. Biteback publishing.
Mellon, J., 2016. The New Face Of British Class Voting. BSE. Available at: The New Face Of British Class Voting, by Jonathan Mellon and Geoffrey Evans – The British Election Study. [Accessed 10th April 2024]
Munro, A. 2024. Populism. Available at: Populism | History, Facts, & Examples | Britannica. [Accessed 11th April 2024]Wainwright, D., 2019. General election 2019: How Labour’s ‘red wall’ turned blue. BBC Online. Available at:General election 2019: How Labour’s ‘red wall’ turned blue – BBC News [Accessed 8th April 2024].
this blog post got my attention through its catchy title and informative introduction that made me want to learn more about this voting issue. I found it extremely useful that the author established a clear picture of what the Red Wall actually is, as this is not a term i was overly familiar with. i found it interesting to be able to compare the constituencies in the map provided as it demonstrated how drastically voting behaviour had changed in such a short period of time. I agree with the author’s decision to focus on class as the main reason for the fall of the wall, particularly because the trend of partisan dealignment has gained popularity over the years. As new generations of voters emerge, they are less likely to view parties in terms of class. It is also good that the author acknowledged more short term factors that led to the collapse of the Red Wall, demonstrating how volatile and interchangeable the nature of the British Political system is. To further improve this blog post, the author could have contrasted economy with class through a table as this is the only other long term factor of enough importance to cause such a monumental shift in voting behaviours over a very small timeframe.
This is a really good blog – it is in depth, researched well and it is a really interesting read. One great factor of this blog is that it explains the red wall really well. It delves deeper into the reasons why the red wall may have been broken slightly by the Tories during recent general elections but also summarises recent Labour gains after more than a decade of Tory government. It may have been helpful to delve deeper into the rise of populism and the voter demographics and ideology of the red wall – how this may translate into blue seats. Statistics may even have been helpful. Overall, this is a great and comprehensive blog.
The ‘Red Wall’ is a fascinating topic to delve into, this is because it represents a turning point for class politics within the British voting system, suggesting that class is no longer dominant. I really like how the author went into detail around the history of class and voting behaviour, using a graph to illustrate this. Its interesting to look at how labour in 2019 was successful amongst the youth vote, however failed to hit the mark with older, working-class voters. The ‘Red Wall’ is a strong analogy for working class voters who feel underrepresented by labour and how voter patterns have shifted over time. I also like how the short-term factors of this demise were included on top of the long-term change within the labour party. Brexit is a key factor in the shift in behaviour from these former manufacturing constituencies, who are evidently still suffering the fate of globalisation. Therefore, it will be interesting to see the result in the upcoming general election, after the catastrophe of the last 5 years under the Tories.