PoliticsHome has recently featured Blue Labour, chaired by Dan Carden, MP for Liverpool Walton, who explains to them. “I’m not scared of the term Blue Labour.” He does not mind the term “socially conservative” either, he adds, because “progressive politics” has threatened communities. “It’s challenged the value of long-standing institutions, from trade unions to churches.”
Carden risks being toppled by the left, not the right, in this city who are disappointed and angry to see a Labour MP, in what was previously the safest seat in the city, throw his constituency under the bus in this way.
We know that identity politics is just a distraction tactic, so does Carden.
Division in this city comes from a politics of scarcity, people living in very deprived conditions, as they do in Walton. This is a direct consequence of the decisions made by consecutive governments,continued and unchallenged by this current Labour government.
It’s hardly worth touching on the embarrassing point made about unions because we cannot believe Carden thinks any of his constituency would believe that anything other than Thatcher’s government deliberately crushed the unions.
Watch Strike: An Uncivil War for details of exactly how she did this, systematically, for years.
Carden got 86% of his constituency in 2017, 85% in 2019, then lost 8,500+ votes in 2024 and dropped to 71%.
Still a huge majority and not an entirely reliable metric, but Walton was won over by an offer to improve material conditions, then a portion were lost by a move away from this.
These are the people you are letting down and need to win back, not a room full of billionaires in a men’s club you’ve built for them.
Liverpool Residents Action is a grassroots organisation that aims to help and represent the interests of residents in the city with their housing needs. Membership is free. To join, head to lraction.uk/join-lra