Re-balancing our political system

Strategy with Sue Marsh

We hear about a “re-balancing” in the economy, we hear about a re-balancing of public versus private, but for me, the message from elections last Thursday was about a re-balancing of our political system.

Let’s be very clear. Labour won 857 council seats in England. That is a very good result by any measure. However, they won them almost exclusively at the expense of the Liberal Democrats, who lost 748 seats. The Conservatives actually won 86 more seats. It would be easy to conclude that the Tories are still riding high, that they are undented by Labour; that the Lib Dems are acting as a shield against the worst excesses of Conservative policy, but I believe that while all of that is true, something far more fundamental – and vital – is taking place.

Ed Miliband has been consistent in his opinion of the state of Labour since he won the leadership. He knows very well that the number of seats we won in the general election hides a much gloomier picture than we might like to admit. He knows that it was our worst election result for decades; he knows that we lost nearly 5 million voters since ’97 and he knows very well that if Labour can’t start to make inroads in the South again, we will not win a majority.

At some point, Labour needs to start fighting again, and with a weak Liberal Democrat party, that means winning seats we haven’t considered or paid any attention to for far too long.

At first, contesting Lib/Con seats will only strengthen the Conservative majorities but if we don’t begin to re-balance our core vote, if we never start to try to win again, we will never achieve the broad appeal we need. This was the set of elections where we stopped worrying about marginal or key target seats for a while and remembered that everywhere needs a Labour voice.

What the media won’t report are the swathes of seats up and down the country where Labour are now better placed to win next time. Or the time after. The increase in vote share is much more remarkable than the increase in seats.

To really re-build, Labour needs to start by engaging with communities again. By getting out on the doorsteps and fighting for democratic representation in as many councils up and down the country as possible. Sure it will mean a rocky few years. In some areas it will mean higher Tory majorities for a while, but it’s the only way to become a party that represents the whole country again. We can’t rely on a strong Lib Dem party to take seats from the Tories now, or even to hold onto the one’s they have. We need to do it and we need to step into those areas where previously we allowed the Libs free reign to flourish.

In the South West and parts of the North we need to ensure that Lib Dem constituencies don’t go Blue. The only way to do that is to fight for them. That changes our goals for the future beyond all recognition.