6 point point plan for a Labour victory

There has been considerable debate on social media recently about the Labour Party. Much of the debate has focussed on whether to stay in or not. I would like to put that debate to one side for the time being, and consider what the Labour Party should do to win back it’s lost voters. In particular in this blog I would like to examine a Twitter thread from Rose Shillito (@rozzleberry), which claims to be a 6-point plan for Labour’s renewal.

The first thing to note is that this plan was written in January so prior to the leadership election, or the Covid crisis. However, it was republished last week, so presumably Rose thinks it is as relevant 6 months later as it was on New Years Day. Either that or she had such a hangover from December that she thinks it is still January 1^st! (Correction: Rose has let me know that she did not republish the thread, though it was a pinned tweet. Happy to clarify.)

I cannot find out much about Rose except that she has 7.6k Twitter followers, but only follows 3.8k. She uses the words “common sense” in her profile, for which see last week’s blog. She is white and I’m going to take a punt, middle class. She is obviously well meaning and would prefer all wings of the party to bury their differences and just get on with one another. In a recent post she talked of bringing together progressive left with progressive right, which I have to say is a bit of a stretch. Even getting the left to agree is difficult, getting two wings of the party to collaborate when we now know the lengths the right will go to undermine the left is either the mark of a great optimist or of somebody who is politically naïve.

Her 6-point plan didn’t receive too much attention back in January, but as the divisions within the party have grown seems a reasonable place to start an analysis of left-leaning centrist thought. Rose’s six points are in short form:

1.  Reframe the narrative

2.  Rebrand the message

3.  Reconnect with our working class base

4.  Refine our manifesto

5.  Re-engage the electorate

6.  Rebuild our relationship with the establishment.

For Rose the problem is that we are presented, presumably she means by the media, as something we are not. In her expansion of point 1 she says clearly “The Labour Party manifesto is not hard left.” As she rightly points out the manifesto commitments in December were fairly mainstream in many European countries. But, I cannot recall any Labour spokesperson ever claiming that the manifesto was anything other than mainstream. No Labour frontbencher appeared on the Sunday politics shows and said “This is our hard left manifesto”, or even “This is our left-wing manifesto”.

Like many, and I’ll use a shorthand term here “liberal socialists” Rose seems to find it hard to believe that the media actually hate the Labour Party. They particularly hate the left in the Labour Party who, despite being nice people who just want a fairer World are, in the eyes of many journalists, dangerous revolutionaries who seek to destroy the Britain they know and love.

Rose has the answer to this problem though. All we need to do, she says, is “rebrand the message”. According to Rose “We should play down our commitment to socialism and repackage our economic ethos as compassionate capitalism”. Essentially, the plea here is to dodge the accusations of being ‘communists’ by making it clear that we are a pro-capitalist party that just wants a bit of wealth redistribution.

In essence, this is simply repeating exactly what the strategy of Labour has been since at least 1945. The idea that Labour has ever been a revolutionary socialist party is a convenient fiction invented by tabloid headline writers. But, equally, the idea that people in the U.K. will not vote for anything labelled ‘socialist’ is a piece of so-called common sense not supported by the fact that 10-13 million people voted for Labour led by Jeremy Corbyn who the press had made clear was a socialist with dangerous and anti-patriotic ideas. There are plenty of examples of the way in which Labour, and Corbyn specifically, were misrepresented by the media (for an example see Media Lens) but the most blatant piece of imagery was that of BBC’s Newsnight who presented Corbyn in what appeared to be a Russian hat against a red backdrop of the Kremlin. 

There are two points to remember here. First, people voted for Corbyn’s Labour regardless of the labels placed on him by the media. And, second, we cannot think of the media as neutral. We can only shape their agenda by watering down what we believe in, and even then come a General Election they will willingly tell outright lies in order to favour the Conservatives. Jonathan Cook has written repeatedly about journalistic integrity (or lack of it) but this piece on Emily Maitlis is pretty accurate in its analysis of media socialisation.

Does this mean that we cannot present our message more professionally? It would be irresponsible not to look at ways to improve the message in order to reach the intended audience. The problem for Labour is it tends to believe the audience is every potential voter. In fact, a good one-third of voters will never vote Labour even if we present ourselves as the fluffy, lovely, kind and compassionate party. As I outlined in a previous blog it is important to be realistic about who can be won over.The existence of floating voters who veer between Labour and Tory is not supported as strongly as some would like to believe by studies of voters. As the Electoral Reform Society has noted “parties target their resources on a small number of floating voters in marginal seats”. What this means is that the importance of floating voters is given far more prominence than their numbers warrant.

