Labour group’s plan to win back ‘red wall’ voters

A LABOUR group set up to woo back voters who switched to thetories in 2019 has urged supporters to champion free speech and reject cancel culture.

It also hopes that promoting safer communities and prosperity can win over those who changed sides.

Renaissance, a group launched by Labour figures including Stephen Kinnock in the wake of the devastating 2019 election defeat, says the party “should not be shy” in raising concerns about “crime and anti-social behaviour”.

It says Labour should “relentlessly promote its core identity as the party of working people”, stressing that it wants to deliver “good jobs you can raise a family on”.

Rather than get caught up in “culture war distractions,” Renaissance advises activists to “err on the side of free speech and open debate – and do not become associated with cancel culture”.

In a presentation distributed to activists, it recommends they repeat the line that under the Conservatives “criminals have never had it so good” and accuse thetories of “defunding the police”.

Pundits were shocked in 2019 when traditional Labour seats in the country’s industrial heartlands,

‘Vision that stands

up for Britain’

the red wall, switched to Boris Johnson’s Conservatives.

Renaissance says more than 60 per cent of the constituencies

Labour needs to win are in the North, the Midlands orwales.

It wants to reconnect Labour with family, hard work and decency, and the presentation urges the party to put forward “a post-brexit vision that stands up for Britain”.

The group found the Conservatives are seen as having delivered on Brexit, the furlough scheme, jabs and a stable economy.

Voters were found to “resist taxes on higher earners who have ‘worked hard’” and it cautions against attacking the “austerity” policies introduced by the Conservatives.

Arguing that “Labour’s former voters have made up their mind that austerity was a necessary evil” it recommends the party pledges to deliver value for money, contrasting this with “eye-wateringtory waste”.

Renaissance says criticism of the government’s immigration policies must be accompanied by alternative solutions. Similarly, Labour must put the creation of good jobs at the heart of its approach to achieving net-zero carbon emissions.

Mr Kinnock said: “This year we must show Britain that we are the party that will build prosperity.”

Internal Labour polling suggests the party could win back 40 red wall seats if an election was held today.