The results of the election for a new mayor to succeed Andy Burnham in Greater Manchester show progressives standing at the threshold of a new era. But only if they work together.
New mayor Bev Craig was elected using the supplementary vote which uses voters’ second preference if no one wins more than half the vote in the first round. Despite the Burnham bounce, Labour received only 47% of the vote in the first round, well down on Burnham who never achieved below 63% in his three campaigns. But when second preferences kicked in, it’s estimated that about seven in 10 progressives who had backed other parties piled in behind Craig.
This confirms that we live in an age of bloc politics; left v right. Few now shift between blocs, but many move parties within their respective bloc. The Manchester mayoral vote saw the progressive bloc consolidate behind Labour, just as it did for Andy Burnham in Makerfield, but they backed the Greens in Gorton and Denton earlier in the year and Plaid Cymru in a Senedd byelection at the end of last year.
Two things are happening at once in this progressive bloc: voters are becoming more promiscuous in who they really support and highly disciplined in how they actually vote. Voters seem to be backing the best placed progressive candidate to beat the right, but only when they are deemed sufficiently progressive. This amorphous mix of progressive voters appears to be capable of ruthlessly flocking around the same candidate.
Given that UK politics is likely to remain incredibly fragmented, two challenges face progressive parties and voters, in winning and governing. Within this fragmented bloc lurks the danger of “progressive tragedies”, where a majority progressive vote splits and lets the right bloc through. The bloc, rather than the party, that now wins today is the one that most efficiently organises its total vote.
But it’s not just the quantity of the progressive vote that matters, it’s the quality. While majorities can be won on a small percentage of the vote, as in the general election in 2024, these victories don’t deliver strong government, because people are merely backing the least bad option. As soon as the going gets tough, this negative support melts away. Unless Burnham can reach and maintain something more like 40% backing, governing will remain treacherous.
Labour has been in this doom loop of failure for too long. Because it decides to go it alone and not work with other progressive parties, it can only win under first past the post by appealing to centre-right voters. This means promising little or no change. With no mandate for radical change, Labour sets itself up to fail and wonders why it loses the red wall, Scotland, Wales, support from Muslim voters and now inner-city seats.
The clever move would be to mobilise the country’s whole progressive majority based on a transformative offer. This fragmented landscape can and must be woven together in a way that combines values, policies and electoral performance.
There are good omens for this, starting with Burnham himself. He built a long-term cross-party consensus in Manchester, which was the basis for sustained state and private sector investment and the fastest growing economy in the country. His experience of the supplementary vote, where to secure second preferences he had to listen and engage with non-Labour voters, led him to back a fully proportional voting system.
But the mobilisation of any latent progressive majority requires deeper roots than just transactional electoral politics. This is why Burnham’s cross-party move on social care matters. While he should have involved the Greens, he recognises that some big issues need a broad and permanent consensus. This principle should be extended, not least to delivering a low carbon economy. Processes such as this build trust across parties and reveal just how much progressives have in common.
Problems still abound. Progressive consolidation works in byelections where media attention and polling send a signal to voters about who to back. But unless progressives work out how to organise their bloc in a general election, the chaos of many progressive tragedies will ensue.
In this regard it’s Clacton that shows the way. It is woeful that the progressive parties have all pulled out, leaving the voters of Clacton with no serious choice about who represents them. As in Tatton in 1997, where the anti-corruption journalist Martin Bell stood against the sitting Tory MPand won, moves should have been made to field a credible centre-right independent to challenge Reform.
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However, a critical precedent has been re-established, that these so-called “national” parties don’t always put up candidates. Now they’ve stood aside, they can repeat it. Why stand a candidate in a seat that you have no hope of winning and by doing so only make it more likely that the national populist right wins? At the next election local parties should be empowered to decide whether to stand or not.
The change to unlock all of this is proportional representation (PR), the promise of which massively helps consolidate the progressive vote at the next election. Burnham and the Labour party staunchly back it. Combined with manifesto promises from the Liberal Democrats and the Greens, a super-majority for change could transform our political system for good. This is why the vote in the Commons on 2 September on an elections bill amendment setting up a national commission to pave the way for PR is a critical litmus test of Burnham’s commitment to a new politics for a new society.
British politics has never been more volatile and will continue to be so. Yes, the Burnham bounce is welcome. But will it last? No one should think the resourceful and ruthless British right will simply sit back and let progressives win. They will unite the right if they must.
As ever, the people are ahead of the politicians. If the parties can catch up and stop their self-defeating tribalism then progressives won’t just beat Reform – they will beat the causes of Reform.
