After Labour’s very poor general election result everyone has been asking what went wrong. The last time we won a majority of English seats was 2005. It has been downhill ever since. So we wanted to understand England as it is today, and to sense what shifts Labour needs to make to inspire the English in 2020.
So we went to the constituencies of middle England along the M1 corridor that we need to win back – Derby, Rugby, Milton Keynes and Watford. We spoke to people leaving Costa Coffee and McDonalds. We listened to local FE students. We heard from Labour activists who had been on the frontline of those local doorsteps for the long weeks of the election campaign. They all told us what they thought about Labour – their awkward truths and perceived lost opportunities. One thing was crystal clear. The electorate did not know what we stood for. A Watford voter said, ‘I don’t know who Labour stands for any more. I don’t know if they know what they are about any more’. As one party activist said, we didn’t have anything to say to people ‘living in the newbuild estates’ who were doing OK. In a radically changing world of digitisation, ageing population, where more people will be self-employed than working in public services by 2020, real people in real places said we had not grasped the scale of the challenge before us.
So what are the shifts Labour needs to take? First of all we need to fix our brand from a party that has lost its roots to a party that is proud of its roots. The energy and enthusiasm around Jeremy Corbyn’s election and the continuing surge in party membership is the first step in making this shift. English Labour must be proud of its Englishness, reclaiming the flag of St George for the values and future we care about. We must hold our hands up for what went wrong in government but we must also remind people of the great things Labour did in government from bringing in the national minimum wage and tax credits to tackling pensioner poverty and rebuilding our schools and hospitals. We need to start making a coherent argument on borrowing and debt and remind voters that the coalition government racked up the national debt by £1.4tn by borrowing more in five years than Labour did in 13.
Yes, our economic story must be clear, confident and credible. We must dramatically broaden our appeal with a clear vision that reaches out to older voters, younger voters and people enjoying success. Our values and our appeal need to be realised in the context of a rapidly changing world of high-tech jobs in a digital age. And we need to work hard to change our everyday relationship with voters to one that campaigns alongside them in their daily lives.
This is a contribution to the debate about where Labour goes now, the shifts we need to take to capture a better future. Come along and debate in person at Labour party conference or give us your feedback online at redshiftlabour.co.uk
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Nic Dakin MP is shadow minister for schools. He tweets @NicDakinMP
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Redshift – Looking for a New England: The Ten Shifts Labour Needs to Make To Win a Majority in England is written by Liam Byrne MP, Shabana Mahmood MP, Heidi Alexander MP, Nic Dakin MP and Caroline Bradley