Labour needs a hard reset

Until the government tells a consistent story about itself, it cannot expect voters to believe in it.

Photo by by Simon Dawson / No 10 Downing Street

In the aftermath of Labour’s landslide election victory, some heralded a new era of stability in British politics. A government with a comfortable parliamentary majority, it was said, would restore growth to the UK’s stagnant economy. It did not take long for these assumptions to be upended. Reform’s remarkable performance in the local elections confirmed that the volatility which has defined politics since the 2008 financial crisis endures. For the first time in history, a party other than Labour and the Conservatives finished first, winning 31 per cent of the vote and 677 councillors.

Reform’s rise is principally a crisis for the Tories. The supposed “natural party of government” now risks being supplanted as the UK’s foremost right-wing opposition. After an ineffectual six months as leader, Kemi Badenoch lacks anything resembling a plan for recovery.

But the results are almost as disquieting for Labour. The party did not just lose its 49th-safest parliamentary constituency (Runcorn and Helsby) to Reform; it also lost two thirds of the council seats it was defending. Not since Gordon Brown’s nadir in 2009 – after more than a decade in government – has Labour recorded such a lowly vote share (20 per cent).

Some of this can be attributed to the long-term fragmentation of politics and the age of anti-incumbency. But Labour is also reaping the consequences of avoidable errors. Chief among these was the government’s decision to remove winter fuel payments from over 90 per cent of pensioners. No policy, as even loyal Labour MPs testify, has proved more toxic with the public. Like the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition’s imposition of tuition fees, it has come to symbolise a fundamental breach of trust.

Last August we warned that the £11,500 threshold set by the government for the removal of the benefit (worth up to £300) was too miserly. It risked exacerbating the hardship already faced by those paying inflated energy bills (which now stand at £1,849 a year).

But the winter fuel cut was not only ill-judged policy; it was also naive politics. Labour, at its strongest, is associated by the public with an intrinsic sense of fairness. Targeting pensioners – just weeks after its election victory – undercut this reputation. Contrary to the rhetoric of generational warfare, most younger groups sympathise with the elderly (relative pensioner poverty stands at 16 per cent). Few elected Labour in the expectation that one of its first acts would be taking money from them.

Successful governments are adept at identifying friends and foes. Margaret Thatcher railed against militant trade unionists and leftist activists while championing homeowners and entrepreneurs. Voters were left in no doubt whose side she was on. The same is true today of Nigel Farage.

But who are Keir Starmer’s people? The government has alienated numerous groups – pensioners, farmers, small businesses and benefit claimants – but these conflicts have not served to illuminate any political project. Even Labour’s more radical policies – the workers’ rights bill, the renationalisation of the railways, the creation of GB Energy – are not tied together to form a coherent whole. Until the government tells a consistent story about itself, it cannot expect voters to believe in it.

As well as a political reset, Labour needs an economic reset. The cuts to winter fuel payments and disability benefits were driven by fiscal objectives rather than any moral mission. Voters know this and ask why Labour-led austerity is any better than its Tory equivalent.

If the government is to achieve a “decade of national renewal” it cannot continue to impose ever-larger cuts in pursuit of rigid targets. It must recognise, as Mr Starmer has put it, that “everything has changed” and that higher taxes or less stringent fiscal rules are now required. A degraded public realm – crumbling schools and hospitals, dilapidated housing, pot-holed roads – is fuelling Reform’s rise. Labour must repair it.

There is still time for Mr Starmer to recover from his uncertain start. Throughout his political career he has demonstrated a capacity to course-correct. A government that has asked to be judged by results – both electoral and economic – cannot insist on simply repeating itself. If Mr Starmer is unable to persuade voters that he represents change, a restive public may well gamble on Reform.

[See also: Cosplaying Reform will doom Labour]