Can Labour ever lose in Liverpool?

‘Leaders will have to come together, and at last show they can put city before party’

Dear readers — With the general election turning every Merseyside seat red, city hall and the metropolitan mayoralty sewn up, and their party conference on the waterfront days away, Labour’s standing in Liverpool appears insuperable. In today’s edition, political strategist Jon Egan examines this apparent invincibility for weaknesses, honing in on the numerous scandals that have rocked local politics and the perception that party has too often come before city. Are the Lib Dems in a position to present a genuine threat?

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Your Post Briefing

Liverpool will host the inaugural World Boxing Championships next year. The amateur fighters will compete from the 4th to the 14th September at the M&S Bank Arena. World Boxing is the new international federation created to ensure amateur boxing remains an Olympic sport. Harry Doyle, Liverpool City Council's cabinet member for culture, sport and health, said "This is a massive global sporting event and one which the city is proud to be welcoming.”

Liscard’s regeneration project is at risk if funding delays continue. A Levelling Up grant awarded the scheme £10.7m in November 2023, £1.3m short of what the Wirral Council had asked for. The council elected to plug this gap in January, but now says the plans are “in doubt” after ongoing discussions with the government. The council is expected to demonstrate the project represents value for money and is still deliverable by March 2026 to qualify for further funding. 

A new creative and cultural hub is set to open in Birkenhead. As part of £25m pledged by the government’s £3.6 billion Towns Fund to aid in the regeneration of areas with a proud industrial heritage, the social enterprise Make CIC will transform Riverside Housing's former offices into the “Argyle Street Creative Hub.” The refit will feature open-plan workspaces and private studios for artists, as well as a café and bar at reception.

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Can Labour ever lose in Liverpool?

By Jon Egan

When Labour gathers for its annual conference in Liverpool this weekend, it does so assured in the knowledge that it is meeting in one of its most impregnable bastions. Not only does the Liverpool City Region have a Labour Metro Mayor and six Labour council leaders, but for the first time in British electoral history, every part of the city region’s geography is represented by a Labour MP in parliament. However, as Dr David Jeffery, amongst others, has reminded us, in relatively recent decades three-quarters of the Wirral and two-thirds of Sefton were represented by Conservative MPs, while even more recently, Labour occupied the opposition benches on Liverpool City Council itself.

There’s an oft-quoted golden rule in Liverpool politics: whichever political party is in government is certain to find itself in opposition on the City Council. OK, this might not hold true all the time, but it’s nonetheless surprising — and significant — that over the last half century, Labour has only been in power in Westminster and Liverpool at the same time for just over 5 years. Less than 12 months after Tony Blair’s 1997 general election landslide, Liverpool’s Labour administration were ejected from power by a Liberal Democrat groundswell that kept them in opposition until 2010. Joe Anderson’s ascension to power coincided exactly with Gordon Brown’s departure from Downing Street and the election of the Cameron / Clegg Coalition.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Flickr

So what, if anything, are we to deduce from this counterintuitive psephological anomaly? Does it mean that Liverpool’s quixotic contrariness runs deeper than its supposed adherence to socialist principles — and is this a trend that should concern Liam Robinson and his Labour administration?