It was Labour’s worst local government vote on record. 26 per cent support on a 36 per cent poll meant less than one in ten electors could be bothered to back them. PIERS MOSTYN considers these and other implications of the 2006 election results.

The decline in Labour support has been apparent for at least five years. Electoral support in local government dropped from 38 per cent in 2000 to 26 per cent in 2006. With lower turnout this time, no amount of spin can put a gloss on this pummelling.

Last year’s 3rd term national victory hardly bucked the downward trend. With a poor result on a low turn out, Labour’s return to government owed everything to the vagaries of the first-past-the-post system and the disarray of the Tories.

Media commentary has focussed almost exclusively on the question of leadership. It’s true that Blair has long been seen as on the way out. And with this election his authority has further drained to near invisibility.

But while a Brown take-over might boost Labour fortunes, the revival would be small scale and brief. If “renewal” –his catchword – had any chance of success it was needed in 2001 or 2002. At the very least he had to break with Blair’s Iraq and welfare state “modernisation” policies that have caused such disenchantment on the street.

Instead Brown has oriented to the right – wrapping himself in the Union Jack, emphasising “security” and spearheading the private sector take-over of public services.

What has changed this year has been the systemic character of Labour’s failure – across a range of issues and enveloping nearly all its leading players.

The theme tune to Labour’s 1997 victory, “Things can only get better”, turned into a fallacy – with inequality growing, education standards stubbornly low, unemployment rising, pensions cut and social alienation growing apace.

In practice this means the demise of what has been described as the New Labour “project”.

A recovery would be difficult without root and branch change. But this is not on the cards. No significant section of the party is organising for it or even presenting any real alternative.

Labour isn’t destined for short term oblivion. But it’s project of hegemonising British politics for a generation or more – claiming the mantle as “natural party of government” - is now looking like history. Once this aura of power crumbles it cannot be easily rebuilt.

Labour’s response at these elections was to play on the supposed efficiency of local Labour councils – something few outside the party seemed aware of – spiced up with a heavy dose of “law and order” populism.This strategy blew apart under it’s own internal contradictions.

The revolt against Blair’s Iraq crusade formed the backcloth – a simmering catalyst for radical discontent, driving away thousands of members and hundreds of thousands of voters. Blair has spent three years vainly trying to stem this drift by a phoney sales-pitch focussing on his personal “integrity” and Labour’s purported delivery on “bread and butter” policies.

But in the months prior to May 4 a string of scandals on precisely these issues provided the crunch point:

∑ The cash for peerages scandal: businessmen buying peerages through large undeclared soft loans.

∑ The health crisis: thousands of nursing jobs axed while private contractors creamed of hundreds of millions in PFI agreements.

∑ The education revolt: massive opposition to an education bill that would see the ending of comprehensive schools and the return of selection.

∑ Sleaze: salacious sex and corruption stories that ensnared a string of top Labour ministers – Blunkett, Jowell and Prescott.

Party managers responded by cranking up the authoritarianism. Critics who defended civil liberties were labelled “poisoners”.

But the exposure of Home Office incompetence in the management of released prisoners exploded this in a second – like a pinprick to an over-inflated balloon – as hypocritical cant.

Not only did these scandals wreck Labour’s self-description as the party of competence and integrity, but in erupting so spectacularly during an election campaign highlighted Labour’s loss of political control. This was a devastating blow to supporters for whom at least some semblance of authority was the bottom line, having long said goodbye to principle.

How things have changed. In 1997 Blair rode to power pledging to end the corruption, sleaze, maladministration and individualism of the Tory years.

In the preceding two decades there were few major conurbations that weren’t solidly pro-Labour. A prime example was London. The GLC and nearly all the inner city councils were ruled by a Labour Party at its most left wing. Now they run barely a handful.

How ironic, given the 2006 results, that the shift to the right from the mid-80s was sold as necessary to win back support. To achieve this, Labour collaborated with Tory attacks on local government – savage cuts, rate capping, “parental choice” in education, council house sales and so-on.

A decade later with Labour in government it was full steam ahead – assets were flogged off, services privatised, education taken out of effective democratic local authority control and local accountability and democracy dismantled through the introduction of mayoral and cabinet government for councils.

For the past decade the Lib Dems – with a ruthless and opportunistic local party machine – reaped the benefit. The Tory revival appears now to have put a stop to that. The question is how far this will go?

A full swing of the pendulum back to popular endorsement for the Conservatives seems unlikely. The deferential vote is a fading memory and New Labour is wearing Thatcherite clothes.

Nonetheless the quirks of the voting system can allow a party with barely a third of the poll to form a government, making Cameron a possible future prime minister in what would be little more than a lottery on a three-way split, with the abstention rate as the decisive factor.

As the three main parties converge into the same political territory – barely distinguishable on a left-right continuum - a continuing cycle of public disillusion seems almost inevitable. Whereas most voters have expressed this by not voting, a growing minority are clearly turning to the small parties.

Most worryingly this includes the BNP – which is carving out a dangerous space with a doubling of its councillors. Labour’s complete abandonment of depressed working class communities is the primary dynamic behind this fascist resurgence.

The Greens did well, showing an emergent new strength in some inner city areas. But the fact that Green councillors have been running Leeds in coalition with Tories and Lib Dems for the past four years shows that there are problems. While many voted Green to kick Blair from the left, the party is nationally incoherent and in some areas locally opportunist.

Respect, confounding critics on left and right, performed impressively – well into double numbers of councillors. There has been a genuine breakthrough in two East London boroughs and most of the 150 candidates performed strongly – with many coming second or third.

But new problems are now posed. Respect cannot continue as an ad hoc coalition. It needs the democratic machinery of a political party to ensure its representatives are accountable, policies are developed and its profile and campaigning is developed. To build a serious base it must draw thousands of the new voters into active participation – not just rallies and leafleting.

Secondly in countless wards, Respect councillors were running neck and neck with the Greens – the combined vote of the two sufficient to allow one to win or come very close second. This has to be addressed. Respect need to push the environmental agenda to the fore and try to make local agreements with the Greens where possible.

Last but not least proportional representation has to become a central concern.

More broadly, the loosening of Labour’s links to the unions will continue, possibly soon brought to a head as a result of the cash for peerages affair. State funding for parties is a real possibility. After all Blair and Cameron’s only alternative is continuing corruption scandals or rebuilding mass individual memberships. This calls for a decisive new orientation by Respect.

With Labour poised to go through a period of instability, signified by Blair’s panicked morning-after cabinet blood-letting, its dream of a smooth leadership transition has gone sour.

Respect - having established itself as the only serious left alternative – should seize these opportunities.