Labour’s Strategy #2: Resurgence
Post-Conference: What Comes Next?
Pre-conference Labour and post-conference Labour seem like a very different beast. The idea that there has been some fundamental shift in strategy is wrong, however. Starmer repeatedly said that he had a three-stage plan – establish credibility, destroy the Tories, and then set out their stall. One can be forgiven for distrusting the word of a party that has repeatedly briefed on re-sets and restarts and relaunches. But with the 2022 Conference it very much looks like we’re in stage 3. The underestimation of Starmer’s strategy comes from the restlessness political commentators are vulnerable to when covering the day-to-day (something that TPI tries to strive against). Sometimes they (As we were guilty of in LS#1), can lose the wood for the trees.
However, the basic premise that Labour must create a narrative for change still holds – they have shown a willingness to commit to bold policy at conference, which accounts for much of the current polling lead, alongside the Conservatives’ collapse – but to win the 2024 election they must keep going. Using their current strength, the party should announce further policies and weave these ideas into a narrative for government. This should include its plans for delivery once in No. 10. Additionally, the party should improve their communications by involving former government figures more, and creating a strong network of allies for the leadership. In this way, Labour can become not only a possible victor of the next general election, but the likely one.
Conference Season
Conference, then, was pretty pitch perfect. The party grabbed headlines with a big policy announcement that capitalises on two major anxieties in British politics, one short-term and one long-term. With Great British Energy, Labour has provided a policy answer for reducing British reliance on imported gas and oil by increasing our renewable output, which would enable lower energy bills, and decreased CO2 emissions. Sustainable energy for the future, and secure energy for the present. This helped to bolster their poll lead to a whopping 33 points according to YouGov, a massive 24-point rise since the first piece in this series, fuelled by more and more Con-Lab switchers – 20% of 2019 Tories would vote Labour if a general election were held tomorrow. An excellent, on-message conference has clearly announced a party that is strong enough to contest the next election.
Now, of course, much of this lead, probably most of it, is thanks to the Conservatives self-inflicted implosion (which you can read about in SOP #9). This is surely the reason the governing party is languishing in the low 20s, having surrendered any economic credibility they had with the kami-Kwasi mini budget. This has been further cemented by their disaster of a conference last week. Dominated by the mini-budget catastrophe and the fallout from it, Penny Mordaunt, Michael Gove and Iain Duncan Smith (to name but a few) have all broken ranks on significant policy areas, as party discipline has collapsed. In direct contrast to the Labour conference, the Conservatives’ descent in popularity has been hammered home.
However, the fact that Labour’s polling has grown so dramatically, and that this has been fuelled by Con-Lab switchers, rather than just Conservatives answering ‘don’t know’, is significant. It suggests a shoring up of their credibility, and a hardening (as opposed to just growing) polling lead. The contrast in fortunes for the two biggest parties then, are two sides of the same polling coin.
Policy Vision: Crafting a Narrative
Labour should now (and all indications are that they intend to) capitalise on this burgeoning Tory civil war and their own popularity by setting out their policy ideas in all different areas of government. The focus, understandably and rightly, has been on energy and the climate so far – the party is positioning to profit off anxieties around energy bills and the popularity of climate action (particularly with the Green vote so high). Now Labour should explain to the country their policy platform for defence, education, crime, taxation, and public services. In this way, they can tell a story – what do they want the country to look like? Since the spring, the focus has been on economic growth – but with Trussonomics’ supply side reforms occupying the political space on pursuing growth at all costs, a different tack is needed. A better route to leading on the economy would be taking ownership of an old enemy.
‘Levelling-up’ as a concept should be hugely popular. Never properly explained or implemented by the Johnson government, there is a mostly blank canvas for Labour to paint in broad strokes. Green industrialisation in left-behind areas, funded by wealth taxation; state-built affordable and social housing in areas most squeezed by house prices, state partnership with business to increase private investment in the North, Wales and Midlands. All threads Labour has been tugging on but, if you’ll forgive the metaphor, the tapestry’s design has not been clear – levelling up could be the concept that unites these themes and provides an alternate (and altogether more credible) plan for economic growth in the 2020s.
The Party of Government
Importantly, any narrative Labour creates should include their plan for implementation – how they will do these things once in government. Firstly, this should capitalise on the failures of the Conservatives to implement their manifesto promises – especially on levelling-up if Labour goes in this direction for their narrative vision. Secondly, it should prepare the civil service for the way Labour want to run things, therefore making it more likely they really will be able to deliver should they get into office. And lastly, it will further their credibility as a government-in-waiting, hopefully creating an expectation that these ideas will be put into practice.
On this point, Labour need to look to many of the old players from the last Labour governments, like Hilary Benn, Yvette Cooper and Ed Miliband, in order to take advantage of a current Tory weakness. As a result of continual purges upon change in government over the last 6 years, the Conservatives have no ‘big beasts’ like Gove or Sunak currently in the cabinet. If Labour can utilise its MPs with government experience, they can draw attention to this problem facing the Truss government – perhaps an explanation for why the ‘mini-Budget’ was so poorly-conceived. Miliband has already been a prominent figure in the party over the last two years, and Cooper has been promoted to Shadow Home Secretary, so there are signs that Starmer’s team are aware of how useful they could be. These are some of the party’s best communicators, and getting them in the media developing a contrast of governmental experience and political weight between a Starmer and a Truss administration is key. Alongside a rumoured return to frontline politics for Ed Balls and David Miliband as senior staff in a Labour government, before even mentioning the likely return of Sadiq Khan and Andy Burnham to the parliamentary party, Labour has an opportunity it has not had in a decade. It can be seen as the natural party of government.
Communications
Although Labour post-conference seems like a more confident machine, there is one more area where they could improve. On the first day of the conference, there were suggestions in the media that Wes Streeting and Bridget Phillipson, two of the party’s more impressive communicators, were being left to give speeches on the Wednesday, when most party delegates had gone home and conference was winding down. The Spectator describes Streeting’s speech as in the ‘gravest of the graveyard slots’. The suggestions are, then and now, that this was the result of some fear on LOTO’s part that they may overshadow Starmer’s big speech on the Tuesday should they speak before him. This, and the rather less prominent media role Lisa Nandy currently has, create a limit on the party’s communications strategy. This may well become a problem, especially in the run-up to an election fought on economic issues (Nandy is currently Shadow Levelling-Up Secretary). LOTO must have the confidence to give these effective communicators a platform – the party cannot win an election with a hand tied behind their back – and these figures, especially Nandy, must now pause any ambition for the leadership until after 2024, particularly as a coup now is unthinkable with the party’s current polling strength.
Perhaps, with this newfound authority, Starmer and his team can truly take advantage, bringing these big, young players in to create ‘Starmerites’. Ideologically to the left of Blair and Brown, but to the right of Miliband, ‘Starmerism’ is the obvious home for MPs in the middle and to the right of the party should Labour continue its journey towards No. 10. This, and utilising the party’s experienced former government ministers, should keep the party on-message and, in-so-doing, improve the party’s communication.
Conclusion
As unthinkable as it was three years ago, Labour is on course for election victory in 2024. They must now keep pushing, capitalising on a Conservative party with little government experience, no credibility and few ideas. They can only do this by crafting a vision of what the country could be by the end of the decade. This should be based on an active state, in partnership with business, helping to grow the economies of left-behind areas – levelling up, if you will. Partnered with a contrast in government experience and a more effective communications operation, as long as the party can stay relatively united and avoid any scandals, this should be enough to make Keir Starmer the first Labour PM in over a decade. The question may soon become ‘how will Sir Keir govern?’ rather than ‘if’.
An interesting read.