A little while ago I received an email entitled ‘the Labour party is opening branches near you’. This was a mistake; I live in Islington North, home of the metropolitan, socialist elite, where there is never been a shortage of Labour branches. (It also has some of the worst pockets of deprivation in the country, but let us not let facts interfere with a stereotype.) So I cannot vote in Cornwall any more, and that is unfortunate because the south-west Labour party needs all the support it can get.

In 2015 Labour won just four of the 55 seats in the region, with the Conservatives taking all of the remaining 51. Three of our seats are in Bristol, the region’s biggest city; and the other is Exeter, a longstanding anomaly that is testament to the work of Ben Bradshaw and the city’s excellent Labour council, which increased its majority last week. We have no parliamentary representatives in rural areas and, with a few honourable exceptions, we are not even close.

The problem definitely is not a lack of progressive voters, they have just all been captured by the Liberal Democrats. These ‘orange socialists’ have voted Liberal Democrat all of their lives, yet most desperately want a Labour government. I am not just talking about tactical voters (though there are many) but people who will proudly tell you they are Liberal Democrats, defend the party’s policy platform, and even go canvassing come election time. But ask their actual political opinions and the answers will not differ from Labour voters all over the country: pro-welfare, pro-services, anti-Trident, tax and spend, and so on.

I was myself a prime example. My first (and only) job in politics was with my local Liberal Democrat member of parliament, albeit I had just been made redundant so would have taken almost anything. During the interview he asked me if I was a member of any political party and I awkwardly confessed to being a Labour member. I expected this revelation to terminate proceedings but instead he smiled benevolently and said ‘I understand how it is’. He then told me that the previous Labour prospective parliamentary candidate had instructed her own activists to tactically vote Liberal Democrats, so established was the implicit progressive alliance.

In normal circumstances I would argue first past the post made attempts to win rural West Country seats futile. However, with the Liberal Democrats’ moral credentials tarnished by their role in government, and damaged on a practical level by their electoral disaster, there may be a historic chance to establish Labour as the main alternative to the Tories.

Moreover, at long last there appears to be desire to improve upon our dismal record, both from activists on social media and from the party leadership. When I last spoke to Jeremy Corbyn, he had just returned from campaigning in Cornwall and was excited about attending an upcoming Labour south-west conference.

The first task must be to provide some outlet for activists and new members to interact with the party. When my parents rejoined this summer they had to set up an informal Labour club with friends because there were no local branches in the entire constituency. Constituency Labour party meetings were held an hour’s drive from where they live. They received no response to their emails asking how to get involved, and it was six months after the election that had prompted so many new joiners before a branch meeting was finally organised. This is not just an issue in the south-west, I have heard similar stories from all over the country in constituencies that have not traditionally been winnable.

To be absolutely clear, we must not blame CLP officers for this. For many years they have loyally donated their time to a party that did not seem to notice they exist. Some are already taking the necessary steps, but the party hierarchy should now establish contact and determine which CLPs require extra help. This could be part of a national programme or simply ad hoc (for example, organisers from Exeter have previously given training and advice to some of the other CLPs in the region), but it needs to happen as soon as possible. With every month that goes by we miss a golden opportunity to engage with new members while they are still enthusiastic. Without an activist base to carry our message into local communities we will achieve nothing.

The second problem is giving our local activists something to say. Fortunately Labour does not need to sacrifice the urban poor we fight so hard to represent, many of our principles apply equally to people struggling in the countryside. We simply need to retarget some of our policies and rhetoric. For example, Labour MPs rightly go on about empty properties in London and the consequent lack of affordable housing for young people. Likewise, in Devon and Cornwall, second home ownership has driven house prices far beyond the reach of first time buyers. It has also decimated many local communities as so many homes are now left empty. But when was the last time a Labour politician even brought this up?

Labour people are versed in a number of jargons (trade unionist, social justice warrior, old Marxist, Westminster elite, et cetera) but little that speaks to the identity of rural England. As we discovered in Scotland, this can be terminal for a party’s electoral ambitions. It is not just that locals reject Labour explicitly on these grounds, but that concerns specific to the local way of life take on disproportionate symbolic significance. For instance, the Liberal Democrats often emphasise their rural credentials talking about farming even though only two per cent of the region’s workforce is employed in agriculture.

Unfortunately the problem self-perpetuates: we have no MPs from rural areas, so none of them talk about rural issues, so no one supports Labour in the countryside, so we have no MPs from rural areas. This cycle is understandable but not acceptable. At the moment we are not even trying to represent the countryside. Until this changes the majority of our candidates in the south-west will stay locked in battles for third place.

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Kyalo Burt-Fulcher is regional outreach officer for the Young Fabians. You can read more of his political analysis on his blog, Labour’s rethink

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Photo: ripienaar