David Lammy has urged Labour MPs to see the party’s defeat in the Caerphilly byelection as a moment of reflection, arguing progressive governments around the world have recovered from worse to “win big”.
The deputy prime minister pointed to Canada’s Liberals, Norway’s Labour party and Australia’s Labor party as examples of centre-left groups that “roared back” from midterm slumps to secure significant victories.
Speaking at a private meeting of the parliamentary Labour party on Monday night, Lammy said the lesson from Caerphilly was that “people can mobilise to stop Reform, but we are not always the beneficiary”.
He said progressives “have to get better at picking the fights that demonstrate our values” if they want to convince voters to feel the purpose behind Labour’s project in power.
Lammy’s remarks come as Labour MPs and peers privately concede the party is still trying to define what its reform agenda actually means in practice, and how they can turn it into something voters can actually feel. One Labour insider said the danger was “ending up with reform as a slogan rather than something people can actually touch”.
His comments followed a day of unusually frank conversations among Labour MPs, many of whom privately praised Wes Streeting’s response to the byelection loss in Wales, after he told broadcasters Labour had not told a “compelling enough story” about its achievements. He compared Labour’s third place in Caerphilly to the 2021 Hartlepool byelection, which led Keir Starmer to contemplate resigning as party leader.
He told the Sunday Times that Starmer “not only took that result on the chin, he took it to heart” and used it to accelerate his reform of the party in opposition.
Labour’s vote share in Caerphilly fell to 11%, with Plaid Cymru surging to victory and Reform UK taking second place, splitting between an anti-establishment local sentiment and populist anger.
Several MPs described the health secretary’s tone as “blunt but refreshing”, highlighting an appetite for plainer, more evocative language that cuts through the party’s cautious talk of change.
Others still argue that Starmer’s sharp conference pivot, especially his moral attack on Reform UK’s “politics of division” and “racist policies”, could still prove decisive. They believe it came from a progressive place and could reset the conversation before May’s local elections.
“It’s the right fight,” one MP said. “The question is whether he’s left himself enough time to win it. We need to double down, not shy away.”
