2024 a year of hard Labour
This will be an election year. What does Labour need to do?
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If you could be one political leader this year, you would want to be Keir Starmer. He goes into election year* with the kind of polling most politicians - and certainly Labour politicians - can only dream about. Labour are leading on all the issues voters rank as important - even traditionally weak areas such as immigration and crime. Labour came into 2024 with polls putting them 22 points ahead of the Tories and having Sunak as the preferred leader in only four seats.
The Tories continue to flail and nosedive. I could (and I am sure I will) write more about that. But I want to focus here on what Labour should be doing in the coming year. As five seems to be the order of the day (Labour has five missions, Sunak offered five priorities (but he might have five more if you don’t like those) here are five things I think Labour should be doing this year. These are not policies - Labour has a suite of policies that could be exceptionally good and transformative. This is about how to behave as a party in what could be the most important year in our history.
Give voters hope as well as reassurance
The three-point strategy that Starmer has reportedly been laser-focused on, has been extremely successful in the first two components. Labour has actively changed to look more like a party that can and can be trusted to govern. The Tories have been comprehensively proved to be otherwise.
Now, Labour has to be equally sharply focused on the last - and most frightening part. We have to offer a programme of government that will go beyond not being either Corbyn or the Tories.
This means making - and sticking to commitments. This is by far the hardest part of any election campaign and will be the most terrifying. Because any and all policies will be attacked. They will be attacked for being too expensive from the right and not doing enough from the left.
I, myself, might find some of what we promise disappointing. I have certainly found some of the briefing about watering down policies such as the £28bn investment in green infrastructure. I think this is an essential plan if Labour is going to change our economy. I would like to go further but I accept that this might not be realistic in political (rather than policy) terms.
But the more Labour resile from the few policies we are properly known for the more we fail to achieve the third part of Starmer’s strategy - giving a narrative about what Labour will do with government. So stick to your guns and make your arguments. No matter how hard this part is. Because without doing this we will not have a policy platform that will give the country hope. And my God we need hope.
Don’t focus on what the Tories want you to
On this, it is worth considering why the Tories are briefing that they are going to run the election on beating Labour up on their energy investment policy. Think about what they might want out of briefing that. And how Labour can and should respond.
First of all, let’s please remember that absolutely nothing we have seen since October 2022 tells us that Rishi Sunak and his team are any good at politics. So why would this strategy work (or indeed be stuck to) where a thousand others have failed? Why do we suddenly get fearful of Tory strategy when they are aimed at us when we simply point and laugh at all their other failures?
If the Tories choose to make their focus the change that Labour can and will bring to the economy this is an opportunity, not a threat. We shouldn’t dance to their tune by backing away. Instead, we should embrace this opportunity to make the arguments we have been honing about the necessity and positive impact of this policy loudly and confidently. And see how long they can keep up any attacks on it as we do. The Tories are weak. We don’t have to be.
Reduce factionalism
Factionalism comes with political parties. But it is usually at its height when they are at their weakest. Factionalism reduces under a few conditions.
Firstly, when all members - no matter their faction - put winning the election over winning internal battles. I saw both sides of Labour’s forever wars doing this in 2017 in particular and it was both impressive and effective. I remember seeing dozens and dozens of Corbynite activists in Momentum and Corbyn T-Shirts pouring onto the streets of Ilford North to get Wes Streeting elected. I saw the same from the Labour right in Chingford and Woodford Green in support of Corbynite Faiza Shaheen where people like me on the soft left and my friends on the Labour right attended a canvassing session and rally that was addressed by Owen Jones.
Too often the conversations I have with ordinary Labour members are getting stuck on a sense of interference and control from the centre not just to the extent that was needed to root out the problems but now in ways that are causing significant new issues. Instead of rooting out factional resentment and behaviours, the overweening control coming from the centre - or regional centres at least - is actively splitting CLPs and pitting activists against each other at the exact moment we should be coming together.
