Labour’s election strategy

 

Regular readers of this blog (yes, there are one or two of you) will know that I have been very far from being a supporter of Labour leader Keir Starmer. But, I have to confess that he has been successful at capturing the hearts and minds of the ‘centrist’ media. That is to say the Corbyn-hating media who did so much to deliver this Tory government. To Labour’s right-wing and their media echo chamber Starmer represents the light to the dark days of Jeremy Corbyn.

 

According to The Independent’s John Rentoul, Starmer is doing “opposition by numbers.” This is a softly-softly approach to opposition which consists mainly of saying the Tories are incompetent, as if most people hadn’t noticed. With the exception of a few embittered lefties (that’ll be me then) who “represent a minority in the Labour Party and an even smaller minority among the wider electorate”, this strategy is, supposedly winning over an electorate because, “by the next election, that may be what the British people want to vote for.”

 

New Statesman Political Editor, Stephen Bush, writing in The Guardian tells us that “As summer nears its end, most people have heard of the Labour leader and most of them like him.” This, based on a poll which found him level with Boris Johnson on a popularity scale. It is true that PoliticsHome website report a YouGov poll which gave him a 2 point lead over Johnson, but the Tories still led Labour by 6 points. YouGov rate him the 20^th most famous Labour politician. It would be churlish to mention Jeremy Corbyn tops the list, but SirKeir is beaten by, amongst others Ed Balls, Alistair Darling, Harriet Hartman and Hilary Benn. With four years to go before a General Election, Starmer’s supporters in the press are mostly, it seems, just relieved that a virtually anonymous Opposition Leader is not Jeremy Corbyn.

 

Despite his trumpeted support from sections of the media The Economist, not a traditional Labour ally, reports that under SirKeir Labour is supported by 45% of managerial and professional voters compared to 30% of low-skilled manual workers. The Tories have 35% and 48% of those groups. This, according to polling by Ipsos-MORI. This is interesting because this is precisely the opposite of what new Director of Policy, Claire Ainsley suggests is the key to Labour winning the next election.

 

In an article in Politico titled ‘How Keir Starmer Plans To Make Labour Great Again’ winning back the so-called “Red Wall” is presented as central to Labour’s strategy for winning the next election. The goal is to convince Labour deserters that their values – “ left-wing economically, but socially conservative, patriotic, proud of the armed forces, on low to middle incomes” – are Labour values. 

 

The theory is that in the so-called Red Wall that Labour supporters deserted to the Tories. A typical example is Don Valley where Blairite Caroline Flint lost in 2019. At first look the evidence for a massive desertion seems credible. Caroline Flint from a majority of 5,169 in 2017 came second 3,630 votes behind the Tory. Clearly Labour voters must have voted Tory. Labour lost 8,372 votes. What proportion of those went to the Tories? Precisely 5.1%. The Tories gained exactly 427 votes. So, where are all these Labour turned Tory voters? The fact is they do not exist. 

 

Empirical evidence is never as exciting as pandering to prejudices, and the Labour establishment is nothing if not riddled with prejudice. Following the election the right-wing of the party, aided and abetted by their friendly media, went into overdrive to hide their own role in Labour’s defeat. Key to this was what has become a de facto truth: Labour voters became Tory because the Tories better captured their values. The key to winning in future was to win back those voters by convincing them that their values were shared by a new, modern, Labour Party. Short of calling it ‘The Third Way’ it could not have been more of a tribute to the Blair years.

 

The analysis is based on Claire Ainsley’s book, written whilst she was Director of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, called ‘The New Working Class’. In this, according to Politico, she argues “.. that people's political choices are based on core moral values, among them care and fairness, but also … respect for tradition and loyalty to community and nation.” In an article in ConservativeHome in 2018 Ainsley gave a  précis  of her argument. The class structure in the U.K. has changed, she suggests. The old working class barely exists and has been replaced by a new working class:

“It is made up of people doing jobs in the service sector like retail, hospitality and care; it is multi-ethnic, and diverse; living off low to middle incomes. The new working class is not some distant grouping: it is in every town, city, village, high street, office, shop and place of work. It makes up nearly half the population.”

 

This half of the population allegedly share some common values: “four values stood out for the new working class, and amongst all groups: family, fairness, hard work and decency.” The good thing was that “Labour has a closer alignment with the values felt to be most important to the new working class, and the wider general public.” 

 

A former senior Tory aide quoted by Politico, sees SirKeir’s strategy as signalling a change in Labour. It is not said, neither does it have to be, but SirKeir is jettisoning any commitment to socialism, or the values supposedly held by half the population in 2018 (half way through Jeremy Corbyn’s tenure as leader incidentally). 

