Reform and renewal of any political party is unlikely to be easy. We carry proud traditions and enduring values and there is always a suspicion that change might undermine them. Yet failure to recognise shifts in fundamental political formations and public expectations of political practice are as dangerous to any party aspiring to be a long-term party of government.
For example, whilst people expect us to be champions of fairness and opportunity for the economically poorest members of our society, it is now unrealistic to embrace this as though class structure had not changed. Growth of middle-income and professional groups has accompanied a decline in the numbers of manual workers and gender balance in the workforce has been transformed. Our society moves on, even if older structures are still visible. So we cannot just rest where we have been traditionally comfortable, simply content with the prescriptions of the 1945 government despite 60 years of change.
Our party was born over 100 years ago. Initially, the needs of the class we represented and the presentation of our values depended on being sufficiently visible to maintain a presence. Over the ensuing century we have relied on the legitimacy that came from consistent loyalty to those roots. When asked what our value is for others (as distinct from what our values are), we have answered ‘we provide politics’. This strong, but nineteenth-century, concept shapes our underlying organisational structures.
However, few truly modern or successful organisations rely on this approach. They shape expectations differently, forming a trustworthy relationship with you as an individual. By addressing you, they address a user rather than emphasise themselves as the provider. It is personal, and establishes a bond that binds organisation and individuals by constant direct experience of one another.
How might we accomplish this? Typically, parties have started with a strategy and worked out how to demonstrate to everyone else how good it is. Rightly, this starts from broad values but it is limited, because the tough judgements people make are based on their personal experience of us. In short, it is now necessary for parties to understand individual experience.
Voters look at what we say (our communications); at what we do (what we actually offer them); and how we behave (the culture we display). If we are overly obsessed with the ways we did these things in the past, we will show little capacity to respond to expectations people have formed far more recently. Today, people have to learn about us in ways which help them conclude that what they know makes us relevant to them. They must have a clear basis for judging our delivery, how well we work. It is not just that we manage matters better than others; rather we have to create a community of interests in shared, underlying values.
To achieve this, we have to be compelling, truthful and trusted. Voters must conclude that their attitudes and demands are aligned to our values. Given that not all voters feel the same about everything, distinct approaches have to respond to varied sections of our community.
Politics has become more ‘local’. Activism must increasingly involve work in local community organisations, adding Labour values to those parts of civil society we hope will flourish. Hospitals, schools, safe streets and so on are seen through the lens of personal experience, the closest family, the neighbourhood – people rely increasingly on their personal judgement. They are likely to be pragmatic rather than ideological and there is less deference to ‘authoritative’ figures.
Should we give up on our professionalism developing key national messages or fighting elections? Of course not. Is this a covert criticism of the past? Absolutely not. Our successes alone provide the opportunity for reform. But can new politics be forged in a world replete with individualism and choice in the same ways as it was in the past? I doubt it, and if we choose wrongly the least we will face is growing disengagement, the fertile terrain of the extreme right.