by Salman Aiman
I feel the urge to write this article out of frustration that the current Conservative government can govern without any real opposition. As philosopher Edmund Burke argued, opposition parties play a crucial role in preventing abuses from the executive branch in parliament. Without a competent opposition, the likelihood of the governing party behaving irresponsibly with power exponentially increases. This government has experienced a series of scandals, ranging from Boris Johnson’s flat expenses, Matt Hancock’s suspicious awarding of PPE contracts to certain corporations and former Prime Minister David Cameron’s unusually close relationship with capital firm Greensill. Despite all of these scandals, YouGov’s voting intention poll as of June 2021 has the Tories at 42%; Labour 12 points behind at 30%. More strikingly, Boris Johnson enjoys higher approval ratings than Keir Starmer with 48% compared to the Labour leader’s 17%. This sobering statistic shows that the public is so unhappy with the alternative that they are willing to apathetically accept a scandal-ridden government over the Labour party itself.
In a parliamentary democracy like ours, it is of the utmost importance that we have a competent opposition party scrutinising the government and holding it accountable to the high standards of the British people. For a long time, however, it appears that the Labour party is unable to perform this vital function.
Generation Z voters such as myself are hard-pressed to remember the last time Labour stood in power. This amnesia is partly informed by the fact the Tories have been in power for over half of my generation’s formative years. But also because Labour serving in government is, historically speaking, a rare phenomenon itself. In its 120 year history, the party has only governed for just 30 years within that timeframe. In that same period, the Conservatives have dominated electoral politics and government, leaving Labour as merely an opposition party brief in power but radical in operation. This means that in electoral terms Labour has governed for only a quarter of its entire existence.
Whilst one can point to Labour’s historical lack of electoral competitiveness, not many can dismiss its achievements when in power. After all, it was a Labour government that introduced the National Health Service following the Second World War. In more recent times, the 1998 Belfast Agreement, record investment in public services and transformation of the Bank of England into an independent entity serve as achievements that the British people can be proud of. However, great achievements in politics are always weighed against great failures. Public trust in Labour waned after the disastrous decision to invade Iraq in 2003, despite the party managing to win the 2005 election. Since then, the party has now lost 4 consecutive general elections; its recent electoral defeat in 2019 the worst result since 1935 with just 202 seats in the House of Commons. It is worth mentioning that this is the second time the party has repeated the unwanted feat of losing 4 elections in a row, the other being from 1979–1992.
What happened to the party which, before its recent electoral malaise, won three general elections in landslides under New Labour? What happened to the party whose unrivalled political success sent the most successful political party in Europe, the Conservative party, into oblivion for over a decade? Why does the party seem so lost and out of touch with today’s voters? As with most things, the answer is more complicated and nuanced than simply assigning one factor. Labour’s decline is down to a confluence of factors: ineffective leadership, internal infighting and, perhaps crucially, the absence of a compelling strategy in a distorted political landscape.
2019 was just one of the many times the Labour party had blundered its way to defeat by lacking a clear strategy. It is imperative, however, that we define the term ‘strategy’ in order to explain why Labour fail time and time again. New Labour strategist Alastair Campbell coined a useful formula for success which included a definition of the word ‘strategy’ itself:
“The simplest way to view strategy is to consider three letters. O for Objective, S for Strategy, T for Tactics. Objective is what you want to achieve. Strategy is the key ideas you need to put in place to achieve your objective. I call it the Big How. Tactics are the actions and tools needed to deliver a strategy.”
The simple message behind Campbell’s idea is that everything flows from strategy. Everything must be congruent with the overarching set of ideas that you offer and, as a result, there must be no confusion over strategy. It appears that since 2010, Labour has abandoned strategy at its peril. Every Labour leader in the past decade, right from Miliband to Starmer today, appear unwilling to defend New Labour and its achievements in government. It is as though they believe trumpeting one’s achievements in office constitutes a regressive outlook, supposedly harking back to the past when looking to the future is possible. Yet this is counter-productive. Defending one’s record as well as presenting a vision for the country’s future is not mutually exclusive. Indeed, it is defence which stops you from conceding own goals in politics and attack which wins you the game.
Labour, however, seem wedded to self-destruction in ways that make defeat inevitable before the game is even played. Former leader Ed Miliband has some admirable qualities. He is smart and a capable practitioner of a consensual-style leadership that invited all sections of the Labour party to speak out on issues that mattered to them. Yet his fatal mistake was forgetting the cardinal rule in politics of defining yourself before someone else does. The Conservatives successfully persuaded the public that Labour’s large deficits and high borrowing were responsible for the 2008 financial crisis. Similar to how the Tories lost credibility on the economy after the collapse of the ERM in 1992, Labour lost credibility following the 2008 financial crash. By letting the Tories blame the economic crisis on Labour, the party lost all credibility on its ability to handle the economy and with it Miliband’s chances of becoming Prime Minister.
As his podcast ‘Reasons to be Cheerful’ shows, Miliband does have some big ideas to tackle inequality and structural issues within the British economy. His thoughtful speeches on inequality have somewhat contributed to a shifting conversation surrounding austerity in Britain. After all, few could have anticipated that a Conservative Prime Minister in 2018 would feel compelled to declare ‘austerity over’ having presided over 8 years of spending cuts and reductions. Miliband could reasonably point to his efforts as in some ways changing the conversation surrounding austerity. But ultimately, ideas themselves hold little weight in politics unless you communicate them in a manner that generates trust from the electorate. On this count, Labour failed and their credibility on the economy has yet to recover.
