What were the electorate thinking?

‘Mood and self-delusion’ swayed the electorate, Neil Kinnock told us on Thursday night, reiterating his long-standing belief that the only problem with British politics is the people who vote. In the secret of the ballot box, people wrapped themselves in a Conservative ‘comfort blanket’, Jack Straw said soon afterwards. Many in the Labour movement cope with defeat the same way. The people were swayed by irrationality. What were the electorate thinking, activists ask.

Constituency by constituency, there’s never been a Labour campaign that was so energetic and so well-organised. The party’s organisers, volunteer activists and candidates deserve the highest credit. Their effort was amazing. Our capacity as a party to generate spirit and commitment is extraordinary. Without the buzz of the last month we’d have lost far worse. But the campaign had a fatal weak point. The Labour Party had no real idea what most of the electorate actually felt.

Our political strategies are based on very limited connection with voters. In opinion polls and campaigns, we expect to capture people’s sentiment in a few short sentences, ‘if there was an election tomorrow who would you support’? Neither pollsters nor canvassers have much idea how strong that preference is, how it fits into a person’s feelings about politics and life, what might make it change. We understand voting with short propositions then mechanically push them out to vote. We are hopeless at understanding people’s mood. But that’s what decides how we vote.

Labour is ruled by hypocrisy when it comes to the place of emotion in politics. On our own side, passion is highly valued. Team Labour is driven by emotional energy, by a hatred of inequality and poverty, sometimes of Tories too that is raw and visceral. We love the NHS with an intensity that is irrational.

But we expect people outside our tribe to act from rational calculation that can then be ‘captured’ in a sentence on the doorstep. We imagine that voters use a logic we don’t use for our own lives. So when we’re told people don’t trust us because of the crash, the deficit, Gordon Brown selling gold or the idea of the SNP dominating England we dismiss their views as self-deluded. Our fear about the Tories trashing the Health Service is fine, but other peoples’ anxiety about Labour’s record is written off as irrational. As democratic political leaders, we have to understand both.

Labour politics is currently organised to be inward looking and self-motivating. Think of our language. We use words that are drawn from sport or war, fields in which tightly knit groups of people go into battle against clear antagonists. We talk of ‘Team Labour’, of ‘fighting’ and ’battling’, all phrases that presume large numbers of British society are our opponents. ‘Us vs them’ didn’t even work when the majority of Britain identified as working class. It’s catastrophic now.

Since probably the 1680s, British politics has been led by parties that successfully claim to lead the nation, and then show that their rivals represent division and chaos. The claim is made real by respect, understanding and sympathy towards the people we claim to represent, not just abstract statements and vapid gestures of devotion.

For example: if we say we’re pro-small business we need to think and talk like small business, to know the worry that our customers will go bankrupt, the wasted time spent on pointless regulation, the joy of getting the job done well. Talking about equality is not the same thing as building one nation.

Our recovery depends on finding this kind of story about Labour leading Britain. It needs to connect with the majority of the electorate, not just 35%. It has to resonate emotionally as well as intellectually. It must motivate those of us who heart the NHS; but it’s also got to connect with people worried about untrustworthy socialists, who think we’re responsible for the crash. It needs to talk about us all together, not pose a stark opposition between them us. In these times of rampant big business and growing social division, that story needs to be about the creation of a fairer form of capitalism. But it needs to get there through inclusion not division, by appealing to people worried about the future of the country but hesitant about supporting Labour. It’s no good just motivating our activists.

We’re a long way from finding that story. The only starting point is to learn how to listen to peoples’ hopes and fears, not just their rationalised calculations, far better than we do now.

The danger is that the leadership election gets in the way of our doing that. My worry is that we indulge in six months of self-satisfied introspection about our virtue and values and ignore the rest of the country. Of course the candidates will talk about the need to listen and learn, just like we spoke of five million conversations (how long did each one last?). But one route to victory is to stoke the passions that get the Labour family enthusiastic while alienating the rest of British society.

It is only us – Labour’s rank and file – who can stop that from happening. We need to demand that those standing can lead Britain, not just the Labour tribe. But a new leader can’t save us on their own, if we as a party are not willing to change. We of all people should understand that change comes from mass collective active. In the next few months, Labour activists need to show our prospective leaders what kind of party we want by putting it into practice. The best way to demand a different way of doing politics is to do a different kind of politics, constituency by constituency, ward by ward.

So here’s an idea: when we’ve had enough sleep and have got our energy back, let’s start organising listening campaigns with people who didn’t vote Labour. Let’s sit down and properly talk with people we alienated to find out why we lost. Conversation needs to be central to our political method. It’s time to find out what the electorate was thinking.