For a Labour government that was elected only two years ago with a record majority, the fall has been spectacular. It has also been apparently inexplicable and, to its supporters, simply unfair. The reason is hardly inexplicable, however, and nobody should go into politics with the expectation of fairness. In any case, Labour reaps what it sows.
It is claimed that the government’s many successes are never noticed: probably true, though it is commonly accepted that the party’s communications have been disastrous. But there is another and much more fundamental reason. Labour has always been a party of aspiration, of high ideals, of progress. After many years of spiteful and self-interested, regressive politics from the Conservatives, the public was looking for something better, something not as grubby and much more uplifting.
Labour campaigned on the word “change”, which might have offered the electorate the opportunity for aspiration they had longed for.
Public frustration was rebuffed
It didn’t happen. They were denied it. The fundamental error Keir Starmer’s government made when coming into office was to eschew any serious attempt at taking the moral high ground and ensuring “change” really meant something. The disappointment and frustration after years of Conservative governments were ignored, even rebuffed. Further, key unpopular Conservative initiatives, such as the two-child benefit cap and restrictions on winter payments, were kept instead of immediately ditched.
Nor has the Starmer regime ever appreciated the depth of European belonging which was destroyed by Brexit. For many, it was like a death in the family. We lost something very dear to us, we lost identity. We became the citizens of nowhere Theresa May warned us about. And beyond this, there was no promise of sunlit uplands – no sense that sunlit uplands even existed. Hope was destroyed.
Labour refused to provide an attractive overall narrative of where they were taking us, because its traditional progressive position was considered electorally dangerous in these times of the angry right. They preferred to blame the mess left by the previous Conservative government and focus on Reform’s playground.
Labour always plays safe, when voters want change
So instead of taking on the far right and changing minds, Labour preferred to play safe and treat government as just an extension of the campaign. Play safe. We were left with their trotting out commonplace everyday policies, which may over time incrementally improve the lot of the man and woman in the street but are a spectacular misjudgement of what politics is about, and what motivates the electorate. For Labour to complain that nobody notices what the government is getting right, fundamentally and rather arrogantly, ignores that elections are there for the benefit of people, the voters, and not political parties.
Passions are driven by hopes and fears, not bureaucracy
However well-meaning it may be to increase the minimum wage, this is not what gets the nation up in the morning. However important, it merely chooses to diminish the radical aspirations of the public in favour of a little tidying at the edges. It completely misses the point of what gets people out to vote, or to demonstrate in the street. Passions are driven viscerally by hopes and fears, not from the announcement of a new Adult Social Care Negotiating Board.
This is the key. If people are not interested, they aren’t listening. So, to make sure they are interested, the government has to aim beyond the everyday. The appalling Steve Bannon once remarked that “values are way upstream of politics”. He was right; he got it. And on this understanding, Leave scared the British voters viscerally into leaving the EU, with threats of foreign interference.
Values are the driver, not policies
So, to win the attention of the voter, the government has to aim much higher than policies, which are only a preoccupation of politicians. They must aim at the values and beliefs of the people, which were once a strong point of the Labour Party. These are the things that give them fear or hope, the fundamentals that drive society and provide the evolving narrative of the nation.
Those beliefs and motivators are largely sub-conscious, but underpin our attitudes to almost everything in our lives. If voters are led into believing that skivers are cheating them and their families out of their dues, then that has to be challenged. But Labour daren’t. So that’s more votes for Reform then.
Values shape our narrative and how we see the world
These shifting patterns of interaction with the world as we recognise it are what establish who we are as individuals, and shape our understanding of how the world works. Starmer cannot expect to win approval for the announcement of a new energy price cap if the public believe they have heard it all before, and don’t believe anything he says will appreciably change their lives. He is starting in the wrong place. Without a vision, an appealing narrative, day-to-day policy announcements are thin gruel, since they are made without context.
Labour has to excite the voters with their vision, and so gain their attention and trust; appeal to their values, challenge the Reform narrative. Then, they might believe that the government’s policies will work in their favour. Until Labour realises that, they will be lumped together in “they’re all the same”.
Reform offers simple answers, to avoid scrutiny
Even Reform voters are looking for the meaning of life, in their own way, and the party has found a plausible explanation for our ills which appeals to them. We all think we are being played by corporate greed or political shenanigans, and Reform presents a simple answer to those for whom simple answers are a preference. Their voters believe they know what the party stands for, though in actuality the polls suggest they have little idea. Who needs policies when a three-word slogan appears to sum it up?
How would we describe what Labour or Conservatives stand for, other than a quick ‘gotcha’ headline or a way of getting through today without further cock-ups? Where is the overarching moral high ground that once drove generations of Labour members? Trotting out a list of minor amendments to our lives without challenging the status quo can never win back voters drifting to the far right – or others on the left who are leaving Labour in droves. And while Labour, as the government, fails to make that challenge, they are putting our very democracy in jeopardy.
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