 

“I think it is a shift toward a greater respect for tradition, a greater reverence for the nation, a more patriotic politics that [Claire] Ainsley represents and has spoken about,”  It is a recognition “that people are more instinctively small-c conservative than small-l liberal in lots of their views.” 

The evidence for this can be seen in SirKeir’s failure to support Black Lives Matter, describing it as a ‘moment’, his sacking of Rebecca Long-Bailey over his disagreement about supporting the teaching unions, his opinion pieces in The Daily Telegraph where he describes his own “patriotism”, and the Daily Mail where he insisted that children should return to school regardless of whether their parents (or their teachers) felt it was safe to do so. All of this makes sense, not just in terms of distancing himself from the socialism of his predecessor but also in a belief that in order to win Tory supporting new working class voters it is necessary to reflect back to them their values.

Claire Ainsley is clearly critical to the policies that Labour will fight the next election on, and they will not be on a manifesto that was regarded as undeliverable. The softening up process by which Labour will relinquish the policies SirKeir promised to keep, will be a slow burn. But, essentially, that process will be sold to Labour members as one of electability. As Simon Heffer in the New Statesman says: 

“When the Labour Party promised to revolutionise public spending and ensure that only the wealthiest 5 per cent of taxpayers funded it, these voters were not merely sceptical, but incredulous.

More than this, when free broadband was thrown to the voters as an additional bone, and £58bn plucked from the air to compensate women born in the Fifties disadvantaged by changes to pension rights, it failed to stimulate a surge towards Labour. To judge from the results, few people believed either was wise or feasible.”

Voters, it appeared, were not beguiled by Brexit after all, nor were they overly bothered by anti-Semitism, but the idea of free broadband was a deal breaker for the new working class. As Lisa Nandy said whilst on the leadership stump her constituents didn’t want broadband they wanted buses to run on time. As if the two were mutually incompatible.

The main problem with this rewriting of history is that it doesn’t begin “once upon a time..”, for despite being widely believed by Labour MPs it is a complete fairytale. Labour’s 2019 policies, which are being systematically undermined by the Labour front bench and their supporters in the media were actually incredibly popular. At least according to a poll conducted by YouGov a few days before the election and reported in Labour List. 60% approved of increasing tax on earnings over £80,000, with 23% saying they were against. When asked about increasing tax on earnings over £123,000, 64% were in favour compared to just 20% against. When asked whether the government should “tax the wealth (i.e. assets, property, investment) of people earning over a certain amount”, 53% were supportive of the policy, while only 30% of people actively expressed their opposition. YouGov found that 56% of people supported nationalising the railways compared to 22% against; 50% of people were for nationalising water companies with just 25% against; and support for nationalisation of gas and electric companies stood at 45% in favour and 29% against. YouGov did a specific poll when Labour announced it’s policy to provide free and fast broadband for everyone. 62% expressed their support for the idea, compared to 22% against the policy. Sorry Mr. Heffer but maybe it was Brexit after all.

Since December 20^th there has been a concerted campaign by Labour’s parliamentarian right-wing to blame the loss on a) Jeremy Corbyn himself b) the “radical” manifesto and c) the number of Labour voters from 2017 who voted Tory. This narrative and I don’t want to repeat it here has been given a theoretical underpinning since the appointment of Claire Ainsley in April this year. As the Mail on Sunday gleefully reported:

“As well as believing that leaving the EU is an 'opportunity' for Britain, Claire Ainsley is an ardent pro-family campaigner…Ms Ainsley, who becomes one of the most powerful figures in the party hierarchy, spent years calling on politicians to listen to voters unhappy about the EU and immigration.”

 

The ex-Tory Chairman and now “independent” pollster, Lord Ashcroft carried out survey and focus group research shortly after the election. Amongst all voters two issues dominated the reason why people had not voted Labour: a dislike of Jeremy Corbyn and Labour’s Brexit policy (concocted mainly by Corbyn’s successor Keir Starmer). But among Labour voters, and lets not forget there were 10 million of them, there was a definite feeling that the most important reason for voting Labour was simply to get rid of the Tories which was chosen by 71%, followed by Labour’s commitment to public services (61%), Labour’s policies (52%) and identification with Labour values (42%). 

 

What Lord Ashcroft and the dozens of right-wing media pundits who lapped up his report took from it was that Jeremy Corbyn and left-wing policies more generally, were unpopular. What they never questioned was why Jeremy Corbyn was so unpopular when the policies he was promoting had such widespread public support. Indeed, Lord Ashcroft’s report was in keeping with the ideas being promoted by the right-wing of Labour, supporters of whom overwhelmingly endorsed the proposal that “the most important thing is to win a General Election even if that means making a compromise on principles.” If winning is all, then it really doesn’t matter what policies you win on. If to win it is necessary to be racist, to be sexist, to be anti-trade union, to pursue policies that are pro-business and anti-worker then so be it. In other words, for many long-standing Labour members policies are not at all important. And, neither is socialism.