So, basically, Rose wants us to abandon our commitment to our deepest held values to convince voters who were never going to vote for us in the first place that we are no threat to them. Analysis of voting reveals that on average 38% of the electorate always vote Tory. They are, essentially, a lost cause.

But, Rose whilst wanting to, let’s be generous and say, amend our message, also wants to win back what she describes as “working class” voters in our Northern heartlands. She believes that the loss of 60 seats was mainly down “to the decision to renege on respecting the referendum result”. Whilst Brexit was clearly implicated in the December result, as I’ve said previously many of those seats were lost prior to 2017 by the Labour Party taking them for granted. The disillusion with Labour dates back to the Blair years and can also be located in the manufacturing decline forced through by the Thatcher Government, and subsequent promises of regeneration that were never delivered. If Brexit was a symptom of a malaise, the disease was a shift to the right in the attitudes of people who blamed the left for the destruction of their communities. Winning these voters back, or those who deserted the party in Scotland will not be as easy as pretending we are no longer socialist or have embraced capitalism.

For Rose, like many in the party, the manifesto has become the defining point which explains, with other factors, our poor performance (though actually in 2019 Labour received more votes than it had in 2010 or 2015). The problem is that paring down the manifesto, whilst maintaining some of the policies (which is what Keir Starmer promised to do before he was leader), simply leaves us open to questions on things for which we no longer have a policy. The policy of paring back assumes that the majority of voters actually read manifestos. I’ll be honest, I’m a member and I never read the manifesto. Apparently I’m not alone. According to research carried out by BMG some 67% of voters do not read manifestos, and nearly a quarter of younger voters did not even know what a manifesto was.

The real issue with manifestos has actually nothing to do with what is in them. It is, rather, a peculiar game played by political journalists who like to pretend that every spending commitment must be met by either a tax rise (for Labour) or a welfare cut (for the Tories). If it is the case that the media are out to discredit Labour with far more enthusiasm than they do the Tories, then it is difficult to see how simply losing policies is going to stop them. Rose, like most people in the party, rather liked the manifesto until December 19^th, then decided it had too much in it. Despite that, she wants to retain some of our boldest commitments: green industrial strategy, fully funded NHS, nationalisation of key industries, social housing and a commitment to end austerity. That appears to be a pared down manifesto, but still we are going to be constantly asked “how will this be paid for?” Either Labour is the party of ‘free stuff’ or the party of high taxation, and simply pretending that we are not is not going to convince a skeptical, and inherently hostile, media.

But Rose seems to be, at least partly, aware that we cannot rely on the media to convince the electorate. That’s why we need to “re-engage the electorate with a nationwide campaign of grassroots activism”. This relies on Labour, with its reduced manifesto and embarrassment to be called socialist, retaining most of the members who joined because of its commitment to socialism. It is likely that a number of members will prioritise winning over principles, whether the electorate will is another issue. Rose suggests, in typical middle class fashion, “If you donate to a food bank or volunteer at a homeless shelter wear your Labour badge with pride.” It would be unfair to suggest that Rose approves of food poverty or homelessness, she would not be in the Labour Party if she did, but it is interesting that her vision of Labour members is neither impoverished nor homeless. More to the point, Labour should not be about glorifying our charity, but doing away with food poverty and homelessness once and for all. But, such talk may sound a bit too much like socialism or, Marx forbid, communism for a party that is rebranding itself to appeal to the establishment.

It is the idea that we must be embraced by the establishment that is perhaps the weakest part of this plan. It is necessary to understand who the establishment are and how their interests are different to ordinary peoples to see why much of Rose’s plan is as unworkable as it is, to Rose’s eyes at least, just common sense. A shorthand name for the establishment is the Conservative Party, but we used to refer to them as the ruling class. I can understand why those like Rose who believe the establishment should be treated as floating voters would want to deny the existence of class conflict. But, it is undoubtedly the case that we have a class with power, wealth and entitlement and we have a class who have nothing but their own labour power. The interests of these two classes are not, nor can they be, the same. The establishment will only accept Labour as the dejure rulers of British capitalism on condition that they are no threat to the defacto ruling class and their privileged position. 

It is not an unfortunate oversight that some 14 million British citizens are living in poverty, according to the United Nations. Nor was it just an editorial oversight that meant the UN Report which damned the Government was virtually ignored by the entire media. When it was featured it was mainly to coordinate a personal campaign against Professor Philip Alston, the reports author. 

