Labour’s secret plan to thwart Reform

New legislation could unleash a transformation in community empowerment.

Parliament returned from recess on 1 September, after a summer of headlines about protests at asylum hotels and opinion pages warning that the country was a tinderbox of discontentment, ready to go up. In this climate, where Labour hovers at a suboptimal 21 in the polls while Reform sits at a healthy 28, among the government’s commons priorities was the second reading of the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill, which happened 2 September.

This piece of proposed legislation began life as simply the English Devolution bill, and the toplines are still what you’d expect: sweeping local government reorganisation in England, which is likely to prove controversial. Between publication as a white paper and its first introduction to the house in July, however, the bill’s title has gained “and community empowerment”. This covers a number of measures designed to, well, empower communities (it’s the first time the word “empowerment” has ever appeared in the name of a bill).

Foremost among them is community right to buy, which will give community groups first shot at purchasing local assets – pubs, clubs, venues, community centres, etc – that become available for sale. These groups will have a full year to put together bids before commercial interests can get a look in. “You’re essentially saying to private buyers, the big chains that buy local pubs or village shops, ‘You may have all the funds in the world but you can’t do anything until community ownership is properly explored,’” one person working in the space explains. Another provision automatically categorises sports venues as assets of community value, meaning that your local football pitch or swimming pool can’t be sold off and turned into, say, flats should they fall into financial difficulties. It also boosts council’s obligations on neighbourhood governance.

These provisions can be understood as the function of several things. A small cohort of what we might understand as communitarian groups (although use of that term is rarely wholly uncontroversial) – among them the Co-operative Party, Power to Change, and the Independent Commission on Neighbourhoods (Icon) – have been pushing for measures of this kind for some years. In many ways, they’re pushing at an open door; the bill’s lead, Jim McMahon, is chair of the parliamentary Co-operative Party. And Angela Rayner, who had been expected to introduce it in the Commons, has talked decisively about making it easier for communities to own assets in the past, and did so again in the second reading debate. The Co-operative Party’s general secretary, Joe Fortune, tells me that the bill “represents the biggest shift in power towards communities in decades”. To his view it’s a “landmark moment for community power”, and one he’s worked hard for: it’s generally accepted that the bill’s name change came about through lobbying from his party.

However, the contextual significance of these measures can be understood as more than a fortuitous meeting of lobbyists and lobbyees. These organisations claim to have something the government wants desperately: a theory of the case for how to beat Reform; to take the edge off populism and anti-politics; to let the bad air out of the country. This theory of the case is probably best outlined in a report put out by the Co-op Party and the antifascist organisation Hope Not Hate, which makes the argument that while people might feel bleak about national level politics, at a local level, people feel connected and proud of their communities.

These positive attitudes can be harnessed by progressive politicians, and used to kindle broader feelings of trust and empowerment – so long, that is, as there are mechanisms to allow those feeling to take root at a local level. Georgie Laming of Hope Not Hate talks about problems of distrust and disaffection as having their genesis with austerity. “In times of economic hardship, it is harder to come together, forge friendships and tackle local issues. People feel ignored by the politicians who are meant to represent them,” she said. The bill is, she said, “a much needed step in the right direction, giving communities the power and backing they need to transform this country for the better and to combat forces on the populist radical right who try to take advantage of isolation and division”.

Recent polling from Icon and Public First also furnishes this theory, finding that people conceive of their neighbourhoods at a hyper-local level – and that people who feel worse about their neighbourhoods, or are more animated about potholes and high streets with vacant shop fronts, are more likely to be considering voting Reform. “The political segment most likely to feel neighbourhood decline are Reform UK voters, so improvements at this level are a key part of winning back their trust,” says the Public First report for Icon. To Icon’s chair Hilary Armstrong, as to others in this space, the bill “represents a really positive step forward”.

As a reasonably close observer of this government, this seems to be one of only two coherent theories about beating Reform doing the rounds, the other being what we might think of as the Morgan McSweeney-ite immigration raid livestream, “island of strangers” mode, which has led many to accuse Labour of taking a “beat them at their own game” approach to right-wing populism. This approach and the communitarian hyper-local focus are not in opposition, of course: some of whom I spoke with point to McSweeney’s much discussed origins as an organiser in Lambeth and as part of Labour’s efforts against the BNP in Barking. Reform has also taken an interest in this way of working.

Community empowerment on its own, however, has something the other tack very decisively lacks: feel-good factor. It’s the kind of thing Labour MPs want to talk about. Even if they don’t quite manage curb the rise of Reform with this legislation, they’ll have created a boom in community-owned pubs and fan-owned clubs, which many would argue is a good in and of itself.

That the government have renamed their bill, and chosen to kick off the new parliamentary term with it, suggests that they are at least interested in buying what the communitarians are selling when it comes to anti-populism. Almost a year ago, Rayner was talking explicitly about community empowerment and community spaces as a response to riots; Labour MPs are now drawing those lines with this bill, too. “The fight to rebuild trust must start in our communities,” Jo Platt, the MP for Atherton and Leigh, told me last week. “We need to restore pride in where people live and show, through cooperative working, that Labour is delivering real change in the places they call home.” Yesterday, she made similar points in the Commons debate.

As one person I spoke with highlights, another merit of the push for community empowerment is that it is, comparatively, cheap. Social infrastructure – playgrounds, community centres, parks – is no HS2 and can theoretically be built quickly and for not much money. Famously, the cash-strapped government loves things that are cheap. Some, however, think this appeal is where the bill’s problems lie. “I firmly believe that community level is crucial for building a new politics,” said Dr Sacha Hilhorst, an ethnographer of post-industrial towns, who praises the bill. “But the question is scale and resourcing: reversing the sense of decline and creating community spaces where people actually want to spend time will take far more investment than is currently on the table.”

Sacha Bedding runs the Wharton Trust, what he describes as an “estate-based charity” in Hartlepool. It aims to “move away from a paternalistic mindset” and give local people agency to “do what they care about” – be that litter picks, after school programmes, or taking on bad landlords. His is the kind of hyper-local work the bill seeks to support, and that communitarian organisations like those discussed seek to champion. “We’ve made it really hard for people to express themselves in a way that changes things,” Bedding said, highlighting lack of ability to keep NHS services in the town, or to influence the academy school systems. “You can’t even ask a question in a council meeting without submitting it two weeks in advance,” he noted. In these circumstances, people will reach for the political option that offers change – and become more disaffected each time they don’t get it.

The community empowerment provisions in the bill are, he tells me, a “good start”, particularly praising the possibilities of community right to buy. “People need to feel like they’re empowered – have a stake in where they live, and can make decisions that are carried through.” That, Bedding thinks, would be the “best way forward”.