This year’s local elections saw the first real signs of a Labour revival
in the electorally vital south, says Caroline Flint

The south-east was the engine for our victory in the 1997 election. It was the region where we gained the most votes, the Tories lost the most support and, outside London, where we gained the most MPs. It is no coincidence that at the last general election, at the same time as fewer than one in six voters supported us in the south-east, we slumped to our second-worst general election result ever. Of course there are seats outside of the south-east that we must win back. But we cannot avoid the fact that the south-east has the largest electorate and the highest number of seats of any UK region. For Labour to win in 2015, it is here we must win back support.

Since Ed Miliband asked me to become the Labour party’s regional champion for the south-east, I have been leading teams of MPs and activists out on the campaign trail. But nearly all of the lessons from the south-east apply across the whole of the south. In 1997 we had 59 MPs in the south. Today we have just 10.

This year’s local elections were the first real signs of progress in the south. We strengthened our position on southern Labour councils like Hastings, Ipswich, Oxford, Slough and Stevenage. Across the south and east we also won control of eight more local authorities – some covering areas where we already have Labour MPs, like Exeter, Plymouth and Southampton, but many others, like Great Yarmouth, Harlow, Norwich, Reading and Thurrock, are home to crucial marginal seats that we must win in order to elect a Labour government in 2015.

Even where we did not win the council itself, important gains were made. In southern battlegrounds like Basildon, Crawley and Milton Keynes we won seats directly from the Tories, while in Cambridge Labour gains cost the Liberal Democrats their majority.

But there is still much to do. Over 50 councils in the south have no Labour councillors at all. While victories in Adur and Maidstone now mean there is, at least, one Labour voice on those councils, Labour voters in places like Cheltenham, Eastleigh, Mole Valley and Woking still have no one standing up for them. Even in areas where we once ran the council or had MPs we have a lot of ground to make up. We took control of Castle Point council in 1995, for instance, which was a springboard to winning the parliamentary seat in 1997. We lost control of the council in 2003, and, even after this year’s local elections, we still have no Labour councillors at all in Castle Point. That must change.

For me, there are five lessons we should learn if we want to build on our successes last month in the south.

First, at the very least we have to ensure that the public are able to vote Labour – we cannot win seats if we do not stand candidates. This year we fielded more candidates in these local elections than any other political party – 10 per cent more than the Conservatives and over 30 per cent more than the Liberal Democrats. Victories in the home constituencies of David Cameron and Eric Pickles, as well as in Tunbridge Wells, where for the first time we fielded a candidate in every seat, show that if we fight, we can win.

Second, of course we want Labour leaders running our local authorities – implementing Labour policies in the interests of their communities, and coming up with ideas for the next Labour government. But we need to focus on winning council seats, too, especially in those crucial constituencies in the south where we might never control the council but need a bedrock of local Labour councillors. We must remember this for next year’s county council elections.

Third, organisation matters. It is no coincidence that our biggest gains were in places where we either have a Labour MP or we have already selected our candidate for the next general election. The lesson from that is clear: we must accelerate our selections so as to have as many candidates in place as soon as possible, and give them, and our fantastic regional staff, the organisational support they need.

Fourth, we have to win votes from the Tories as well as from the Liberal Democrats. The collapse of the Liberal Democrat vote alone will not be enough to win in 2015. The Liberal Democrats polled 16 per cent in 2012, slightly better than the 15 per cent they won last year. The reason we gained a string of councils in the south this year, compared to only Gravesham last year, was because this time we won votes directly from the Tories. We have to continue to focus on those voters who supported Labour in 1997 but voted Conservative in 2010.

Fifth, we are not going to win the next election by trying to recreate the 1997 campaign. Times have changed. People tend to think of the south as simply being wealthy and aspirant. But even here the easy optimism of the late 1990s and early 2000s has given way to a different mood. It is more anxious and more insecure, with flatlining living standards, rising unemployment and concerns about identity and community. People’s attitudes towards us as a political party have changed, too. The lesson from the last general election was that if we stop listening to what people are saying, we should not be surprised if they stop listening to us.

Listening to people in the south-east I have found no enthusiasm at all for this government. For what seems like the first time since the last general election, it feels like people want to listen to us again. Thinking back to all the people I have met and all the issues that have come up on the doorstep – from immigration, to welfare and the economy – what people have really been talking about is fairness. We went into the last general election promising a ‘future fair for all’, but too often, when we thought we were talking about fairness, we were actually talking about need. For the people I met in Southampton, Reading, Milton Keynes and many other places besides, fairness is as much about exchange – taking out once you have put in – as it is about need. They want ‘fairness for my family as well.’ We must show them that Labour is on their side if they want to work hard and make a better life for themselves and their families.

In the end, though, winning in the south is about more than narrow, tactical, electoral calculations. As Giles Radice and Patrick Diamond point out in their Southern Discomfort pamphlets, every radical, reforming Labour government has been the product of broad-based coalitions, with roots in every part of the country and all classes. We must aspire to be the same.

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Caroline Flint MP is the shadow secretary of state for energy and climate change and the Labour party’s regional champion for the south-east

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Targeting only former Liberal Democrat voters is a recipe for failure, explains Joan Ryan

A Liberal Democrat collapse might not bring Labour all that it hopes, suggests Robert Philpot

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Photo: Chalkie_CC