A difficult step

Labour are often accused of being the most tribal of the mainstream political parties. For my money, I don’t think this is true. It was a consistent internal tribal loyalty that allowed the Lib Dems to drive themselves off a cliff for example. And in the some of the insurgent parties, supporters have just as strong a response to external criticism as the most loyal labour members.

Loyalty and tribalism have their place. I have written before in defence of this virtue. Feeling a kinship with your fellow activists is natural. We wouldn’t be human if we didn’t have a sense of loyalty to those we spend so much time and energy with. But equally we need to understand the limits of this tribalism and its effects on us and those we must attract and win over as voters.

Tories aren’t evil. Tory voters certainly aren’t. They have been persuaded by arguments other than those we believe in. It is not our job to patronise them or tell them how misguided we think they are. It is our job to do a better job at persuading them to our arguments. Sometimes that will mean meeting them half way, sometimes it will mean doing a better job of persuading them to meet us where we are.

The job of the opposition is to oppose – and there is plenty this government is planning that we will want to oppose. We will all have our own personal issues which we will rail against. For me, it is the terrible moves to completely residualise Social Housing by selling off housing association properties. Make no mistake, the housing crisis this country already faces will only be made worse by this move. By 2020 what was a crisis will have become a disaster.

But the other job of the Labour Party is to get elected. Opposition may be comfortable, but it is not enough. Not enough for a party with ambition to create a fairer and more just society and not enough for those whose lives we would seek to change for the better. Labour must make itself an attractive party of government This means challenging ourselves every day to go beyond the comfort zone of opposition.

I need to do this personally too. I need to challenge myself to understand current Tory voters a little more. the non-tribal ones who are open to persuasion but need to see a path from voting Tory to voting Labour. One way I intend to do this personally is to take the time every now and again to praise something the government has done or is planning.

For example, despite all my outrage at some of the measures in the Queen’s speech, there are some things that I think are a good and positive move. On devolution, the Tories have completely outflanked us and offered a much more radical vision of an England (devolution having already taken it’s first steps in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, though all of these are also strengthened by measures in the speech) where power no longer flows as largesse from the centre but swirls in local eddies closer to people. I also believe moves to expedite adoption through regional agencies is a good move. I welcome 3 million new apprenticeships and a commitment to full employment even as I curse some of the welfare measures the Tories believe will get them there.

Of course, the devil will be in the detail of all of these things and none of them will be either perfect or perfectly delivered. (The same would be true of much legislation created by a Labour government of course). But we should learn to welcome the good wherever it comes from and not to just fight the bad – vital though that is. It is in doing so that we can put ourselves into the shoes of those Tory voters. And it is only by doing that, that we can ask them to take a step towards us.