This must end. Discipline is important in a political party as we have clearly learned from the past few years. But on the other hand, there is a great deal of difference between discipline and what looks and feels like factional punishment beatings. Discipline has to be exercised by those with the power to meter it out as well as those on the receiving end.
Resources, time, respect and empowerment should be given to all CLPs and the former should be concentrated in seats where Labour is in with a chance of winning. No matter if the candidate is not someone Starmer can see appointing to his cabinet. All Labour candidates deserve this at the very, very least.
End the briefing - start the communicating
Look I get it. It’s nice to look clever and important in front of journalists and the easiest way to do that is to brief all your clever internal strategies. It’s also a way to try to win some of the internal battles over policy and factional differences I’ve already talked about.
There may have been a period where this kind of internal wrangling had its place. That time has passed. If Labour is going to truly look like a party ready to replace a government of division and chaos, it has to look like everyone is on the same page. It has to look like a party that has the internal discipline not to try to change policy through off-the-record briefings.
Where I think there could be hope in this is in the presence of Sue Grey. One thing that some open government campaigners were particularly worried about when it came to this appointment was her tight lip/tight ship approach in the Civil Service. No fan of FOIs Grey was infamously inscrutable and against giving away what didn’t absolutely need to be said. I may have a problem with that when it comes to government, but I would like to see a little more of this approach when it comes to Labour’s internal civil service. So Sue - have a word!
One of the things that has been written admiringly about Starmer is that he doesn’t tend to behave as a commentator rather than an implementer. In some ways, he could do with being more of what Steve Richards calls a ‘political teacher’ but that doesn’t mean commenting on day-to-day issues but making the case for Labour’s settled and agreed policies, positions and personnel. This could be a lesson for those briefers who believe (rightly or wrongly I don’t know) they are doing it on his behalf. Tell a story of and for the Party and its success - not of and for you, your mates and your faction.
Don’t be blown off course
There are going to be a myriad of distractions between now and the election - whenever it comes. There are going to be issues that tear the Party apart internally but don’t touch the sides when it comes to the general election.
Take something I care about - the clash between sex-based rights and gender identity. We saw a flare-up of this conflict over the New Year with Tonia Antoniazzi (an MP I admire enormously and am proud to call a friend) tweeting something that is fully in line with where the party has landed on this issue and a great many of the Young Labour candidates for internal election attacking her for it.
Lots of women like me want the leadership to step in and publicly discipline those Young Labour candidates for attacking our own election politicians and our own policy positions in such a way. And I absolutely get that. The treatment of female MPs (Rosie Duffield and the way she has been treated is the prime example) is a disgrace. But I also want the leadership to be focused on winning the election.
There will be a way to deal with this clash that will please neither side but will not end up with the issue taking up energy that it doesn’t warrant. Twitter is less and less relevant and the outbreaks of fighting there have less and less resonance in the real world. Even I, addict as I am, spend less time there than ever. And on these hot-button issues like sex and gender, they won’t be election winning or losing issues. Those will be the economy, cost of living, the NHS and immigration. As it always i. And I say that to my gender critical friends as much as to the young hotheads.
I go back to the sense of discipline that is required from all of us to get over the line at the next election. That should be communicated to those seeking internal election and anyone abusing any other Labour member on social media or in branch meetings from whatever perspective they are doing so.
There will be intractable painful issues like gender, or more consequentially like Gaza. Events are going to be events, Dear Boy. But the goal remains the same. I think apart from the mistakes around the LBC interview Starmer largely handled the resignations over Gaza exactly right. There were decent, open and heartfelt conversations had and my understanding is that no one who resigned has felt briefed against since. The tone of ‘more in sorrow than anger’ has been expressed by both sides.
That is how a political party that is acting as a collective behaves. We could all learn from the handling of that moment and the way all sides treated each other then as we pull together now towards an election.
What I’ve Been Up To
Christmas innit.
I did make my first ever sticky toffee pudding which went down a storm.
*Yes, technically Sunak could push the election to January 2025, but I don’t think even he is so bad at politics that he’d try to run a campaign over Christmas.