I have a simple question for the Labour Party: do you like the people you were founded to represent? And as a party, do you feel as if you understand those voters?
I spent nine years representing a former mining community in North Nottinghamshire, which until the last election, had traditionally elected a Labour MP.
I often think about the voices of lifelong Labour voters in Ashfield who voted Conservative for the first time ever. Many expressed their pain to me about their dad "turning in his grave" if they did not vote Labour, but that’s what they did in their droves.
I remember the words of the former miner, Ken, who in his 80s changed his vote to the Conservatives in 2019. He told me: "Labour doesn’t represent voters like me anymore. They represent London and students now."
For a party established to represent the voices of working class people in Parliament, it’s a problem when most working class people vote for the other lot.
So what should Keir Starmer do?
Prime Minister Boris Johnson and newly elected MP Jill Mortimer (left) at Jacksons Wharf in Hartlepool, County Durham, following Ms Mortimer's victory in the Hartlepool parliamentary by-election. Picture date: Friday May 7, 2021.
Owen Humphreys
Firstly, it’s a major problem that most Labour Party members are university educated. This is one group of people that Labour does well in attracting at election time. But their instincts and identities aren’t the same as Labour’s traditional voters. Most ‘ordinary’ voters aren’t going to choose to sit in long Labour Parry meetings on a Friday night. So how are you going to establish a channel of communication with these voters?
You have to go out, knock on their doors, go to the working men’s clubs, the workplaces, the school gates. How else are you going to hear their voices, given that most Labour MPs now represent cities? The voices that Labour MPs brought from Britain’s post-industrial towns are long gone.
Put bluntly, the people who Labour was founded to represent don’t think they are liked by the Labour Party.
Gavin Styles, Managing Director of Banks Mining, stands on the steps of a 100ton dump truck, holding a meeting with miners at Brenkley Lane Surface Mine, Newcastle.
Owen Humphreys
Secondly, Starmer needs to publicly acknowledge that it's 16 years since the Labour Party last won an election. If Labour wants to win again, it needs to change significantly. Since my party lost power in 2010, it has moved further and further from the electorate, where power is won and lost.
The day after defeat, every Labour MP should have gone and met those former Labour voters and listened to why they lost them. Not just listened, but then acted on what they were told.
Instead, Labour instead launched a drawn-out policy review, just as Starmer has just done. These tend to be dominated by voices within the party hierarchy. The voices that really matter are those of those abandoned Labour voters that we need to win back.
Do you like the voters your party was founded to represent?
This takes me back to my original question – which I would aim directly at Keir Starmer. Do you like the voters your party was founded to represent? Are you willing to be led by them? Or would you rather let them tell you what they think, only so you can tell them why they are wrong?
Start talking about how to make Brexit a success. Don’t accept it grudgingly. Talk honestly and openly about how being outside the European Union can help make Britain better. Because if you don’t want Brexit to succeed, you don’t want Britain to succeed.
Ultimately, Starmer – and the Labour party more broadly – must choose. Does the party, hand on heart, still want to represent the voters it was founded to represent?
It’s really not that hard. Just do it.
