Is There Still Such a Thing as the Labour Heartlands?

Nigel Farage thinks he has the answer. On 7 July, Farage declared that Reform UK has “absolutely dominated in the Midlands and the North, the old Labour heartlands.” After years of headlines about the collapse of the Red Wall and Labour’s struggle to reconnect with working class voters, it is an easy argument to make. Reform is polling strongly and in many parts of England it has replaced the Conservatives as Labour’s main challenger.

 

Labour’s traditional heartlands have undoubtedly changed, but that is not the same as saying they have disappeared. If anything, the latest projections suggest the opposite with some constituencies already beginning to move back towards Labour. That does not mean Labour has rebuilt the electoral coalition it once had, but it does suggest Farage may be calling victory too early. 

 

A Labour heartland describes constituencies where Labour’s support is so deeply embedded that elections rarely changed the outcome. That loyalty was built on a combination of class politics and the trade union movement. In 1979, more than half of Britain’s workforce belonged to a trade union, while around two-thirds of manual workers voted Labour. Labour wasn’t just winning these seats; it was part of their political identity. 

 

That relationship no longer exists in the same way. The biggest shift has not been Reform’s rise or Labour’s decline. It has been the collapse of long-term party loyalty. Political dealignment has fundamentally changed how Britain votes, producing an electorate that is far more willing to switch between parties than at any point in recent history. Professor Sir John Curtice argues that “the underpinnings of the system have disappeared,” with class no longer acting as the dominant predictor of voting behaviour. In the mid-1990’s, only around 13% of voters switched parties between elections. By the 2024 General Election, that figure had risen to between a third and almost half of the electorate. Even among voters in routine and semi-routine occupations, only 30% voted Labour in 2024. Labour’s old coalition has weakened, but so too has the idea that voters should remain loyal to any one party. 

 

That is why describing Labour’s heartlands as lost misses the point. The Red Wall did not disappear overnight in 2019, nor did it suddenly return in 2024. These constituencies have become politically competitive. They are more willing to change their minds, voting for parties that respond to their priorities. That makes them unpredictable, not permanently realigned. Reform has undoubtedly benefited from that volatility. Ashfield, as a Red Wall, remains one of Reform’s strongest constituencies with a projected 55% majority, while Wakefield and Rothwell is projected to be a close Labour-Reform contest with only 2% of votes separating them. 

 

The same pattern can be seen in Labour’s safest seats. Liverpool Walton remains comfortably Labour, yet the party’s projected vote share has fallen by 12.74% since the 2024 election, while Reform has established itself as the clear second place challenger. Labour still dominates the constituency, but the gap is narrowing. Even its safest seats are no longer immune from competition. 

 

The era when Labour could take large parts of England for granted has gone. Those days are unlikely to return. But claiming Reform has inherited Labour’s heartlands suggests the story is already over, when it is only just beginning. Reform is forcing Labour into contests that would have been unimaginable a decade ago, but Labour is also proving capable of winning those contests back with this week’s projected gain of Red Wall constituencies such as Doncaster Central from Reform. Britain’s traditional Labour heartlands have not disappeared. They have become battlegrounds, and whichever party can build lasting trust in those communities will decide whether the phrase “Labour heartland” survives for another generation.