Labour’s real opposition

Two years ago I was told repeatedly by Tories and those who had given up on Labour winning that they would be 5+ points ahead in the polls by now. They aren’t. The polls bend and fluctuate but actually, when looking at the averages, the Tories are pretty much stuck where they have been for a couple of years now – somewhere between 31 and 33%. They are topped out and without a game changer they are going to stay that way. So victory to Labour right? Well not so fast.

Our traditional enemy has always been the Tories. We are used to a politics that swings between the two parties. From left to right and back again – avoiding the extremes. And we manage our politics accordingly. Votes that switch from Tory to Labour count double. One off the opposition, one for us.

But over the last year or so, threats to Labour have come from UKIP, from the SNP and from the Greens. All have the ability to take votes and in some cases seats from Labour – leading to the increased likelihood of a Tory government and a diminished and demoralized Labour Party. All of these parties are taking votes from Labour and so too is the fastest growing block of voters – those who don’t vote at all. So while the Tories have not lifted their polling, ours has dipped dramatically.

When I go out on the doorstep, and people tell me they aren’t voting, they aren’t apathetic, they’re angry. And inconveniently, they aren’t angry to our script. Yes, they are deeply frustrated that the economy doesn’t work in their favour. But some of them blame immigration (and some of those Labour policies) and some corporatism (and some of those Labour being too close to business). They are angry that the world seems designed to work against the ambitions they have for themselves and their families and despite our efforts, so far they don’t yet believe Labour are different enough to get it. Certainly not different enough to change it.

Labour are not currently offering these people something they want to commit to. For them, we do not properly exist as a thing they understand the point of, other than to not be the Tories. This won’t be enough. Politics is in flux. It has been for longer than we have been prepared to admit to ourselves. Because we understood how to do the old politics. And a lot of where Labour has gone wrong over this term has been when we have tried to do politics in ways that no longer work.

Labour and Ed have had moments of brilliance. When we have stood up to the broken status quo we have soared in ourselves and in the estimation of voters. But too often we failed to capitalise on these moments because too often, we saw them through the prism of the old way of doing politics. We tried to double count these wins – ensuring that it came back to the old fight between us and the Tories.

The Tories are going to behave disgracefully in this campaign. We know this. We will not outspend them and we should not stoop to their level. Leave them to their gutter politics. But in the face of such an onslaught, we cannot simply hope to define ourselves against the Tories. In our desperation not to alienate we have accidentally failed to define ourselves. This is an error we may only now be trying to correct at the last minute. Michael Dugher’s incredibly welcome clarity over public ownership of the railways is a good example of primary colours politics.

More of this please. Good solid policy we believe in, supported by the public and done not because it creates dividing lines the Tories are on the wrong side of (that it does is a bonus not a focus) that speaks to what it means to be Labour. To believe in Labour. To vote Labour.

Politics is changing. The smaller parties are more agile and better able to cope with that change. But this is no excuse for Labour to fail to adapt to these new realities. We have never seen ourselves as the natural party of power, but we have become too comfortable as part of a  duopoly with very defined boundaries. The biggest threat to Labour comes not from an old fashioned nasty Tory Party, but from the changes we aren’t yet adapted to.