The English, Scottish and Welsh election results didn’t come from nowhere. They follow years of working people feeling like the system isn’t on their side – and they’re correct about that. We can talk about deindustrialisation, austerity, Brexit, Covid and all the problems that stem from them. All of this is valid. But the situation now is much simpler: too many people in this country work hard and still feel like they’re losing.
The first duty of any government is to provide security. Not just military security, but economic security, energy security, border security, community security and the basic security that if you work hard in the UK, your life shouldn’t constantly feel fragile.
Britons are resilient. We can handle turbulence and we can shake off hardships. But, over several decades, too many communities have been hollowed out by a constant barrage of economic insecurity.
I grew up in Aberdeen in a working-class family with a single mum. She worked hard – running a home and caring for her kids. I know what security means to my mum and I know what pressure does to families when money is tight and when the future feels uncertain. I saw it first hand.
I’ve also seen what happens to communities like mine in Birmingham when work, opportunities and purpose disappear and never return. When high streets are empty and people feel like Britain is broken.
That understanding shapes how I see politics and leadership. The insecurity facing working people today may look different from the factory-floor struggles of the past – but emotionally, it is rooted in the same experience. It stems from the feeling that ordinary people are carrying all the risk while having less and less control over their lives.
We often talk about defence, the economy, the NHS, education and energy as if they are separate conversations. They aren’t. You can spend billions on defence, but if families are struggling and the economy is under strain, you are kidding yourself about how strong this country really is. If families are one bill away from trouble, the country is not stable.
If the NHS is not working, people cannot work. If young people cannot see a future for themselves, we weaken over time. If energy insecurity abroad immediately destabilises life at home, then we are more fragile than we should ever have allowed ourselves to become.
The reality is that when people feel vulnerable and insecure for long enough, eventually somebody comes along offering easy answers. That is the space Nigel Farage operates in. He sees people’s desire for solutions to their everyday problems, and he offers them quick fixes – a magic wand for all your problems, a potion for your ailments.
Yet Farage told people that Brexit would solve immigration, increase prosperity, and restore stability. It did not. Now he offers the same politics again – but this time with more anger, more division and more slogans. He offers no serious plan for rebuilding the country and no coherent policy programme. And while insecurity grows, his brand of politics begins to permeate across the spectrum – until it feels performative rather than serious.
It captures the imagination of people who feel like politics hasn’t worked for them. A couple both work hard and do everything right. They pay their taxes, and they don’t ask for much in return. Then the washing machine breaks. It is not a catastrophe – it is just a washing machine, after all. But replacing it requires £400 they do not have, so it goes on the credit card. Then the car fails its MOT and the energy bill arrives. Then the school trip letter comes home. And suddenly a family that has done everything they were told would lead to stability is chasing its tail every single month.
They’re not lazy, and they’re not failing. They’re not asking the government for handouts or luxury. But they’re permanently on the edge of a crisis. That is where too many working people in the UK are now, and they are looking to politicians to offer a solution.
Unless Labour understands that insecurity on an emotional level as well as on an economic one, we will continue to lose voters who would naturally align with us. Working-class voters have not simply left Labour. Many feel Labour stopped understanding their lives, and so they looked elsewhere.
What is the point of Labour if it does not represent Sheffield, Stoke-on-Trent, Barnsley, Swansea and Aberdeen? What is the point of the Labour Party if it cannot replace despair and frustration with hope, stability and purpose? The party was founded to give ordinary working people security, dignity and bargaining power over their lives.
That is exactly what I believe, and it must be our mission again. We do not need more slogans, strategies, press releases or commissions. We need action.
People in this country do not expect perfection. But they do expect seriousness. They expect stability and fairness. And they expect a government that is on their side. That is what Labour must be again. It is how Labour defeats Nigel Farage. And it is how Britain recovers.
[Further reading: Who could beat Keir Starmer in a leadership election?]
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