If Labour is to earn back trust in Copeland, it must stop pining after a working class that no longer exists and champion the interests of actual working people, writes Leo Gibbons-Plowright

Copeland faces the same issues as so many places in England — poor transport links hinder an already remote constituency — mining and iron works closures has led to decline and economic depression. Yet Copeland also offers Labour a path forward to rebuild its communities. West Cumbria, in the words of Jamie Reed, ‘faced becoming isolated to much of the country based upon a burning platform of shrinking public expenditure and a changing state, yet Cumbria has reimagined itself as Britain’s energy coast’.

As Reed points out, the complex decommissioning of Sellafield has made the area a beachhead to access the international decommission market place. A new nuclear reactor will created tens of thousands of jobs and provide seven per cent of the country’s electricity in the process. Not only has this led to a boost in the local economy, it has given back to an area a sense of pride, place and purpose. Skilled jobs will need highly trained workers. These new economic opportunities will act as ‘drivers’ for better education, as there will be a ‘market’ for these skills. The sense of place and this economic base, will prevent the social capital drain that has hindered so many of our smaller towns and cities over the past few decades.

I watched the clip of Jeremy Corbyn refusing to say he would support the building of a new nuclear power station, Moorside in Cumbria. Corbyn’s position did not strike me as noble or principled, but flatfooted and dogmatic.

He would accept the loss of 20,000 jobs and the removal of a pillar of community identity and purpose, in a deprived region facing unprecedented challenges, because of an ill-thought out attachment to anti-nuclear dogma.

If the United Kingdom is to meet its future energy needs, while lessening our dependence on imports and reducing our carbon dioxide emission, nuclear energy must be part of the solution. However there is more to this than just pragmatism.

Corbyn pontificating on the need for new green energies on the Copeland doorstep, smacks of an educated (often urban) liberal aloofness to the bred and butter concerns of a class romanticised but forgotten by our culture.

Labour has now lost Copeland. A seat that the party has held since 1935 – lost by a Labour opposition to a governing Conservative party, ruling after seven years of austerity. Labour looked more unappealing to the voters of Copeland than a Conservative government that intends to close their local maternity unit and urgent care centre.

We need to look at ourselves. Labour are now 15 points below Conservatives among working class voters (economic demographics C2DEs) – down from plus five points before Corbyn took over. Corbyn campaigned explicitly on the pledge to reconnect Labour with its heartland, yet we have never felt further away.

As Matt Chorley dryly noted, ‘Jeremy Corbyn is more interested in the decline of jobs in coal that do not exist any more than the very real, well-paid, highly skilled jobs in the nuclear industry that do exist in places such as Copeland.’

There is no doubt Corbyn’s stance on nuclear power and on Moorside played a decisive part in the outcome of the byelection. The ‘worker’s party’ are not trusted to deliver jobs for working people.

Shami Chakrabarti appearance on the Andrew Marr Show after our defeat perfectly encapsulated a party increasingly out of touch. On the show, Chakrabarti said that ‘people have felt neglected and left behind by their representatives, including Labour representatives for too long.’

It is true that many of our small towns and ex-industrialised centres are struggling from the effects of globalisation and economic decline. Yet to wash Copeland with this brush, to ignore the burgeoning ‘energy coast’ and its pool of economic and social capital, that the Labour government helped to foster – must be an insult. Copeland is after all, the highest paid constituency in the UK outside of London and the south east. Just because an area is outside of the M25, does not mean it is ‘left behind’.

The Labour party cannot ‘reconnect’ with its heartlands when it is so removed from them. Working class voters are turning their back on the Labour party in droves. They see a party that romanticizes them, but is completely removed from their day to day realities in their communities.

Chakrabarti, McDonnell and our leadership need to stop patronising working class communities – but actually listen and reflect their thoughts, feelings and desires back to them. Once we do that, we may be able help the people of Copeland once again.

———————————

Leo Gibbons-Plowright is a Labour activist. He tweets at @Layo_GP

———————————

Photo