What do the local elections mean for Labour? What are the consequences for Jeremy Corbyn or David Cameron? Can we predict the result in 2020? People always get elections the wrong way around. They think they are about political parties and politicians, and this is how they are discussed ad nauseam. But elections are not about the people whose names are on the ballot paper, they are about the people holding the pencil. So when reacting to the recent election results, the most interesting question is not what they say about Labour, but what they say about Britain and British people.

The results have been described as a ‘mixed bag’, and certainly they make for confusing reading as local election results often do. But it would be a mistake to assume that a kaleidoscope political map means that British voters are searching for radically different things. In fact I think the opposite is true. Most people are looking for roughly the same thing from politicians: strong leadership, a focus on solving the problems that affect daily life, a vision for the place they aspire to govern and, yes, a little bit of hopey changey stuff too.

I think these elections bear out this thesis. Look at Crawley, seen as a surprise hold for Labour and possibly a sign of revival in the south-east. Much ink has been spilled trying to work out why the people of Crawley defied expectations, but the answer is simple. They have a great council and a great young dynamic council leader in Peter Lamb. They liked what they saw, and they voted for it. The same is true of Sadiq Khan’s historic win in London. People did not vote for him to make an existential point about politics. They voted for him because he’s going to be a great mayor for our fantastic capital city.

So what I take from these local elections is this. There are no no-go areas for Labour. There is no divine law that says that places like Portsmouth or Southampton, so similar in many ways to Liverpool or Newcastle, must send Tory members of parliament to Westminster. The country is full of potential Labour voters. All we have to do is listen to what they say they want and do our best to get it for them. Yes the results show we are a long way off where we need to be to win in 2020. But in our successful local campaigns there exists a blueprint for future victory.

The sobering swing voter focus groups, conducted in Nuneaton by James Morris and Ian Warren, back up this view. The people they spoke to voted Conservative at the last election, but Tories they are not. There was no great love for the current government, just a sense of sticking with the devil they knew until they were offered something better. We have to be bold enough to make that offer. To see these people not as ‘Tory voters’ but as the people that will put the next Labour prime minister in Downing Street. To take their concerns seriously and to strive to earn their trust and their support.

When people treat election results as a kind of psephological mirror of Erised, the fictional Hogwarts artefact that shows you whatever you want to see, they do themselves and the country a huge disservice. Election results are not mirrors, they are the best windows we have into the minds and hearts of the population. They tell us more about others than they can ever do about ourselves. The people spoke on 5 May, they will take a dim view of political parties who fail to listen.

———————————

Alison McGovern is chair of Progress

———————————

Photo: Harry Potter 101