For Claire Ainsley, and presumably now the over-bloated Labour Shadow Cabinet the key to winning is telling prospective voters exactly what they want to hear. If they are patriotic, then we’ll be patriotic, if they are against immigration then we’ll dust off those anti-immigration mugs, if they want kids back in schools and blame the teachers then we’ll distance ourselves from the teaching unions, and definitely make no attempt to repeal the anti-trade union laws because that might upset our target voters. And, who are this new working class that hold the key to our fortunes? Claire Ainsley gave a description of them in I-News:

“People living on low to middle incomes in Britain’s modern economy today undertake hundreds of different types of jobs, employed as shop workers, bar tenders, teaching assistants, cleaners, cooks, secretaries, delivery workers and so on. A reasonable proportion combine work with caring or other responsibilities. Typically they would have an annual income less than the median of £27,310. But even though most will be working, they may struggle to meet their costs. The issues research found concerned them most are finances and debt; health; immigration; caring responsibilities; work; and housing.”

 

According to Government statistics the proportion of people in service industries is around 60% of the employed population. The problem, or at least one problem with the analysis presented by Claire Ainsley in her articles, is that she conflates three variables: employment, income and values. Let’s just briefly talk about the last of these. 

 

If her contention is that over half of the population share common values it is likely that the values are likely to be so vague as to be meaningless. After all is ‘family’ a value at all? What does it mean to say “I believe in family.” We might hazard a guess but it is unlikely that whatever you think would be the same as what I think. Similarly, ‘decency’ means, well, what exactly? Even ‘hard work’ seems more an invocation or aspiration than a value. Which leaves us with ‘fairness’. Given that the great political philosopher John Rawls wrote 4 books and dozens of articles trying to enunciate his idea of ‘justice as fairness’ it seems fair to argue that as values go fairness is no more helpful to policy formulation than ‘equality’. Perhaps less so because at least equality suggests that a remedy is needed for an objective reality, whereas feeling that something is unfair is precisely that, a feeling.

 

Ainsley’s, and now it seems Starmer’s, analysis hinges on an assertion that half of the population are in low paying, service jobs and that it is this reality that leads them to their particular values. This is doubtful on an empirical level. As a YouGov poll carried out following the 2019 election surmises: the two most significant variables explaining voting are age and education. Broadly speaking, the younger the voter and the better educated the more likely to vote Labour. Class, whilst important, is less significant.

The point though is not that Ainsley’s analysis may be flawed, though that may turn out to be the case, but that Starmer has brought Ainsley in precisely because he thinks her analysis holds the key to victory. That analysis is already seeing the light of day as Starmer and his loyalist front bench are pursuing policies which are aimed at this “new” working class. What is interesting about this strategy is that changing popular progressive policies to appeal to a mythical conservative (with a small c) voter may gain a few voters in some swing seats, but it also runs the very real risk of losing existing voters who were attracted to the party because of its radical agenda. The question for Starmer and Ainsley is will they gain enough voters to offset the abstainers and defectors, and will they gain them in places where it will result in more seats rather than lose them in places where it will cost seats?

 

For Starmer, much like the Blairites who support him, selling a political party is very like selling any other product. On that analogy if the Tories are Kellogg’s Cornflakes, and Labour is Aldi’s own brand the pitch is ‘buy our cornflakes because they taste exactly the same as Kellogg’s.’ I don’t know about you but if I’m going to buy a different brand of cornflakes I would only do so if there was something radically different and better than the original well known brand. Perhaps that’s because I’m old working class and simply don’t understand why somebody telling me exactly what I want to hear is not particularly compelling. But for those in the Labour Party selling our own-brand of Toryism is precisely what we will be asked to do in the next few years. Some people, some who regard themselves on the left, will do so on the basis that our brand of Toryism is better than the established brand. For me, I’m giving up cornflakes for the foreseeable future, just lately I’ve found they have been sticking in my throat.

 

Postscript:  After all, it’s still policies, stupid!

I’m genuinely interested in what motivates people to vote in certain ways. This Twitter poll, carried out this week (and as unscientific as most polls these days) suggests that policies are the key motivator for most Labour supporters. 

Though judging by the comments they felt “the other sides” voters were impressed by simplistic slogans. 

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The question for Labour is: does it want to be a party with policies that attract support or one who follows blindly behind whatever slogans appeal to a demographic they may never win anyway?

 

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