Labour needs a full policy review to save its credibility
The inquest by the Labour Together group into the party’s crushing defeat in December is right to say the causes were much wider than Jeremy Corbyn’s poor leadership, though it notes that “stop Corbyn” was a “major driver” of the Conservatives’ success.
The group’s 150-page report will make grim reading for Keir Starmer because it diagnoses that Labour’s brand is tarnished; changing the frontman will not be enough. He has never doubted the size of the proverbial “mountain” he has to climb, but it is painted in the starkest terms: no party has ever increased its number of Commons seats by 60 per cent, as Labour needs to do to win next time.
The authors are mainly allies of Starmer, who has several Labour Together figures on his front bench, including Ed Miliband, and in his backroom team. The group was set up to bring together the party’s warring tribes, and its report notes the “toxic culture” and destabilising internal “conflict” of the Corbyn era. It argues that, despite three consecutive defeats, Labour did not launch the soul-searching exercise it needed. Indeed, it acted as if it had won the 2017 election. So its response to its fourth defeat must be different.
The post-mortem found that Labour’s loss of its “red wall” seats to the Tories was 20 years in the making, which points a finger at New Labour. I remember Tony Blair’s allies telling me the party’s traditional working class supporters had “nowhere else to go”. Wrong. They could refuse to vote or even go Tory, as they eventually did in December.
Starmer has already unified his party, though there is some sniping from the Corbyn left, which feels he is not living up to the reassuring signals he sent during Labour’s leadership contest – notably when he chose his shadow cabinet.
Labour’s spokespeople cannot be armchair commentators, but must be players on the pitch. That means answering the ‘what would you do?’ questions on coronavirus more convincingly
The new leader has made a strong start in difficult circumstances, as it is never easy for an opposition during a national crisis. The opinion polls show Labour is back in the game, the first test. True, Boris Johnson’s response to coronavirus has given Starmer some openings, but he still had to put the ball in the empty net. He has done so, by developing a wounding narrative that the government was “slow” – to go into lockdown, to ensure enough personal protective equipment and testing, to safeguard care homes, to quarantine people arriving in the UK, to reopen schools and set up contact tracing.
But Labour will need to do more than merely criticise. Its spokespeople cannot be armchair commentators, but must be players on the pitch. That means answering the “what would you do?” questions on coronavirus more convincingly. Labour can’t sit on the fence on issues such as reopening schools, or allow the Tories to claim it is in the pockets of the trade unions.
In the medium term, to decontaminate the brand and regain the public’s trust, Labour will need a root and branch policy review, just as Neil Kinnock ordered when he took over in 1983 after a left-wing leader and manifesto were also rejected by voters.
I’m told Starmer wants such a review. That will worry the hard left, as he hinted during the leadership contest he would not junk Corbynism. Coronavirus will provide a platform for a fundamental rethink.
In a message to members of Labour’s national policy forum, Starmer said the Covid-19 crisis is “an important moment of change for our country.” He added: “The decisions made over the next five to 10 years will fundamentally alter people’s lives for generations to come. It is therefore right that we pause and consider the context and values of our policies.” He insists Labour’s policy review is “not starting from scratch”, but wants to engage all parts of the party “in a broad discussion about our beliefs and principles”.
Labour Together makes an intriguing proposal for “independent organisations” to help ensure the party’s manifesto is “believable, credible and deliverable”. Calling in the Institute for Fiscal Studies would raise many Labour hackles but is a good idea, and it will be interesting to see whether Starmer runs with it.
To persuade voters the party has changed, Starmer will need more than new policies. His shadow cabinet will also be the public face of the party and it will need to share the heavy lifting. Although leaders matter in
our increasingly presidential system, Starmer cannot do it all on his own.
Like Kinnock, Starmer has the right credentials to lead the party away from a hard-left policy platform because of his own soft-left values. Blair could not have persuaded the party to swallow Kinnock’s unpalatable medicine to pave the way for Labour’s eventual victory in 1997.
But it won’t be enough for Starmer to do a Kinnock, who lost two elections. His Herculean task is to be Kinnock and Blair rolled into one: first change the party, then win over the voters.