In areas where Miliband failed, party members naively assumed Jeremy Corbyn would succeed. Both leaders suffered from the mistaken belief that what appealed to the micro will appeal to the macro; that support from a dedicated minority can and will filter through to the electorate at large. Such thinking will never work for Labour in their ambitions to win power. Politics is about getting the big things right and that ambition is only realised through sensible strategy. Although Corbyn’s trade unionist style approach to politics may have inspired his devoted Corbynistas, such a vision was always unlikely to succeed when presented to the public at large.
Some may point to a skewed media bias against Corbyn but that alone is insufficient in rejecting the simple fact that Labour has never won whilst running on a hard-left agenda. Indeed, the three times the party ran a socialist platform such as in 1935, 1983 and 2019, all ended in spectacular failure; the exception being Clement Attlee’s victory in 1945 following extraordinary war circumstances. The hard left may point to 2017, an election defined by public consideration of all issues and not Brexit alone, as a vindication for the socialist platform. Whilst the Labour party achieved more votes than expected, its improved performance was arguably as much down to Theresa May’s bad campaigning as it was Corbyn’s agenda. On that basis, it is more accurate to characterise the 2017 election as one in which both the Conservatives and Labour lost.
Two years later, however, the same cannot be said. Corbyn’s indecision over Brexit proved fatal in the 2019 election as Boris Johnson secured the biggest Tory majority since 1987. Granted, the party faced a difficult choice in strategising for a Brexit election given the consequences of prioritising the leave section of the electorate over the remain vote and vice versa. However, promising a second referendum was not the decisive blow to Labour’s electoral prospects in 2019. What ended their hopes was the decision to hold an election in the first place as it handed the Conservatives a solution to their infighting paralysis over Brexit. To add to this act of political suicide, Corbyn pledged to stay neutral in the event of a second referendum. Staying neutral on the defining political issue of our time was hardly evidence of sound leadership or decision-making.
Whilst Labour’s drastic reduction of seats under Corbyn’s reign constitutes his immediate legacy, sadly his long-lasting contribution will be the insurgence of Momentum into the party’s bloated membership and the party’s poor relationship with the Jewish community. It is, therefore, no surprise that one of Keir Starmer’s immediate priorities upon becoming a leader was restoring Labour’s relationship with the Jewish community. In June 2020, Starmer sacked shadow education secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey for sharing an anti-semitic conspiracy theory on Twitter.
This brings us to the current predicament Labour finds itself under Sir Keir Starmer. The Labour leader shares some admirable qualities of decency, maturity and sensibility. Yet these traits fail to seep through in his public image to the country. Starmer gives off the impression of a man without a message or as Dominic Cummings humorously called him, a ‘beta-lawyer-gamma-politician’. Although in my opinion an unfair characterisation, there is a sense amongst the public that Starmer conveys a metropolitan, Westminster centric elitism; the kind of ‘wokism’ that disconnects working-class voters outside London. To be fair to Starmer, the circumstances in his first year as a leader were far from ideal. The country finds itself in a difficult position amidst a global pandemic, removing opportunities for the leader to speak at public events with crowds present. Moreover, Starmer inherited a party desperate for internal reform amidst the internecine warfare between the Blairites and Corbynistas.
But I believe any politician can cut through with a message even in the most difficult of circumstances, provided that it has substance and relevance to the general public’s concerns. My worry with Starmer is that his vision for the country is awfully difficult to discern and, as we have seen in the past, Labour is doomed to failure without a clear strategy. To ensure that the party does not make the same mistakes as before, Starmer needs to create a compelling vision that the country can buy into. A strategy that challenges Johnson’s short-sighted populism whilst solving public desires for better education, infrastructure and technology. Starmer’s reliance on the message of ‘Tory Sleaze’ carries little weight without an understanding of what exactly he has to offer the country as an alternative.
Crafting a winning strategy requires Starmer to take strong command over his party. Parties are coalitions within themselves, each containing separate sects that are different ideologically. As New Labour under Blair showed, winning requires a strategy that not only unites the country but the sects within the party as well. Benefitting from Neil Kinnock’s reforms in the ’80s, Blair and his team helped dampen the stark divisions with a unifying modernisation message. New Labour was, in many ways, a nuanced political strategy built on triangulation and the perception of conviction. Its core arguments, that of dealing with businesses and trade unions, having personal responsibility and social responsibility, were all designed to place the party above the parapet of traditional left/right politics, occupying instead the centre, third way position.
If Starmer can capture both the party and country with a galvanising message on technological change, positivity and patriotism, he can expose Johnson’s faux populism and take Labour from an opposition party into a proposition party. He will face opposition from the media for his positions but if he remains steadfast, focusing purely on the public reality instead of the media reality, the party suddenly becomes serious again. He must resist indecisive action such as the debacle over firing Angela Rayner as Chairwoman before bizarrely expanding her role with an endless job title.
Politics is cyclical and Labour can become a winning force again but only if it wants to win. It must embrace a politics of ambition, substance and clarity otherwise a fifth election defeat is inevitable.
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