How should Labour organise in the South?

The Southern Taskforce has outlined a distinctive Labour story for the south, rooted in the real issues of our southern regions. But we also have to sound like we are rooted here. That means using southern voices in the media – and London is not the south for these purposes – and equipping a far wider range of councillors, candidates and other representatives to lead for us where we don’t have MPs.

Southern Labour members have to support our frontbench and spokespeople to identify the touchstone issues and to speak about them with confidence: why the numbers of UK and foreign migrants explain the sensitivity of the issue and the importance of Labour’s response; the pressure on families when houses cost over 5 times average incomes; why some southern schools are amongst the worst in the country, and how kids on free school meals in the south do much worse at GCSE than their peers in the rest of England.

The Taskforce is now working across the frontbench, detailing the key issues, examining the Coalition record, setting our Labour’s response now and as the future Government.

As we do we can pinpoint the housing crisis, link it to Ed Ball’s proposals for house building and point out that Labour Exeter will build 70% of all affordable housing in the South West this year. We can talk about poverty and low pay in high cost areas, highlight the Tory/LibDem attack on NHS pay in the South West and the abolition of the Agricultural Wages Board and make sure that all our representatives know that Plymouth is one of the Labour Councils paying a living wage.

Let’s not be shy in asking people to vote for us. We’ve found that in areas with no Labour tradition people don’t always think we are talking about them when we think they are. A national campaign on rail fares only works if we tell also the commuter on the 6:54 from Basingstoke that we are concerned about them.

And the party itself must change. Voters are less than half as likely to say Labour is active in my community than in other regions. The target seats know what they have to do. But elsewhere we’ve too many that say ‘Labour doesn’t win round here’. That’s going to change!

We’ll ask every CLP to plan their own development, with a guided self-assessment which gives them the demographic data, the activity rates and the benchmarks to compare their activity with similar constituencies. Each CLP will have its own target for the Euros – and we’ll praise the rural CLP that gets out all it’s vote more than the urban seat that delivers half. The target for one CLP may be to become the largest Council, for another to get their first councillor. For others to take the first step, using community organising, to become a power in the community long before we win elections.

We are already working in a formal partnership with Movement for Change in two regions and hope to extend this important relationship.

Of course the priority is the target seats. Organisers are either in place or pretty clear plans laid to get them in place. Each is or will be twinned with a frontbencher. For the first time this year, London CLPs were organised to offer support to target council seats around London.

But the work outside the targets is not only important to our longer term development. It was clear in all our consultations that CLPs that are active and valued in their own communities were much more likely to go a help in target seats when the time came.

Building One Nation Labour across the South will take time – it certainly won’t be completed by the next election. But if we start now we can help ensure that Ed Miliband’s Labour can govern as One Nation: for the South as well as for the North.

John Denham is the MP for Southampton Itchen and leads the Southern Taskforce