If the conditions for Labour getting elected are the patronage of the establishment, a refusal to even mention socialism, let alone practice it, and a manifesto that is written to appeal to the ruling class, then it is hardly worth voting for them at all. Whilst Jeremy Corbyn was leader it was difficult to maintain that all the parties were the same. But, it was that belief that saw Labour under Blair lose 4 million voters, including starting the rot in Scotland, and in the North of England. 

Labour wins votes when it is bold, and when it’s policies are attractive to young and working class voters. 

 In 2017 Labour received nearly 13 million votes. It did not hide its anti-establishment agenda, it’s belief in a form of socialism nor its intention to challenge the status quo that had ruined, and continues to do so, the lives of millions of people. We now know that in addition to the Parliamentary Labour Party working doggedly to overthrow the members choice as leader, and unreconstructed Blairites working everyday to destroy Corbyn, that the Labour establishment in the shape of full-time employees were determined to prevent a Labour victory (I’ve written about this here, but Novaramedia’s Aaron Bastani has also written about its contents, as has the always interesting and provocative Craig Murray). We lost in 2019 partly because of Brexit but also because the establishment and its cronies in Labour threw everything at us to ensure their continued dominance. It is demoralising to realise that so many who had joined the party because of Corbyn then swallowed the myth of electability that saw Keir Starmer, the architect of the disastrous Brexit policy, emerge as leader. 

I have spent some time on Rose Shillito’s six-point plan not because she is a major figure in Labour but precisely she is the type of ordinary member who cares passionately for the party, and desperately wants to see a Labour victory. I suspect that she represents a view held by many who believe any Labour victory is preferable to a Tory one. But, and here’s the rub, the view is misguided, in my view, on so many counts, some of which I’ve outlined here.

The Labour Party is more than just a political party. It encapsulates the hopes and dreams of millions of people. A vote for Labour is not a vote for an entrenched establishment but a vote for hope and for change. As strange as it may seem that remains the case even when Labour sells itself as embracing values more commonly held by the Liberals and Conservatives. For those of us on the left doctrine is important, perhaps more important than we let on. We believe that voters are swayed by ideas promoted by the media. We believe, therefore, that the ideas must be correct. Sometimes we believe so passionately that we forget that the majority of ordinary people for the majority of time are barely thinking about politics at all. They really don’t know the difference between Ed Miliband, Jeremy Corbyn or Keir Starmer. They know that there is such a thing as ‘the establishment’ but most of the time, beyond having a feeling that they don’t like them much don’t really know who or what they are. This is the background to debates about what the party should stand for.

If I am correct that people vote for Labour regardless of what it stands for then why does it matter whether we are pro- or anti-establishment? The fact is that the closer aligned to the establishment Labour become, the less attractive we become to ordinary voters. We may be more attractive to the establishment but governing with their permission means accepting their values. It is held, particularly by Labour’s right and their supporters in the media, that Jeremy Corbyn was a disaster as Labour leader. But, objectively that is simply not true. Corbyn took a party that appeared to be in terminal decline within 2,000 votes of an election victory. He was responsible for an influx of members making Labour the biggest party in Western Europe. But, impressive as that would be, Corbyn’s success was in shifting the terms of debate. If the party’s right was not so obsessively anti-left, it would see that they had been presented with an open goal. A mass membership prepared to work on the ground, a manifesto that with minor tweaks was capable of delivering a huge popular vote and an anti-establishment agenda that was tailor made for the emerging environmental and black lives matters lobbies. Faced with an open goal the right picked up the ball, and walked off the pitch prepared to cede everything to a party that stands in direct opposition to everything Labour is supposed to stand for.

It matters what Labour stands for because it helps shape the debate. The more to the left Labour places itself the harder it is to argue that there is no difference between the parties. But more importantly the more leftward we are, the more the political establishment moves left in order to discredit us and to maintain the illusion that they are the friends of ordinary workers. Cosying up to the establishment as Rose suggests and Starmer appears intent on doing is bad politics for it blurs the distinction between good politics and bad politics. But it is also bad politics because conceding more ground to the establishment does not make Labour more electable but rather makes them indistinguishable to the Tories.

We may need a six point plan to re-energise the Labour Party, but I’m sorry to say this is not it.

End note: After publishing this blog post I contacted Rose Shillito via Twitter and offered a right of reply. She declined. She then called me “clueless” on Twitter and promptly blocked me. I am sad about that outcome as in her original tweet she had explicitly said she would welcome comments.