The biggest (and, rather oddly, rarely discussed) problem for the left in the UK is actually Scotland. Before the SNP rose to power, Scotland used to be a Labour stronghold. In 1997, Tony Blair's Labour had 56 seats in Scotland. Today, Labour have just 1.

Now that all of those votes go to the SNP it makes it extremely difficult for Labour to get a majority in the Commons along traditional ideological lines. There just aren't enough swing seats elsewhere to really make up for it. 200 seats haven't changed hands since WW2.

Seats gained/lost by winning party in elections since 1966:

1966: Labour Win, 47

1970: Conservative Win: 77

1974: Labour Win: 14

1979: Conservative Win: 62

1983: Conservative Win: 58

1987: Conservative Win: -21

1992: Conservative Win: -40

1997: Labour Win: 145

2001: Labour Win: -6

2005: Labour Win: -48

2010: Conservative Win: 96

2015: Conservative Win: 24

2017: Conservative Win: -13

2019: Conservative Win: 48

Current Seat Breakdown:

Conservative: 357

Labour: 200

SNP: 44

Lib Dem: 14

Plaid Cymru: 3

Alba: 2

Green Party: 1

NI parties: 18 (never been held by Labour or Conservative as far as I'm aware)

Speaker: 1 (politically neutral so irrelevant)

If SNP and Alba (Scottish Parties) are taken out of the equation entirely the way Northern Ireland currently is, Labour has only 18 seats that aren't held by Tories that they could potentially win. 326 seats are needed for a majority. That means Labour, in a best case (and very unrealistic) scenario where they gain all the seats from the minority parties, would need to gain 126 seats, with 108 of them coming from Tory seats in order to form a majority government.

I don't have the data going back past 1966 but looking at what we do have, a seat gain of more than 100 has only happened once: Tony Blair's 1997 win with 145 seats gained. 7 of those gained seats were in Scotland but Labour already held 49. In 1997, Scotland had 72 Westminster MPs but today, due to the redrawing of boundaries, it now only has 59. In total, Labour had 56 seats in Scotland. This means Labour held 78% of Scottish seats, which would equate to 46 seats today.

This is the real reason why Labour has had to become more and more Tory. To make up the deficit they either need to win back seats from the completely dominant Scottish National Party or win Conservative strongholds. They see the latter as more realistic so it's become their focus. When Scotland's seats are essentially out of reach of Labour, the UK becomes a de facto 1 party Conservative state.

It is absolutely bizarre to me that Labour won't make proportional representation and cross party co-operation a key part of their platform. Unless there are some seriously major shifts I can only really see Labour gaining power again through a minority/coalition government. Even if another right wing party such as the Brexit party emerged to splinter votes from the tories, Labour is still looking at a minority government. They simply can't gain enough seats unless they win back Scotland. This is why they are so reluctant to engage with the SNP because if Scotland really does leave the union, Labour probably won't be seeing power again unless there's electoral reform, a revolution or the tories mess up something up so badly that literally millions die. But by that point, they will have probably been in power so long (and absolute power corrupts absolutely) that they'll have the elections rigged autocracy style so even that may not matter.

https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/latest-news-and-research...