New year, new challenges for Labour: three key priorities for Keir Starmer

The challenge for a Labour Party that has ended the year on a high is now to reinforce all that is going well, but then to move on quickly and focus on its weaknesses. 2021 ended on an optimistic note for the party. Labour has a leader who has established himself in his role, there will be no challenge to his leadership, and he will have a clear run at the next election – as recent history shows, that is no mean feat.

Starmer has shown the courage to position the party on the side of voters on matters such as patriotism and security, rather than in the party’s comfort zone. I saw this with my own eyes when I hosted Keir in August at a meeting with army veterans to discuss the Military Covenant.

After the event, a veteran approached me for a word. After giving me an earful about how Labour couldn’t be trusted on the defence of the realm, he confided that he was impressed that Starmer had come to listen to an audience that was likely to be stacked against him. He liked what he heard. It still sticks in my mind that this man, with strong military credentials, went from being a committed Conservative to a floating voter in the course of an hour. He wasn’t the only one in the room who made that journey.

Keir’s summer ‘masochism tour’ of challenging audiences in Tory-held seats was followed up with solid public and media performances in the autumn, which at times made him look more prime ministerial than the Prime Minister. Boris Johnson’s winter blunders helped ensure that Starmer now enters 2022 with the confidence of a poll lead, a stronger shadow cabinet of his own choosing, and his dissenters in the PLP and wider party fragmenting.

But four consecutive general election defeats will not be an easy habit to break. So, what needs to come next? I see three pressing issues that Keir’s team will need to make progress on to give Labour a better chance of winning the next election.

Firstly, the policy offer will need to work. Although the attack on the Tories is yielding success, the succinct Labour offer focusing on public services, law and order and the economy that the whole country can get behind, whilst also being easy for doorstep canvassers to recall, is essential. But it has remained elusive for well over a decade. Ideally, it should be in place before the testbed of the May local elections.

Secondly, there is the party’s organisation. Right now, there is a lot to do before Labour is ready to fight a general election. It’s not just about resources and local organisation – it’s about creating a mood change in key marginals. My mind goes back to one of the most important things John Prescott delivered in the run-up to the 1997 election. His ‘leadership campaign team’ – a group of MPs with good organisational and oratorical skills – were mobilised to campaign nationwide in key seats. It helped instil local organisation, discipline and message.

Keir’s problem is that his MPs are too small in number to replicate that task out in the field, but there is no shortage of under-deployed Labour Lords, some of whom could be effective in local campaigns if they can be persuaded to take up some of that slack. Those with campaign skills need to be despatched to marginals without any further ado to use their experience to back up the organisational effort.

Finally, Labour needs to be ready to fight the next Tory Prime Minister, not just the current one. I suspect Boris will not be the Prime Minister come polling day. We need to respect the Tory’s ability to reinvent themselves to hold on to power.

Having watched and analysed the Conservative transformation over the last decade and a half, into an increasingly diverse, multicultural party with a frontbench that looks more and more like modern Britain, Labour needs a more sophisticated strategy than it has shown at any time over the last four election defeats. Name-calling, or suggesting Tories are just a bunch of closet racists, hasn’t stopped them from getting more Hindu, Sikh and other ethnic minority votes than Labour at recent elections. The prospect of Rishi Sunak as the country’s first ethnic minority Prime Minister, leading them into the next election, is becoming a probability.

Labour needs to move on from its dependency on (often self-appointed) ‘community leaders’. It is an out-of-touch approach to second and third generation BAME communities who feel ignored and want to be understood on mainstream issues. It’s not Kashmir or Khalistan that’s going to win over these voters at the next election, it’s quality of life issues in a post-Covid world – jobs and skills for left-behind communities – including the white working class. We’re not that different in our needs and deficit of life chances in Britain today.

The new year is looking bright for Labour. It needs to build on its strengths, but to win it must embrace and tackle these three weaknesses too. A policy offer with real reach to the country rather than a narrow one for our comfort zone; building a team with the campaigning zeal needed to win in every key seat; and a new strategy for recreating a party that looks and feels more like modern Britain. It might require some challenging conversations in 2022. But, judging from what I witnessed in August alongside a group of war veterans, it can be done.

Parmjit Dhanda writes in his capacity as a former government minister.