How Starmer could put Labour on a winning path in the West Midlands

Conference is Keir Starmer’s golden opportunity to put Labour on the course for an election victory. In the West Midlands, where I’ve served as a council leader and vice-chair of its combined authority, the task of setting Labour on a winning course is vital. Labour failed the significant test of winning the West Midlands mayoralty from the Conservatives, with Liam Byrne losing by 47,000 votes in the exact same electoral constituency that elected Simon Foster as Labour’s police and crime commissioner, with very little difference in turnout.

This year’s conference is a clear opportunity to rebuild Labour’s fortunes and provide a clean break between Labour’s losses in the West Midlands and our future success. In that spirit, here are three things I want to see from Keir Starmer at conference to set Labour on the right path to win in the West Midlands.

1. Build Labour’s image using a national vision, with a local focus.

If Keir takes the opportunity at conference to outline a cohesive vision for what the country can look like, this will provide the opportunity for all our regions to build a locally focused set of projects and policies that reflect the communities we live in. It will speak to the broader vision of what Labour in government and in power in each and every region looks like. Narrowly focused policies, or adjustments to the government’s, won’t achieve this – Labour needs a vision for the country that ties in with our priorities for each of our regions.

This begins with a bold plan for what Labour can deliver for regions and focusing on the wins of Labour in power. For example, in Wolverhampton, council leader Ian Brookfield organised 850,000 meals through food parcels for their residents. In Coventry, the Labour council won the bid to become City of Culture 2021, which will not only benefit Coventry but our whole region.

If Keir focuses on these wins, alongside bringing a new vision to the table about how we’re going to embrace the challenges the post-pandemic era presents – for example, by devolving powers to allow Labour to deliver services that speak directly to the needs of their communities – I believe we will be able to draw a line under the difficult image Labour has among some communities in the West Midlands and set Labour on a winning path.

2. Build the infrastructure to get Labour election ready.

As identified by the Fit for the Future report published by Labour in Communications a couple of weeks ago, as well as a bold vision and clear pledges, we need to rebuild our campaign technology around the coalition of voters that we want to attract and make the work of organisers and activists easier to do in actioning this.

The work we’ve begun in the Black Country as part of our ‘Local Labour’ listening campaign is laying the groundwork for this. We’ve built ladders of engagement with voters, using more granular data to communicate and feedback to them. This has proven more difficult than it needs to be, however. Labour’s campaign technology is falling behind that of progressive campaigns across the world. As a result, the picture we have of voters is either lost or scattered and our ability to engage and build their engagement with Labour is obscured.

The Common Knowledge report for the Labour Together 2019 election review had many helpful findings and recommendations. Among them are improving the process of all aspects of our interaction with voters – from our initial first contact to local casework, to campaigning and ‘get out the vote’. We need to implement these suggestions well, and at pace.

With less than three years until election day, Labour needs to streamline its existing tools, build the ones we need and train local activists on how to best use and test them well ahead of polling day. What I want to see at conference is a look toward the future of our campaigns and how we will build an innovative, well-oiled election machine that helps constituency activists and organisers deliver in high-pressure campaigns to be ready for that election challenge.

3. Commit to decentralising Labour.

There are just 31 months (or less) until Labour’s MPs and regional mayors are up for election and there is the political challenge of showing that we’re in direct touch with the voters we seek to earn the trust of.

I believe that a focus from Keir at conference on organising with communities on the issues they care about, building on the community organising that Labour constituencies such as Broxtowe pioneered, will set us on a path to power. Such initiatives will build hubs that make Labour part of every community, involved in the issues that matter, and show that Labour isn’t just a centralised bureaucracy.

Although I’m not a big fan of symbolic gestures, when Starmer signalled moving Labour’s headquarters outside of London earlier this year, I saw this as a clear opportunity to underline the sort of vision he has for our country, bringing our party closer to voters in Walsall than the Westminster bubble. The messages we send must be backed by our actions and speak to our values, and this is just one example of that.

In sum, my message to Starmer for the West Midlands is to put forward a bold vision to set us on an election path, provide the tools to do it and commit to the long-term political trajectory we need to make ourselves part of each and every community in Britain. That will make Labour the leading party of the next century, not just the next ten years.