How Labour Will Win the UK Election

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

Related: How the Tories Will Win the Election

They are calling it the war of the weak. The 2015 general election seems to present the electorate with the two least appealing main parties since at least the 1970s. It's a choice between being trampled on by a toff, or winded by a geek—that's how things look to much of the electorate.

And, sure, there's a lot for Labour to worry about. Despite a slight improvement in his personal ratings, Ed Miliband remains spectacularly unpopular: a drag on a party that can hardly afford it. Labour won only 29 per cent of the vote in 2010—its lowest share of the vote since 1983. Outside of London, Labour is largely irrelevant in the south.

Yet Labour actually goes into the 2015 election in much better shape than widely anticipated after its defeat in May 2010. There has been no re-run of the 1980s or 1950s, decades when Labour was far too busy squabbling with itself to worry about trying to win over the electorate.

However easy it is to mock Miliband, the good news for Labour is that politics is becoming more local. The paradox is that, in an age of 24/7 news and the apparent presidentialization of the election, the uniform nation swing is dead. A national election fought on local grounds suits Labour. The party has achieved something quietly remarkable under Miliband, maintaining a party membership of 190,000 in an age when being a member has never been less fashionable. It has 40,000 more members than the Conservatives.

And this isn't just a number. Lord Ashcroft's polls of marginal seats have repeatedly shown that Labour is outperforming national trends in these critical constituencies. Polling by Lord Ashcroft this week found that, in all ten marginals seats surveyed, voters had had more contact with Labour than the Tories, suggesting the party has a significant advantage in "ground game"—the unglamorous art of dragging reluctant voters to polling booths that underpinned Barack Obama's two presidential victories.

For more on the '15 Election, watch our doc "The UK's House Party Politics":

In those wins, Obama was famously indebted to the ethnic minority vote. The same could be true for Labour in 2015. In 2010, 68 percent of ethnic minorities plumped for Labour. About 8 percent of the 2010 electorate were black and minority ethnic, and Maria Sobolewska, an expert on ethnic minority voting, reckons that will be 10 percent this May. If ethnic minorities are equally loyal to Labour this time—and actions like the Conservatives' notorious "Go Home or Face Arrest" vans push them towards voting for the alternative main party—it will give Labour a significant electoral boost. Labour SPADs will be hoping that once the Twitter bullies have stopped laughing, Britain's young ethnic minorities will answer Sol Campell's call to vote. Depicting the Tories as a bunch of bigoted white guys could be crude but effective. And Labour really should resist any race to the bottom on immigration, which only UKIP could ever win.

Labour also needs to remind young people of what led them to burn effigies of Nick Clegg and put excrement through his letter box. Labour has pledged to reduce tuition fees to £6,000 ($9,000). This isn't about asking university more accessible but is about reminding the young why they loathe the Lib Dems. Labour needs the votes of disaffected left-wing Lib Dems to win in May—and the good news is the much-promised spike in the Lib Dems' support has still yet to materialize. More incidents of enraged students screaming at Nick Clegg for lying to them could help Labour no end.

While Labour benefit from a depressed Lib Dem vote more than the Conservatives, they have also gained from UKIP's rise. The much-anticipated collapse in UKIP's support is yet to happen, which is a big reason why we are still waiting for "crossover"—the moment when the Conservatives start regularly leading in the polls. It might never come. Ofcom's ruling that UKIP is a "major party"—unlike, to Labour's relief, the Greens—means that Nigel Farage's party will get copious coverage in the election campaign. If this leads to an upsurge in support for UKIP, that will increase Ed Miliband's chances of ending up in Number 10. In this election your enemy's enemy is your friend, so Ed Miliband won't want Nigel Farage to implode this side of May 7.

UKIP's rise could benefit Labour in two ways. Firstly, by taking more Tory votes than Labour ones, it means Labour need fewer votes to gain constituencies. Secondly, it is in Labour's interests to talk up the UKIP threat. Doing so gives Labour the opportunity to present themselves as the "anti-UKIP" option and convince normal Lib Dem and Green voters—plus ethnic minorities and young voters who might not otherwise vote—to plump for Labour to keep UKIP out. Labour candidate Will Scobie could yet sneak victory over Nigel Farage in Thanet South by adopting this tactic. Playing on people's fears of UKIP as a party of racist porn stars should be replicated by Labour candidates wherever UKIP is strong.

Labour has other reasons for optimism. The electoral system is massively distorted in its favor. Because the Conservatives failed to reform electoral boundaries, and turnout is lower in Labour-held seats, Labour could win a majority on as little as 33 percent of the vote if its performance continues to hold up in marginal seats. Tony Blair won a convincing majority in 2005 with a lower vote share than David Cameron managed in 2010.

Scotland is the main reason that Labour is not feeling more buoyant. The party won 41 seats here last time—but could be almost wiped out this general election. Labour is right to be terrified: A YouGov poll this week put the party on course for its worst result north of the border for 97 years.

But there are tentative signs of hope. Jim Murphy is a charismatic and engaging leader, the antithesis of the plodding second-raters Scottish Labour has been led by for too long. He's no friend of Ed Miliband, but he could help Miliband's path to Number 10 by reminding SNP defectors that the choice to be next Prime Minister is between Miliband and David Cameron. Just 19 percent of Scots would rather Cameron become PM than Miliband.

Besides Murphy, Labour has two main weapons against the SNP. It can hammer home that a vote for the SNP makes it more likely that David Cameron will remain in Downing Street. And it has Gordon Brown, whose impact in the referendum campaign was a reminder that he is still revered by many Scots. Labour should wheel Brown out whenever they can tempt him away from a lucrative speaking engagement. Avoiding collapse in Scotland is still a possibility.

For all Miliband's faults, Labour is more resilient than it gets credit for. Labour's great source of optimism is their brand remains stronger than the Tories: while 33 percent of the electorate would never vote for Labour, 40 percent would never vote for the Conservatives. The main reason is that voters see the Tories as a party of yuppies who only represent the interests of the rich—maybe the Conservative pledge to cut inheritance tax wasn't quite as canny as they thought.

Labour must remind voters of their worst fears at every turn and emphasizing that it represents the only possible alternative to leading the UK. If anti-Tory sentiment can be transferred into a cross for Labour at the ballot box—especially if the party can ramp up enthusiasm among young people and ethnic minorities—it could just lead to a Labour majority. Will it happen? Probably not. Or, "Hell yes" as Ed, rather regrettably, might say.

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