Our defeat last night shows Labour’s forgetting the politics of inclusion and compromise

There was a moment when we could have won Rochester and Strood. Talking on doorsteps there a month back, the mood seemed to be a plague on all your houses. People weren’t sure of UKIP, lots of people saying they were divisive and opportunistic. Mark Reckless was described to me as a vain man who lives up to his name. No-one seemed to see much evidence of the Conservatives’ economic ‘recovery’. Labour wasn’t trusted. But we could have stood above the fray, Naushabah Khan a force of sensible unity, getting on with the job amidst the fractious theatre around her.

Political success in Britain comes from projecting unity rather than fostering division. British voters (contrary to what the layout of the Commons debating chamber would suggest) value inclusion rather than conflict. Labour’s most successful national moments came from forging and lead a national consensus – 1945, 1964, 1997. Harold Wilson won even in 1974 because people wanted to solve the industrial relations crisis through negotiation, not violence. Locally – in councils, in the work of Labour-affiliated Trade Unions in the workplace – our party and our movement has worked best when it has led a politics of the common good.

That doesn’t mean backing away from a fight. It shouldn’t mean refusing to stand up for the interests of the people we represent, caving in to the interests of the wrong sort of big business or bad banks. But it does mean recognising that politics is about negotiation and compromise, a process of finding common ground with people we don’t agree with to start. Labour was founded to organise working class people to fight for a better life. But its struggle wasn’t the vain utopian project of replacing capitalism with an entirely different system. It was about rebalancing power within the corporation and government to make sure ordinary peoples’ interests were looked after.

The paradox is that this politics of the common good needs politicians to cope with tension and argument far better than they do now. It needs, to start with, a willingness to sit down and listen; to hear rather than silence different points of view. Then, with the real support of members and constituents behind you, to finds the terms of agreement. It’s how Trade Unions negotiate with ‘management’. It’s how good businesses are run. It’s the way local authorities lead their local communities well.

Our defeat in Rochester and Strood – just like our loss in 2010 – came because Labour forgets this politics of consensus, inclusion and compromise. Too often our approach looks like we desire to demonise and penalise one group of people rather than another. We’re seen as wanting to impose “our” view of the world on people who’ve got their own way of doing things. Drive-by snapshots of quaint locals flying English flags is a perfect example. I’m not sure which Labour Party Emily Thornberry is a member of. But it certainly wasn’t the one founded to represent the working class.

Our attitude to business is another example. Ed Miliband has, rightly, seen that the way big business works is squeezing peoples’ living standards. But the solution comes from engagement and negotiation, not just distant acts of regulation by government. Our politics needs to be about restoring unity to companies where the interests of management and workers are divided. We should also be celebrating those firms where workers are respected and valued, many of which could teach a thing or two to the Labour Party about democracy and participation. Ed sometimes sounds as if he thinks the Prime Minister can personally guarantee everyone better living standards. But action with Whitehall’s long arm usually just looks like punitive. Instead, government needs to ask companies to reform so every group of people with a long-term interest has a say (it used to be called stakeholder capitalism). As ever, it’s got to start with conversation.

We seem to be surrounded by a bloodless and ghostly kind politics. The position of parties are unclear, and few – other than we party activists – elicit passionate support. Voters know this UKIP bubble won’t last (5 seats maximum?). But their politics is here to stay, indicating the rage of many against a political class, which is aloof and disconnected, and refused to listen to the things people were worried about.

Now, different parties seem to be dominated by cultural blocs which have formed strange alliances but barely speak to one another. UKIP brings together posh city boys and older working class men. The Tories, blue rinse suburban women and metropolitan west Londoners. Labour, the north London liberal elite and ordinary middle class public sector workers. Each of these is insistent on the superior virtue of its position but none is capable of winning a majority. Our politics has ended up in such a sorry state because no party has successfully told a story about creating common purpose in our increasingly divided, fragmented society. ‘One nation’ was a good slogan; one city, one town are great strap-lines too. But they need to be followed by a sharper story about Labour as a force that can create unity in place of strife; otherwise we’ll lose other winnable by-elections.