Liverpool Hasn’t Always Been A Labour-Voting City
If you were to speak to anyone with even a passing interest in the world of politics and ask them which is the most Labour-centric city in the country, there’s a very good chance that they will say Liverpool. It is one of several cities that research shows is very left-wing, with Glasgow, Dundee and Manchester also on the list.
Interestingly, Bournemouth, Reading, Milton Keynes and Portsmouth have historically been amongst the most right-wing. The question that the likes of the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats and even the Green Party might wish to ask themselves is whether Liverpool will every turn away from Labour politically.
The One-Time Conservative City
Given the extremely left-wing nature of Liverpool in the modern day, it is difficult to imagine it being anything other than a Labour-voting city. In reality, however, there was a time when Liverpool was a Conservative Party stronghold. Nearly 300 years ago, Liverpool’s economy was powered by slavery, with ship-owners and dock workers having something of a stranglehold on the city.
The Conservatives dominated the city council between the middle of the 18th century and the 1970s, regularly holding more than half of the city’s parliamentary seats. As recently as 1914, Labour had just seven of the 140 city council seats in Liverpool.
In the 1950s, the Tories average just shy of 50% of the votes in local elections, which went to over 50% in the 1960s. The city was one in which Irish immigrants were common in the latter part of the 19th century and early part of the 20th, allowing for a distinct political stance. In fact, the Tories would use anti-immigrant sentiment in order to drive a wedge between the populace (and where have we seen that before?).
The Irish were generally Catholic, with anti-Catholicism being fulled by the scarcity of work. The Conservatives were partnered with the Protestants, allowing them to dominate local politics for decades.
The Decline of Conservatism in Liverpool
There are numerous reasons behind the decline of the Conservative Party in Liverpool. You will always get some people who lay the blame squarely at the feet of Margaret Thatcher, but that isn’t quite true. Although she undoubtedly drove the final nail into the coffin, the coffin of the Tories had been being constructed for a decade or so before she came along.
It tells you something of the city that it is the only place outside of Ireland ever to return an Irish Nationalist Party to Parliament. As the Republic of Ireland left the United Kingdom, the need to have such a close tie to Ireland drifted off and so most of the votes went to Labour.
Protest in Liverpool against the Tory Government, chanting ‘terrorist tories’ 11th February 1972 pic.twitter.com/gXjwqFWZh0
— Angies Liverpool (@angiesliverpool) September 5, 2022
Even then it wasn’t a landslide movement. There was a time when the Liberals were prevalent in the city, albeit it with Tory support. There is no question, though, that the backlash against Thatcherism was the moment that Labour’s hold on the city of Liverpool took shape and it has barely let go since.
The recession of the 1970s and 1980s hurt Liverpool, whilst Margaret Thatcher’s decision to put the city into a state of ‘managed decline’ pushed people ever further away. Michael Hesseltine will sometimes be described as ‘the only good Tory’ after his work as environment secretary tried to repair the party’s image in Liverpool.
A Labour Stronghold
As Liverpool’s economy collapsed in the 1980s, an ultra left-wing section of the Labour Party was there to sweep up the voters. They won the Liverpool Council and asked the Tory Party for money, initially getting £20 million but then being turned down when they wanted more. It helped to push many in the city further away, giving the ‘Scouse not English’ sentiment another injection.
In the years that followed, Labour became the dominant force in Liverpool, with Scousers turning further and further away from the right-wing. Even when the referendum on the United Kingdom remaining part of the European Union came around, the city didn’t fall for the right-wing narrative.
When driving back from Liverpool on Wednesday. I was over the moon to see this on a bridge iver the M25… top marks to whoever did this for placement and clarity of message. pic.twitter.com/Qp4uaKLgbc
— 4th July – There’s gonna be a Tory wipeout! (@snb19692) September 30, 2022
There have been attempts from right-wing voices to make headway in the city, but when that happened most recently the far-right voices were chased off the streets the the sound of the Benny Hill music, locking themselves in the left-luggage area in Lime Street Station until the mob of left-wingers eventually left. The city takes extreme and understandable pride in not being manipulated into hate.
Liverpool was made up of immigrants, so those living in the city, many of whom are descendants of those same immigrants who helped to literally build it, aren’t willing to turn their backs on others. As Gerry Marsden sang in the song Ferry ‘Cross the Mersey, ‘we don’t care what your name is boy, we’ll never turn you away’.
Will it Ever Move Away From Labour?
Liverpool has not had a Tory MP since 1979 and no Tory councillor since 1998. You might be forgiven for thinking that it is a dead-cert to be a Labour city for the foreseeable future. The reality is not quite as sure-fire as that, however. The truth is that the politics of Liverpool has always been tumultuous. Indeed, there are some areas, such as Southport, that still vote Tory.
The same is true of certain parts of the Wirral. Whilst it is extremely difficult to imagine the Conservative Party winning parliamentary seats in the city, it isn’t so difficult to picture the likes of the Liberal Democrats or the Green Party making inroads here.
@colinfarleyKier will write for The S*n and doesn’t care about the hurt to Liverpool.♬ original sound – Colin Farley
For the Lib Dems, the decision to make a coalition with David Cameron’s Conservatives after the general election of 2010 lost them a huge number of supporters, but there was a time in the 1970s that they were the major political power in Liverpool so it isn’t outrageous to suggest that they might be again.
Then there is the fact that Keir Starmer took the Labour Party so far towards the centre that they seemed to be an imitation of the Tories, which won’t have pleased many in the city. Add to that the fact that he spoke in Liverpool during the Leadership campaign and said he wouldn’t do anything with the Sun, only to then write for them means the future of Liverpool might not always be Labour-focused.
